A Year Dedicated to the Apostle Paul Pope Benedict XVI has proclaimed the period from June 29, 2008 to June 29, 2009 "the Pauline Year." This is meant to commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of the apostle''s birth. While biblical scholars debate the precise year of Paul''s birth, the observance of the Pauline Year is surely a good opportunity to reflect on Paul as one of the most influential and important figures in the history of the Christian faith. Pope Benedict has had a longstanding devotion to Paul, and his first official act outside the Vatican in April 2005 was to visit the apostle''s tomb at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. In that homily he stated: Christ''s passion led him to preach the Gospel not only with the word, but also with his very life, which was ever more conformed to that of his Lord. In the end, Paul proclaimed Christ with martyrdom, and his blood, together with that of Peter and of witnesses of the Gospel, watered this land and made fruitful the Church of Rome. Pope Benedict''s hope is that the Pauline Year will rekindle interest in Paul''s life and writings, not only among Catholics but also among other Christians as well as Jews.

I have long wanted to write a short book on Paul that might help introduce him and his writings to the general public. The suggestion from Joseph Durepos of Loyola Press that I write such a book in connection with the Pauline Year came at an opportune time. In my opinion, the best way to meet Paul today is to consider what Paul wrote about himself and what Luke wrote about him in the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 1); to read carefully the letters that Paul wrote to early Christian communities (chapter 2) and the letters that admirers wrote in his name (chapter 3); to learn some basic principles for reading and interpreting a Pauline text (chapter 4); and to reflect briefly on Paul''s significance for us today (chapter 5). In the first and fourth chapters I have adapted some material from my articles in The Bible Today and in Church.* I''ve had the privilege to study, teach, and preach on the Pauline writings for almost forty years. I love these texts and never fail to be stimulated and challenged by them. When I read them, I often recall Karl Barth''s comment in the preface to the first edition (1918) of his Epistle to the Romans: "If we rightly understand ourselves, our problems are the problems of Paul; and if we be enlightened by the brightness of his answers, those answers must be ours." My hope is that the readers of this book may come to see the truth of Barth''s statement, and that the Pauline Year of 2008-2009 may exercise its positive effects for many years to come.

*The Bible Today issue 42/4 (2004) 201-206; Church issue 14/3 (1998) 9-14. 1 Who Was Paul the Apostle? Next to Jesus, Paul is the most prominent figure in the New Testament. Of the twenty-­seven documents that constitute the New Testament, thirteen are letters attributed to Paul. Also, more than half of the Acts of the Apostles describes Paul''s conversion and subsequent activities on behalf of the spread of the good news about Jesus (the gospel). Where We Learn about the Life of Paul These ancient sources tell us a lot about Paul, but they do not tell us all that we would like to know. Paul was not a professor who wrote essays on theological topics. Rather, he was an apostle--one who preached the gospel and taught the Christian community. Paul wrote his letters in response to problems that had arisen mainly in the Christian communities that Paul himself had founded.

These communities--churches--were extensions of his apostolic ministry. Because Paul''s theology developed out of his work with the Christian community (as opposed to being formed in what today would be a seminary or graduate school setting), Paul is best classified as a pastoral theologian. He was a missionary and a pastor. When dispensing pastoral advice, Paul sometimes refers to himself and his own experiences. Of course, these statements are the very best sources for information about Paul and his activities. But he never gives us anything like what we would call an autobiography. The biblical writers, like most writers in ancient times, did not talk much about themselves. They especially avoided describing their feelings and explaining the psychological processes going on within them.

So there are limits to what we can learn about Paul even from his own letters. The author of the Acts of the Apostles was Luke, apparently the same person who composed the Gospel that bears his name (Acts 1:1-2). Luke gives a great deal of attention to the apostle Paul and his missionary endeavors. Throughout Christian history, Luke has generally been regarded as one of Paul''s coworkers and even as a companion of Paul in his work as an apostle. In Acts 16 especially there is a good deal of "we" language, suggesting that the author of Acts personally accompanied Paul on some of his journeys and is giving us eyewitness testimony. However, modern scholars have recognized that Luke (even if he was Paul''s coworker and companion) had certain distinctive theological ideas of his own, was a learned and sophisticated writer (Luke 1:1-4), and often shaped historical facts to strengthen his theological interpretations. Luke tells us a lot about Paul, and what he writes cannot be ignored. But there are also limits to what we can learn about Paul from Acts.

For ­example, from Acts we would not know that Paul wrote letters to early Christian communities! Paul''s Early Life According to Acts 22:3, Paul was "a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia." Cilicia was a Roman province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor (present-­day Turkey). In Acts 21:39 Tarsus is described as "an important city." It was a major commercial and cultural center linking east and west in the Roman Empire. When exactly Paul was born is not clear. In his letter to Philemon, written in a.d. 54 or 55, he describes himself as "an old man" (v.

9). However, the Greek word used here can also be read as "ambassador." And even "old man" is quite vague. Most scholars place Paul''s birth around the time of Jesus'' birth, with some putting it a few years before and others a few years afterward. According to his own testimony in Philippians 3:5, Paul was a "Hebrew born of Hebrews," a member of the tribe of Benjamin, and circumcised on the eighth day. His Hebrew name was "Saul." The name "Paul" was most likely his "Gentile" name to be used outside the Jewish community and was given to him probably at birth and not only at his conversion to become a follower of Jesus. Paul certainly had strong credentials as a Jew.

In Acts 22:25-29, Paul claims also to be a Roman citizen, which was somewhat unusual for a Jew. When the Roman official observes that it had cost him a large sum of money to get his own citizenship, Paul responds, "But I was born a citizen." The implication may be that Paul''s parents had been slaves of the occupying Romans and managed to purchase their own freedom and to obtain Roman citizenship, which they in turn handed on to Paul. It appears that Paul spent his early years in Tarsus, where he was part of the local Jewish community. Thus he belonged to the Diaspora of Israel--that is, Jews dispersed outside the land of Israel. In Tarsus, Paul would have learned to speak, read, and write in the Greek language, and he would have had some exposure to Greek and Roman culture. His mastery of the Greek language and his use of various classical rhetorical devices in his letters show a fairly high level of non-­Jewish education. The mixed atmosphere in which Paul was raised is often characterized as Hellenistic Judaism, because Jews were exposed to the language, customs, and educational system that were rooted in ancient Greece.

Somewhere along the line, perhaps from his parents, Paul learned the trade of tent making or leather working of some kind (Acts 18:3). Practice of this trade enabled Paul to support himself and his missionary activity (1 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Corinthians 9:6) without having to rely on financial support from others. It also may have provided him the opportunity to meet and influence his colleagues in the marketplace. It certainly linked him with the couple named Aquila and Prisca (also known as Priscilla in Acts), who were active in the churches at Rome and Corinth (Acts 18:2-3). The only ancient physical description of Paul comes from the late second-­century work known as the Acts of Paul and Thecla: "A man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness." How historically accurate this description was is debated among scholars. Paul''s opponents, quoted in 2 Corinthians, claimed that his "bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible" (10:10). Rather than rebutting these charges directly, Paul accepts them and goes on to argue that they only prove that God''s "power is made perfect in weakness" (12:9).

In the same context he complains about "a thorn . in the flesh" (12:7). The precise nature of this problem is not specified, leading to speculations ranging from a speech impediment to epilepsy. Again Paul offers no diagnostic details and prefers to reflect on its positive theological value in keeping him "from being too elated." Paul''s Life as a Jew Among the various movements within the Judaism of his time, Paul chose.