How old was Paul when he first met Jesus (and/or converted)?
Hello friends, fellow Bible lovers/students, followers of Christ Jesus.
Using Logos can you determine at what approximate age Paul first met Jesus (conversion)?
Near as I can tell from the unwieldy (as in not easily opened) infographics in Logos 6.x the answer is late 20's or early 30's?
For the edification of us all, pls share your results and how easy it was for you to find them within Logos.
33 AD minus 6 AD work for anyone out there?
This is not meant to be derisive in any way but I found using Logos (yup still after a novice user after all this time) to come up with an answer is not simple or fast.
What widely available Logos links did or are you using for your answer please?
Bless all those who venture out as I have. I have so much to learn...I confess it. God awaken me, please be glorified in the pursuit of holy knowledge, and help me/us all master the basics. Amen
p.s. shockingly my initial search pictured below found nothing:
...and yes if you read this far you see I have a long way to go to master Logos but wouldn't you think and hope such a basic search would pull up something as primary and simple as this? After a lot of work I did stumble upon this finally (Praise God). Anyone got a better more definitive answer please?
I wonder if I can take a course in Basic things a seminarian should know by now. It is ok to laugh.
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Search 'sat at the feet of' which provides a base to estimate.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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seriously? count me stunned [:)]
Thanks Denise.
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It amazes me that over 600 of you looked here but didn't disagree with me or add a comment....how many of you have used Logos and think the range I gave was correct. Anyone venturing a specific age yet please? Bless you all.[:)]
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Logos 10 | Dell Inspiron 7373 | Windows 11 Pro 64, i7, 16GB, SSD | iPhone 13 Pro Max
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OK, off the top of my head.
The book of Acts states that they laid their coats at the fees of a YOUNG MAN named Saul. (Acts 7:58)
Looking on the web I found:
"The Talmud makes this abundantly clear. In Pirkei Avot, it is said that while 13 is the proper age for fulfillment of the Commandments, 18 is the proper age for marriage and 20 is the proper age for earning a livelihood. Elsewhere in the Talmud, the proper age for marriage is said to be 16-24."
( http://www.jewfaq.org/barmitz.htm ).Saul/Pauls Damascus Road Experience was not too long after the stoning of Stephen. So How old was a young man in Jewish society?
My GUESS? Mid 20's.
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I didn't find much of anything.
"If we keep in mind the endowments of Paul, his age (at least thirty at the time of his conversion), the thoroughness of his Jewish training, his associates, his prospects, the social position which as a Christian he forfeited, we can see at once that he would not change his belief as “a Pharisee of the Pharisees,” or his attitude with reference to Jesus, save for reasons which to him were irresistibly convincing. In accepting Jesus as the Messiah, apparently he had everything to lose. Were the claims of Jesus grounded in fact, then neither he nor any other reasonable man could hesitate to admit them. That Paul did admit them, and defend them, is evidence that he held them to be both reasonable and true. That he risked his life and endured constant hardships for a generation without wavering, in their proclamation and in their defense, is proof of his opinion of the man whom his brethren as to the flesh put to death. Furthermore, he speaks on all occasions from personal experience, as one who knows, as one who has made trial of Christ and his salvation. He has seen the Lord. He has recognized him as his Lord. From him he has learned what the gospel is. He has found it to be, what its author declared it to be, power, peace, assurance of eternal life."
Edward F. Williams, “Is Paul a Competent Witness?,” Bibliotheca Sacra 56, no. 224 (1899): 664–665.0 -
Josh (RI) ... I kind of doubt you're amazed. Paul's birthday never really took off, probably due to another birthday a few years earlier.
But if you do the math, using the 5-6 clues in the text, you'll end up with 2 missing years. It's an interesting conundrum.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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JoshInRI said:
For the edification of us all, pls share your results and how easy it was for you to find them within Logos.
33 AD minus 6 AD work for anyone out there?I don't think I'd search sort of info. Here's what I did instead:
- Filtered my library using subject:paul subject:biography, to make sure that syntax gave me biographies of Paul. It did.
- Using a Quick Collection, searched those books for various words that I hope might get me the information I need: chronology, timeline, born, aged, "years old", birth etc.
That didn't yield very much, but it did get me:
The exact year of Paul’s birth is unknown; it was probably about the middle of the first decade CE. In Philem. 9 (written ca. 62 CE) he describes himself as πρεσβύτης (an old man), at which time he would have been about fifty-five years old.
Search for <Phlm 9> didn't get me any further.
I then tried conversion NEAR year in the same collection which yielded:
“The journey was at all times dangerous for travellers without armed escorts, and in A.D. 37, the most probable year of Paul’s conversion, a war between King Aretas and the Romans was in progress, which fact would have made such a journey doubtful” (Wuest).
and
Paul, a Jew by birth and upbringing, spread the gospel of Christ in the Gentile world from Syria to Italy, if not indeed to Spain, during the thirty years or so which followed his conversion to Christianity about A.D. 33.
and
As the following discussion will demonstrate, we can more profitably distinguish fifteen phases or locations of Paul’s missionary work in the thirty-five years between his conversion in A.D. 31/32 on the road to Damascus and his death in Rome around A.D. 67.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Mark you, James, and Josh astound and edify in Godly ways. Thanks to you and others, this was a lively informative discussion.
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Here's my approach. I opened up the Timeline tool and filtered on "Paul". Then I zoomed in around AD 30, and noted AD 14 as a suggested date for Paul's birth, and AD 33 - 35 (early and late dates listed) as suggested dates for Paul's conversion. That gives me an age of around 19 - 21. Noting that the birth date is listed as a "Late" date, and not seeing an early date, I did a basic search for "paul's birth", "birth of paul". A quick scan of the initial results indicate estimates anywhere from AD 5 (give or take a few years). So I'll adjust my estimate to around 29 years old.
Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer
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Joshin
Just a Hint
The Apostolic Concil 48/49 could not be the Meeting metioned in Galation 2.
1. 14 Years after his Coversation he meet in Jerusalem
- it was a Vision from Paul
- the discuss the Gospel Paul is preaching
- they agreed that Paul preach the Gospel to the Gentiles
2. The Concils of the Apostels 48/49
- Paul where sent by the church in Antiochia
- the discuss if the Gentiles must become Jew to be saved
- They agreed for the Gentiles just to obey a few important Things
So, the First Mission Tripp is around 14 Years after his Conversation
The Apostel Concil after the First Mission Tripp in the Year 48/49
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Joshin talking about Logos for Dummies...in the Case of this Question I would run a Passage Guide on Act 9:1-11 first to see if some of the Commentaries give an answer to this Question.
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