WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Did God Change Saul’s Name to Paul? It is commonly thought that God renamed Saul after his conversion – and that “Saul” indicates the persecutor, while “Paul” refers to the changed, Christian man.

Detailed explanation-2: -After his conversion, Paul went to Damascus, where Acts 9 states he was healed of his blindness and baptized by Ananias of Damascus. Paul says that it was in Damascus that he barely escaped death. Paul also says that he then went first to Arabia, and then came back to Damascus.

Detailed explanation-3: -Paul certainly did not abandon Judaism by abandoning monotheism, first because ancient Judaism itself was not monotheistic in the sense that most moderns mean that word, and second because Paul’s cosmology actually agrees in most respects with the cosmologies of other ancient Jews.

Detailed explanation-4: -Paul himself said, when speaking of his conversion, that God had revealed his son to him so that he could preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul believed that’s why he got converted. God had chosen him to bring about salvation to the Gentiles; in other words, to the world.

Detailed explanation-5: -He was a Pharisee, one of a group of Jews who policed the boundary of the law and made sure that they and others were faithful to the law of Moses. Paul was an extremely passionate Jew and he often uses the word ‘zeal’ of himself.