Paul’s defense does not address the accusations (21:28).

Paul’s defense does not address the accusations (21:28).

Although some of the literary observations are legitimate (see fuller comment at the appropriate passages, especially Acts 22:21–22 and the comparison of speeches in Acts 9), they are not exceptionally problematic. If Paul’s defense does not address the accusations, his narratio is building to that issue (mentioning Gentiles in 22:21) when he is interrupted. Luke is not so unskilled at composing apologetic speeches as to portray his central protagonist as an inept orator (though he does portray him as more interested in proclamation than in self-defense); he provides a plausible transition back to the main narrative. To argue that the narrative, as it stands, is basically plausible does not necessarily prove that the details are historical, but at the least it shows that Luke is a coherent historical writer.

In the same way, the differences in the three accounts of Paul’s conversion do display variations on matters of detail, but in a way that reveals rhetorical skill.[718] They reveal “Luke’s tendency to adapt his source material according to the audience being addressed, without drastically altering that source material.”[719] Certainly writers frequently omitted details in retellings, especially when they were less appropriate (e.g., Callirhoe omits Chaereas’s kick in Char. Chaer. 2.5.10–11). Though small, Luke’s variations on detail in these accounts warn us against excessive literalism in pressing his details (see discussion at the introduction to Acts 9).

Because of the interruption in Acts 22:22, most of the speech is narratio, simply narrating his story (the exception is the summary exordium in 22:1).[720] Within the narrative world, a lengthy narratio made sense:[721] a hostile crowd invites more attention to a narratio to build rapport while establishing the facts of the case.[722] (When reporting primarily an event, such as an embassy, one could even focus on the opening narrative,[723] though a full defense speech, of course, would need to include more than this.)[724] But it also serves the larger literary purpose of Luke, whose chosen genre is, after all, narrative. He merely hints at but does not develop the proofs; a narratio normally did the same.[725] Vividness was particularly important in the narratio.[726]

See further discussion of issues surrounding the speech at Acts 21:40.

II. PAUL’S PROPHETIC PENTECOST SPEECH

It is possible that Luke hopes his audience will construe that Paul offers this speech on Pentecost, inviting comparison with the speech in Acts 2. Paul hoped to be in Jerusalem by Pentecost (20:16), and he almost certainly succeeded, given his willingness to spend more days visiting as his journey neared its end (21:10).[727] Admittedly, Luke does not explicitly mention this chronological marker again after 20:16, but he also allowed his mention of the festival in 2:1 to suffice without further explicit markers (accustomed as later generations of Christians are to describing the Spirit’s outpouring as Pentecost, the connection may have been new to some members of Luke’s first audience, who knew more about their experience than about its history). There is also a further cue: as one who has spent many years in Judea (24:10), Felix will recognize that Paul came for worship only twelve days earlier (24:11)—that is, when Felix will know that others were coming, for Pentecost. Luke might not be more explicit because Paul did not preach precisely on the day of Pentecost (having arrived before and stayed after that feast); but he was nevertheless there at that time, and the statement in 20:16 provides the shadow of Pentecost here.

Viewed purely from the standpoint of evangelistic strategy, Paul’s Jerusalem “Pentecost” speech in Acts 22 may seem misguided, a contrast to Peter’s quite effective Pentecost speech in 2:14–39. Whereas Peter had three thousand converts, Paul achieves only a riot by insisting that it is appropriate to bring God’s salvation to the Gentiles. (The massive Jerusalem church could also be contrasted with Paul’s small groups of believers in various Gentile cities.) Why did Paul need to spoil his otherwise effective testimony by raising the controversial issue of Gentiles? Viewed from the aftermath of 70 C.E., however (or even, for those preferring an earlier dating, tensions that could lead to the revolt of 66 C.E.), Paul’s proclamation was prophetic. He has not collaborated with Gentiles to desecrate the temple (cf. 21:28) but offers a different approach toward Gentiles that could have averted the temple’s desecration and destruction by Gentiles in 70.[728]

For Luke, the Gentile mission is God’s plan for the current “last days,” and people open to God must accept it (cf. the church’s response to multiple confirmations in 11:8–17); at this stage, it is too late to merely preach personal or corporate repentance (2:38; 3:19) without explaining the situation’s new demands. Paul’s speech offers a final opportunity for the gospel to challenge Jerusalem to accept all of God’s plan and spare it the destruction that Jesus promised at the hands of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24).[729] The seasons allotted to the Gentiles over Jerusalem were now at hand (21:24), and a prophet’s role was to summon them to repentance before judgment’s coming. As with the coming of its rightful king in Luke 19:44, Jerusalem fails to recognize the time of its visitation.[730]

b. Addressing the Crowd (22:1–2)

Although Luke has introduced the speech in Acts 21:40 (hence the setting runs from 21:40 to 22:2), I have made the break for purposes of the commentary at 22:1 to avoid confusion for commentary users as to where to introduce the defense speeches (Acts 22–26; more technically, 22:1; 22:3–26:29).

I. PAUL’S EXORDIUM (22:1)

The brief exordium of 22:1 sounds Hellenistic enough for Luke’s audience, but it would be appropriate even in an exclusively Semitic speech. Speakers often exhorted their audience, “Hear my words” (especially in poetry: Gen 4:23; Job 13:17; 21:2; 33:1; 34:2, 16), including when God is the speaker (Num 12:6; Deut 4:10; Isa 32:9); see comment on Acts 2:14, 22. Aristotle directs speakers to note the kind of speech at its beginning;[731] in this instance, Paul does so, noting that he offers a “defense speech” (ἀπολογίας; also Acts 25:16). Appeals to hear were appropriate in defense speeches as elsewhere (e.g., Rhet. Alex. 19, 1433b.19–23).

Significantly, “brothers and fathers” appears elsewhere only at Acts 7:2, where it is also conjoined with “hear me.”[732] As with the charge in 21:28, so with the opening words of Paul’s defense—Luke evokes Stephen’s hearing and builds suspense. Stephen’s persecutor comes close to meeting Stephen’s fate, the difference being Roman intervention for a Roman citizen. The geographic decentralization that Stephen announced not only bears fruit in Paul’s mission but climaxes in the sort of apologetic by which Luke urges tolerance of Christians within the empire.

Both here and in 7:2, “brothers and fathers” is respectful and conciliatory.[733] “Brothers” emphasizes ethnic solidarity (see comment on Acts 9:17). “Fathers” is a respectful title for elders or people of rank (see comment on Acts 7:2). Because the scene occurs in the outer court (21:30), not in the Court of Israel, it includes both men and women; masculine plurals cover both genders (see comment on Acts 2:14). That the address here appears elsewhere in biblical Greek (or the Apostolic Fathers or Josephus or Philo) only at 7:2 suggests that it may evoke Stephen’s speech that led to his martyrdom (given explicit mention of Stephen in 22:20), building suspense (cf. perhaps 2 Chr 30:7).

II. DEEPENED HUSH (22:2)

The earlier hush (21:40) grows deeper here; as Dunn notes, “Any public speaker knows the difference between a quiet and an expectant audience.”[734] That the supposed traitor can address the crowd members in their vernacular (which his Diaspora accusers could not) undoubtedly invites their attention (see more extensive comment on Acts 21:40). A speaker might call out and then speak once the crowd grew quiet (Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 7.16.3–4). Likewise, a crowd that was shouting might suddenly stop shouting if it believed that one who shared its opinion was about to speak (Diod. Sic. 13.19.6), and then it might remain quiet for some time (13.20–27); thus Paul, accused by some of collaborating with Gentiles to defile the temple, secures the crowd’s attention by speaking Aramaic (Acts 22:2) and loses it once he mentions what sounds like sympathy for Gentiles (22:21–22).

c. Paul’s Zealous and Orthodox Background (22:3–5)

Paul sets out to prove to his detractors (21:20, 28) that he is no hellenizing apostate; he brings forth his orthodox credentials, including training under a famous teacher and his displays of zeal for the law (22:3–5). Paul repeats elements of his honor claim in 21:39, but (as his contemporaries expected for prudent speakers) he quickly moves in a different direction relevant to his audience. Whereas Paul’s Tarsian citizenship counts to his advantage in 21:39, his birth there (he omits mentioning citizenship here) is only a concession here.[735] Paul quickly passes over an element of his background that could not (certainly in the presence of his accusers) be readily denied or ignored: he was indeed born in the Diaspora.[736] He had received his Jewish training, however, in Jerusalem. Rhetoricians advised that one dwell on points advantageous to one’s case with a particular audience but hurry over points that could prove disadvantageous.[737]

They also recommended that one speak of what was esteemed by the audience (Arist. Rhet. 1.9.30, 1367b) and that a person returning to his native city (Men. Rhet. 2.3, 378.1–2) emphasize his pleasure over returning to a city for which he has longed (378.4–9; 2.4, 391.29–31; 394.13–29). Although Paul does not elaborate in this speech summary, his association of good Jewish learning and zeal with Jerusalem does compliment the city.

Paul also builds rapport with his (hostile) audience, as rhetoricians recommended.[738] Paul says that he once was zealous in the way this crowd is (“just like all of you today”); that is, just as they have been expressing their zeal by seeking his life (albeit mostly based on misinformation about him), so he once was seeking the destruction of the Way, imprisoning its followers (Acts 22:4).

I. EDUCATED IN JERUSALEM (22:3)

God provided witnesses of different styles and backgrounds (Luke 7:33–34; 11:31–32), including those less educated (Acts 4:13) and more educated (here). Frequent topics in epideictic oratory included a person’s nurture (ἀνατροφή) and education (παιδεία).[739] After noting the subject’s birth (Men. Rhet. 2.1–2, 370.28–371.17), one should address his rearing (ἀνατροφή, 371.17–23) and education (παιδείαν, 371.23–372.2) in turn.[740] Such topics were useful in apologetic biography.[741] Boasting about oneself was considered inappropriate unless one was forced to do so by necessary comparison (e.g., Cic. Pis. 1.2) or in making a defense, as here (Acts 22:1; see discussion of self-boasting in the introduction, above, to Acts 20:18b–21). Those who avoided boasting of themselves were rare and praiseworthy (e.g., Pliny Ep. 9.19.4–5).

(1) Not Raised in Jerusalem?

Some scholars have argued, on the basis of Paul’s letters, that he was a purely Diaspora Jew espousing (what the authors viewed as) a heterodox form of Judaism; had he known true Palestinian Judaism, he would never have gone so far “astray.”[742] One modern Jewish scholar concluded “that Paul, a Hellenistic Jew, had never been in Palestine until after he had joined the new movement.”[743] This view severely underestimates the hellenization of Palestinian Judaism and the degree to which a person could assimilate both cultures.[744] For this reason, the view has been widely abandoned as scholars have come to acknowledge that Hellenistic and Palestinian Judaism were not airtight categories.[745]

Further, Paul lived in Judea when persecuting the church (Gal 1:22–23) and claimed a good Jewish education (1:13–14) and Pharisaic affiliation (Phil 3:5);[746] “Hebrew of Hebrews” (3:5) may also imply Judean associations. Although his letters leave no doubt as to his proficiency in Greco-Roman culture, his explicit statements about his background are clearer about his Judean ties than about his Diaspora ones. His facility in Greek intellectual discourse suggests rigorous training, whether in the Diaspora (before his move to Jerusalem) or in Jerusalem (but probably nowhere else in Judea or Galilee). Greek learning would have been usual for Sadducees, but also for some Pharisees, perhaps especially for those whose families had migrated from the Diaspora and/or well-to-do families (like Gamaliel’s) or those with Diaspora ties.

Some scholars have argued that Paul moved to Jerusalem as a young man past age thirteen (on the basis of νεότητος in Acts 26:4);[747] this could comport well with the view that Paul’s family sent him to Jerusalem for his advanced education only, which is when young men normally began study under a philosopher, rhetorician, or rabbi.[748] Tarsians did, after all, often complete their education abroad, more often than citizens of other cities with their own educational establishments (Strabo 14.5.13; see discussion at Acts 9:11). But this argument cannot be based on Paul’s basic familiarity with Greek moralist thought and rhetoric, which is compatible with Diaspora Judaism and which he could have learned from elite teachers in Jerusalem or after his calling.[749] It certainly cannot be based on Paul’s quality of Greek as being inappropriate for a “second language”;[750] this proposal underestimates the fluency of someone linguistically competent in a second language (especially when speaking it in early childhood) and certainly underestimates the availability of Greek, especially for immigrants from the Diaspora, in Jerusalem.[751] Since his parents were from the Diaspora, he presumably grew up speaking Greek at home wherever that home was, making it his first language.

(2) Nurtured and Educated in Jerusalem

More often scholars argue that Paul began in Jerusalem younger (which is certainly the impression that Paul would like to convey to his Jerusalem audience in Acts 22:3, and would more easily explain his continued ability to speak to them in Aramaic, 22:2). The present verse claims that Paul was born in Tarsus but nurtured and educated in Jerusalem. The claim of 22:3 is, indeed, more explicit than that of 26:4, on which the later age for Paul’s coming to Jerusalem is based (he became widely known only once he reached youth; and in 26:4 Paul addresses an audience where his Hellenistic background would count more favorably). Further, Paul was not the only member of his family to move to Jerusalem, and his father certainly did not send his sister (23:16)[752] only for advanced education, which was only rarely available to women.[753]

The most extensive argument for the latter and likelier position is offered in W. C. van Unnik’s Tarsus or Jerusalem. Citing Plato,[754] Philo,[755] Plutarch,[756] and other sources,[757] van Unnik argues that the conjunction of the verbs (“born,” “raised,” and “educated”) appears throughout ancient literature and always differentiates birth from education, and often rearing from education. After surveying a wide swath of Greek literature, van Unnik concludes that ἀνατεθραμμένος refers to Paul’s upbringing in his parents’ home until school age[758] and πεπαιδευμένος refers to Paul’s instruction under Gamaliel, with the structural emphasis clearly on the latter.[759] This distinction is apparent in Luke’s usage: he applies ἀνατρέφω to Moses’s early nurture (7:20–21, the only other NT uses of the term) and παιδεύω to his subsequent education (7:22, the only other use in Acts). “From the contrast between Tarsus as the place of birth and Jerusalem as the city of the ἀνατροφή (upbringing in the home-circle) and the παιδεία (study under Gamaliel), it is clear that according to this text Paul spent the years of his youth completely in Jerusalem”;[760] Luke’s text offers no indication of a youth in Tarsus. So thorough was van Unnik’s examination of the evidence (and so clear his appeal to the grammar of 22:3) that the vast majority of scholars have followed him regarding the interpretation of this verse.[761] Paul’s initial, early exposure to Greek knowledge and the Septuagint can be attributed to his home environment and to the availability of some Greek culture and instruction among the Hellenists of Jerusalem. By contrast, it is difficult to explain Luke’s depiction of Paul’s use of Semitic speech if Luke does not intend us to understand that Paul grew up in Jerusalem.

On the historical level, although Luke’s claim here is the most explicit evidence that Paul grew up in Jerusalem, Paul’s letters do not contradict it, and Phil 3:5 (“Hebrew of Hebrews”) and Gal 1:14 comport well with it.[762] Further, Paul was a Pharisee (Phil 3:5). Most Pharisees were from Judea, and the majority of them were from Jerusalem; where else would one study the law as a Pharisee than in Jerusalem (Gal 1:14)?[763] This probably suggests that he came when he was young. Less certain but possibly supporting his Jerusalem background are the mixture of his urban education with a Palestinian Jewish approach to Scripture (see discussion below; also probably suggesting his youth), and just possibly his early ministry there (Rom 15:19). He was probably converted while still a fairly young man (why else mention those of the same age, except to specify fellow students, in Gal 1:14?).[764]

One “raised” from childhood in a place will be expected to know local customs;[765] Paul is emphasizing his orthodox background, which will appeal to his audience, and Luke is at the same time emphasizing it to ground the church in its heritage, as he did with John’s and Jesus’s upbringing (cf. Luke 1:6; 2:21–24). Historians would focus on elements of their information most useful to their purpose.[766]

(3) Stages of Education

If we seek to imagine what sort of early training Paul had, some sources illustrate the early education available to educated Judeans, probably already even in Paul’s day. Later rabbis expected a father to begin teaching a boy the Shema, the Torah, and Hebrew as soon as he could speak (t. Ḥag. 1:2).[767] At least in Amoraic sources, once children were old enough for school, preparing them for school, and sometimes taking them there, was the mother’s responsibility;[768] the boy’s education was, however, especially the father’s responsibility.[769]

Eventually rabbis schematized the stages of education in this way (possibly an ideal only among the elite): at five a child was ready for Scripture; at ten for the Mishnah; at thirteen to accept responsibility for fulfilling the commandments; and at fifteen for advanced education in rabbinic discussions on the Mishnah (m. ʾAb. 5:21).[770] It seems likely that, in practice, gifted boys who finished their regular schooling at twelve or thirteen (whose families could afford further training) would study under a teacher with other young adults at a bet hamidrash.[771]

Is such a later schema applicable to a first-century immigrant from a fairly well-to-do family?[772] Josephus, a first-century Jew from a such a (priestly) family, seems to have had a fuller Greek education than Paul, yet he emphasizes as more important his people’s laborious training in the law and Scripture interpretation. This picture comports well with later rabbinic pictures of the curriculum (Jos. Ant. 20.264–65).[773] Jewish writers in Greek from both Judea (Ag. Ap. 2.173–75) and Alexandria (Philo Embassy 210) emphasize Jewish education in Scripture and the customs from the earliest stages of childhood (cf. also 2 Tim 3:15).[774]

Apparently, secondary Jewish education typically ran from ten to thirteen years of age; after that, only advanced students would go on to study with a scholar.[775] The age for advanced education varied,[776] but it usually began in the mid-teens (a custom prevalent also in medieval Europe). Josephus secured a teacher around age sixteen (Jos. Life 10), and Cicero began his advanced rhetorical studies at the same age.[777] Some who could afford it continued with exceptional, advanced teachers for many years (Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 108.5); a later writer studied under a teacher in Athens from age sixteen to twenty-one (Eunapius Lives 493); a disciple of Chrysanthius “from boyhood” spent more than twenty years with him (Lives 461).[778] Others entered into their careers sooner; Pliny, for example, entered the bar at eighteen, though he claimed to continue learning oratory for the rest of his life (Ep. 5.8.8).

Paul’s own extant letters indicate Jewish school training;[779] he directly quotes the Scriptures (not including allusions) more than ninety times, without the benefit of a concordance and presumably usually without the benefit of ready access to written biblical scrolls in the home where he dictates his letters. He knows at least enough Hebrew to omit a pronoun where the Hebrew and the LXX diverge (Rom 1:17) and knows the Scriptures well enough to cite the only two texts that link righteousness with faith (Gen 15:6; Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; 4:3; Gal 3:6, 11). His eschatology is more Judean than was typical in the Diaspora, and more telling is that he employs midrashic methods more common in Judea than in the Diaspora.[780] It is difficult to see what Paul’s claim of advanced progress for his age-group in Judaism and in the traditions (Gal 1:14) can mean if it does not indicate advanced[781] training in the law, presumably along with the traditions of Pharisaism (Phil 3:5).[782] We need not, however, go so far as to claim for him formal rabbinic “ordination,” a practice that may have emerged later in its developed sense.[783]

Most of Luke’s ideal Diaspora audience, however, was probably more familiar with Greek models of education.[784] (This is not to deny that even most Diaspora Jews, who probably formed a teaching base in many Christian congregations, would have a basic upbringing in the law [cf., e.g., 2 Tim 3:14–15]. And Gentile converts would hear regular Scripture readings and teaching in the congregational setting.) What was studied at what age varied from one place to another, but the following survey offers at least a general sense of some of the sort of education an educated person might receive in antiquity. In the Greek world, lower-class students might obtain, at best, an elementary education; papyri from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt reveal that many people in villages could not even write their own names.[785] Smaller settlements might have elementary education, and small towns, gymnasia, but only larger cities offered advanced rhetorical training.[786] Better-off urban families often provided some basic learning at home or sent children about age seven to study reading, writing, and some elementary arithmetic, often supplemented by physical education. Elementary education progressed from learning letters, to learning syllables, to learning words, and then to memorizing maxims or poetic passages.[787] Papyri suggest that the methods used were often tedious. School lasted from early morning until evening (with a lunch break), and flogging was utilized for discipline.[788]

Around an age that some estimate as between ten and twelve, boys from wealthier families[789] might go to study with a grammaticus (γραμματικός), from whom they acquired proper grammar, meter, and style.[790] They learned especially through studying classical texts, mostly poetry (a standardized core of texts but especially Homer);[791] much of the emphasis lay on rote memorization, although students also learned to paraphrase Homer. About age fifteen or sixteen (later in Athens), advanced students from aristocratic families proceeded to a teacher of rhetoric or, in fewer cases, to one of philosophy.[792] (The ages are approximate; an exceptional student might study abroad with a rhetorician at age fourteen.)[793] Teachers at more advanced stages of education received much higher pay than those at the lower end.[794]

Particularly advanced (and wealthy) students might then travel to Athens or some other academic center to follow advanced study under a professor of rhetoric, especially if planning to pursue a career in rhetoric. This advanced education was most frequently complete by age eighteen.[795] In the Hellenistic era, the chosen destinations for advanced study in philosophy and rhetoric were Athens, Pergamum, and Rhodes and, in medicine, Cos, Pergamum, and Ephesus; Alexandria provided all of the options.[796] During the empire, Athens remained renowned for philosophy (though see comment on Acts 17:16–18), Rome and Berytus for jurisprudence, and Alexandria for medicine.[797] Naturally, a Jewish scholar interested in Torah would want to study in Jerusalem.

Despite detractors today, Paul’s letters reveal a receptive student who had studied at probably all three levels.[798] (Paul was no Cicero or Philo, but neither was he on the level of most of the papyri or of works such as Testament of Job.) On what did Paul’s tertiary education focus? Against the consensus, Hock argues that Paul’s letters display advanced training in rhetoric and composition.[799] Paul clearly knew enough rhetoric to employ rhetorical devices in his letters;[800] Hock might be correct insofar as Paul could display some advanced training in it (his skills lie beyond what we expect in most ancient letter writers who were not rhetoricians).

Still, it also appears that rhetoric was not Paul’s primary discipline; he may have studied it to help his delivery, but it was not the focus of his tertiary study.[801] His writings do not reveal the rhetoric of a teacher of rhetoric[802] but, rather (as suggested above), that of a teacher of Scripture, his recollection and exegesis of which is remarkable[803] (and very “rabbinic”).[804] His content suggests that his primary subject was surely Scripture; his letters offer few classical citations but display a lavish knowledge of the LXX.[805] Some object that Paul is not called a “scribe” in Phil 3:5–6;[806] but in the Diaspora this term normally meant a copyist,[807] and the title “rabbi” seems to have grown in popularity later (being employed in Greek only as a loanword).[808] This biblical focus also fits Paul’s own claim about his education in Gal 1:14.[809]

On the basis of Acts 22:3, many think that Paul received his elementary education in Tarsus but his secondary (grammatical) and tertiary education in Jerusalem.[810] Although Pharisees despised professions such as that of weavers, there were many weavers and tentmakers in Jerusalem; Paul could have learned the trade in either location[811] (and, if in Tarsus, potentially after 9:30). Pharisees, who are generally thought to be in a middle or retainer class, did affirm the value of working a trade,[812] though it may be doubtful whether Paul would have diverted much attention to it while studying under a famous teacher such as Gamaliel.

(4) Greek Education Even in Jerusalem

Historically, where Paul was raised does not indicate his level of Hellenistic education even before his call to the Gentiles; the boys of elite Jerusalem families did learn Greek,[813] and this would be all the more expected for a family that had immigrated from the Mediterranean Diaspora. Students in Jerusalem could receive training in Greek thought and rhetoric,[814] though probably not on the level available in Athens, Alexandria, Ephesus, or Tarsus. Whereas most advanced Jewish schools probably taught in Hebrew, students who would need Greek could learn in special schools or programs (such as the gymnasia documented in second-century B.C.E. Jerusalem).

Upper-class Jerusalemites probably sent children at a more advanced stage “to study rhetoric in Alexandria or other centers of Hellenistic education” in order to obtain the highest-quality training.[815] Some teachers in Jerusalem would, however, undoubtedly know rhetoric well enough to teach it. The Letter of Aristeas, from an earlier period, speaks of elders in Jerusalem proficient not only in Jewish but also in Greek learning (Let. Aris. 121), though this portrayal may be motivated by the author’s Alexandrian Jewish apologetic.

Paul must have progressed beyond the grammatical level, and he very likely did so in a course of study conducted mainly in Greek (even when he quotes Scripture, he is most familiar with the LXX).[816] Some well-to-do homes in Jerusalem, probably belonging to those who valued a “cosmopolitan,” Hellenistic education, reveal a comfort both with Hellenistic matters and with the observance of Jewish ritual prescriptions (as shown by immersion pools).[817]

Greek language and culture affected even the later rabbinic movement, which was conservative in many respects and initially taught in Hebrew. Later rabbis used Greek measurement terms;[818] frequently we find other examples of Greek language[819] and sometimes even Greek stories.[820] Rabbis could read Hebrew words in the Torah as if they were Greek words.[821] Various forms of early Judaism (especially in the Diaspora) display close familiarity with Greek philosophy (see discussion at Acts 17:19–20). What appears in small measure in the rabbis, however, was abundant in the Diaspora, and hence a large amount of it may have been available for learning among Diaspora Jews in Jerusalem. Much of this Diaspora learning, however, does not appear in Paul’s letters.

Some Jewish sources show knowledge of Greek deities or mythology;[822] this is especially prominent in the Diaspora,[823] though various writers treat them in different ways. Some Diaspora sources adapted the euhemeristic approach and demythologized Greek deities as long-dead mortals.[824] Others employed them as metaphors, personifications of abstractions;[825] still others mocked them;[826] sometimes God took over pagan deities’ epithets.[827] In another case, a context full of allusions to Greek legend (e.g., Troy, Sib. Or. 5.9) might deny a key point of Hellenistic religion (e.g., that Alexander was son of Zeus, 5.7).[828] Diaspora Jews commonly gave their children pagan theophoric names.[829] Many descriptions of the afterlife also evoked Greek mythological sources, whether Elysium,[830] Lake Acheron,[831] or Tartarus.[832]

(5) Rhetoric but Especially Law

Some scholars are skeptical that Paul received training in rhetorical theory;[833] certainly some of his opponents were better orators than he (2 Cor 11:6), as was likely Apollos (see discussion at Acts 18:24). Further, Paul is no rhetorician, and some rhetorical strategies were so pervasive in public speech that Paul could have learned them simply by listening to other educated speakers. But although Paul could not have taught rhetoric, his Greek is not the Greek of someone with only a grammatical education. Paul’s letters do not display the level of education we would expect for a professor of rhetoric or a professional orator or a statesman, but they do suggest that he had some education at the advanced level, probably including some in rhetoric.[834] A one-time student of such methods need no more display them lavishly in his works than a seminarian briefly exposed to form criticism in a single introductory class would employ it in his or her sermons (or necessarily even remember what form criticism entails).

Since Paul’s focus was religious (Gal 1:14; Acts 9:1–2), his primary studies were probably in Torah,[835] but educated hearers in some Diaspora cities might prefer to hear speakers whose training had included exposure to rhetoric, some common philosophy (perhaps especially ethical categories and metaphysics), and perhaps even some declamation exercises useful for public speaking. It is therefore not unlikely that a Hellenist expositor of Torah would receive at least some basic acquaintance with Hellenistic forms of homiletics useful in Diaspora preaching. In comparison with many others, Paul was particularly keen, and he probably developed further the basic tertiary or secondary exposure to rhetoric that he received.

Still, Paul was trained more in content (the law) than in delivery (rhetoric).[836] He was trained as a Pharisee (Phil 3:5)[837] and hence educated in the law “strictly” according to ancestral laws and traditions, as he says here in Acts. Pharisees were known for their traditions[838] and for being “strict” in their interpretations, as here (see comment on Acts 26:5; Jos. Life 191; War 2.162).[839] Studying under Gamaliel would fit this Pharisaic orientation.

II. STUDENT OF GAMALIEL I? (22:3)

The Pharisees were popular with the people (Jos. Ant. 13.296–98) and were certainly more in touch with nationalist sentiments than were the Sadducees (cf., e.g., 17.41, 44, 46; 18.23), and Gamaliel was one of the best-known Pharisees of his generation, being a prominent aristocrat as well (cf. Josephus on his son, Life 191–92; cf. War 4.159).[840] Luke is well aware of the respect the people accorded Gamaliel (Acts 5:34). All these factors suggest that Paul’s claim would invite the crowd’s attention.

(1) Historical Objections

Education was a regular category for praising a person’s achievements (Men. Rhet. 2.10, 415.27), and Luke so uses it here. As noted above, Paul’s education was indeed far beyond the average (even if he completed this in his mid- to late teens). But was he a student of Gamaliel, as Luke has him insist here?[841] Some scholars think it unlikely, given their belief that Luke is otherwise untrustworthy;[842] I would argue, by contrast, that we should give Luke the benefit of the doubt here precisely because, in the random places where we can check him, he is generally trustworthy. Some argue that although Paul surely studied in Jerusalem, it would not have been with Gamaliel, who would not have accepted a student from a Diaspora family, such as Paul.[843] This argument lays more emphasis on birthplace than wealth, even for the elite; it also takes insufficient account of the tradition that Gamaliel’s household taught Greek as well as Jewish wisdom.

A stronger argument against Luke’s claim is that Paul the persecutor hardly seems a likely student of moderate Gamaliel.[844] But while students normally respected their teachers, they did not always, in the end, agree with them.[845] Even centuries-old philosophic schools such as the Platonists and the Stoics influenced each other in some respects (see comment on Acts 17:18); Seneca the Stoic dialogued with Demetrius the Cynic and with Lucilius, a student of Epicureanism.[846] Even today one thinks of a number of critical scholars abandoning conservative backgrounds (as Norman Perrin abandoned many of Jeremias’s views); conservative graduate students who employ their new knowledge from more liberal scholars in the service of their more conservative views or constituencies; occasionally even more liberal scholars abandoning the critical consensus for more traditionally conservative positions (such as Bishop John A. T. Robinson); pacifists studying under just-war theologians; and so forth.

Thus, although Paul’s disagreement with Gamaliel’s moderation does not support Paul’s having been his disciple, by itself it carries little weight against it. Josephus experimented with the practices of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes about age sixteen (Life 10), then followed an ascetic teacher in the desert (who was, presumably, closer to Essene than Pharisee) for three years (Life 11–12) before joining the more popular Pharisees (Life 12).[847]

Others think that Paul’s views identify him as a Shammaite, since this school was stricter and, according to tradition, less accommodating to Gentiles.[848] We cannot rule out this possibility; even a Shammaite might well want to study with Gamaliel (one of the city’s most famous teachers), or Paul may have become a Shammaite after studying with Gamaliel.[849] Nevertheless, early rabbinic traditions of debates between Shammaites (then the majority) and Hillelites as discrete schools[850] tend to weaken the probability of the suggestion.

More important, it is precisely Luke who portrays Gamaliel’s moderation concerning the Christians, and so this is, first of all, an internal literary tension; if Luke is aware of the tension and can resolve it, then we should not overplay it.[851] One could suggest that Luke knows the name of only one famous Jerusalem teacher and hence must use his name in both Acts 5:34 and here (and indeed, a more famous Jerusalem teacher of that generation might be hard to come by).[852] One could, however, as easily argue the reverse: who better than a student of Gamaliel’s could provide a report on what Gamaliel said after the apostles were dismissed from the assembly (5:34–40)?

(2) Arguments Supporting Luke’s Claim

If the arguments against Paul’s being Gamaliel’s student are not compelling, what arguments favor his being Gamaliel’s student, thus supporting Luke’s claim?[853] First, Gamaliel fits chronologically;[854] this would be no small feat for writers inventing connections for previous generations in faraway places, as novels regularly attest (and, as many argue, Luke’s own record reveals at least twice, Luke 2:2; Acts 5:36–37). Further, Paul’s claim that he was “advancing” in Judaism by his peers’ standards (Gal 1:14) suggests having a prominent teacher.[855] If he was also a Roman citizen from the Diaspora, as Acts portrays (and, as argued above, is likely; see comment on Acts 16:37), he was probably from an educated and sufficiently well-to-do family[856] to allow study with a teacher who belonged to the aristocracy. If Luke was knowledgeable enough about Paul to know that he had a prominent teacher, Luke possessed little expertise to pick such a teacher’s name unless he had a genuine source for that name. If Luke was, as already argued, a traveling companion of Paul, Paul is the most obvious source for Luke’s knowledge of this Jerusalem teacher from the preceding generation.

Another argument rests on what we know of Gamaliel’s family from other sources. Evidence from Josephus shows that Gamaliel’s line was clearly wealthy and prominent in Jerusalem,[857] whether despite the family members’ Pharisaism or because they were among its most aristocratic representatives (see discussion at Acts 5:34–39). Given the fairly low pay of those hired by cities to teach children,[858] it is difficult to imagine Gamaliel teaching at that lower level. But while many grammarians (teachers of secondary education in the Greek and Roman systems) failed to achieve status, even some grammarians became wealthy and prestigious, attached “to leading families at Rome.”[859] Teachers at a tertiary level generally fared better than grammarians.[860]

Granted, members of an elite concerned with municipal politics might have little time for teaching,[861] but while this may have been true of many leaders in Jerusalem (perhaps including Gamaliel’s son, Simon, who clearly belonged to the elite), tradition reports that it was not true of his grandson Gamaliel II or of himself.[862] (Luke is also aware of “scribes” in the Sanhedrin,[863] though at that level the title might refer only to their expertise.) Later rabbis report (on his grandson, Gamaliel II) that this family of sages taught both Hebrew and Greek classics,[864] which suggests a tolerance toward the Diaspora and the welcoming of students (from the aristocracy, the Diaspora, or both) who wished to supplement Jewish learning with a respectable Greek education.[865] (Gamaliel’s family may have also had a bias toward the Greek language in other respects.)[866] While the fondness for Greek might tell us only about Gamaliel II, it may also say something about the household; Herod had promoted aspects of hellenization whereas a nationalist reaction against foreign customs apparently grew in the wake of Agrippa I’s reign.

Indeed, given Paul’s suggestion of a good Jewish education (Gal 1:14) and his letters’ betrayal of an adequate rhetorical education as well, we know of no other specific, named teacher in Jerusalem from whom Paul could have learned except from Gamaliel. This, granted, is not a fully compelling argument, since we know relatively little about the teachers in Jerusalem; Gamaliel’s was probably not the only household offering Hellenistic instruction. (But most other teachers we know of disapproved of such learning,[867] though perhaps especially after 70 C.E.[868] Some made an exception for R. Gamaliel and his students because he was “close to the government”;[869] was he schooling Greek-speaking Roman citizens like Paul?) Moreover, Paul shows little knowledge of Greek classics, in which some students may have received some training. But Gamaliel is a reasonable surmise for a teacher, provided we see Paul as one student among very many at some stage (probably an advanced stage) in his education. (He would naturally mention Gamaliel in Jerusalem not as his only teacher over the years but as his most famous.)

Although it is true that Paul nowhere mentions Gamaliel in his letters, it would serve little purpose had he done so: few in Paul’s churches would recognize Gamaliel’s name (unless Paul himself had mentioned him in his teaching).[870] One might have said the same for Luke’s audience, but Luke has already identified and made use of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34–39) and wants to emphasize Paul’s status more than Paul did. Had Luke been a novelist, he could have done this by inventing a name and attributing exalted status to the character with that name; instead, he draws on a genuine name learned from someone who knew of Jerusalem sages—and why not Paul, whom (we have argued; see comment on Acts 16:10) Luke knew and who was a believer but had advanced beyond most of his contemporaries in Judaism (Gal 1:14) and hence, presumably, had one or more of the most prominent teachers? If Luke knew Paul or Pauline tradition, Paul could well be Luke’s best source on the subject; in addition to written sources about Jesus, Luke has tradition about the Jerusalem church and about Jesus’s ministry in Galilee, but neither in Caesarea nor his subsequent life again in the Diaspora would we expect Luke to have ready access to the names of Jerusalem sages from Paul’s early days.

Paul does not mention any of his other teachers before his conversion; he does not even mention his Pharisaism except in Phil 3:5. We should hardly infer from this that Paul’s Pharisaism was unimportant to him or that he failed to study with distinguished teachers. Paul’s breadth in the Torah and his midrashic-style reasoning when he was expounding Scripture suggest that he did in fact have high-quality training.[871]

A weaker but possibly supplemental argument for Paul’s having studied with Gamaliel is the comparison of Paul’s interpretive methods to those attributed to Hillel, noting that Gamaliel probably stood in the tradition of Hillel.[872] Some even point to the tradition that Hillel was Gamaliel’s grandfather.[873] But the alleged genetic relation between Hillel and Gamaliel might be later tradition,[874] and the parallels, in any case, merely illustrate the likelihood that Paul studied in the Hillelite stream of Pharisaism (which included Gamaliel).[875] (For that matter, these interpretive principles were not uncommon in antiquity and possibly reflect Hellenistic influence.)[876] Some scholars have argued that when one examines the halakic emphases attributed to early rabbis, notably Gamaliel, they do correspond well with Paul’s concerns[877] (though rarely are the concerns exclusive to Gamaliel among the rabbis).

Another argument supporting Paul as Gamaliel’s student is unlikely—namely, the suggested identification of Paul with Rabban Gamaliel’s anonymous student who kept provoking his teacher and “went wrong.”[878] Given the number of students that Gamaliel (and his better-known namesake grandson) surely taught over the years and given the serious divisions between Pharisaic schools and surrounding the Judean-Roman war, it is difficult to assume that Paul was the student in mind, regardless of the tradition’s accuracy.

Although even the stronger arguments above are not foolproof, cumulatively they do render quite plausible the claim of Luke, who, by virtue of his close knowledge of Paul elsewhere, would seem to merit the benefit of the doubt (surely more than our speculations at this remove could). If Paul studied with a great teacher, why not Gamaliel? Certainly, Paul’s genius is no less than that of many of the rabbis we know of from among the students of Gamaliel’s successors, even though Paul’s training was probably not meant to be exclusively rabbinic.

(3) Selecting a Teacher

How was Paul’s teacher selected? Although it is a reasonable guess that his father or an uncle provided the funds, Paul may have had some input concerning the teacher with whom he would study. After the elementary levels, one should choose a teacher (m. ʾAb. 1:6).[879] Thus, for example, Josephus, whose family wealth allowed him discretion to choose his education, experimented with various teachers between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, settling on one whom he followed for most of that time (Life 10–12).

Broader Mediterranean practices may provide some context. Intellectuals sometimes noted that sophists and grammar teachers were common but true philosophers must be able to stir and guide young men (Max. Tyre 1.8). Most sophists spent most of the day “teaching mere boys” (Philost. Vit. soph. 2.26.614); only a minority of teachers separated boys from youths (2.21.604). At a higher level, teachers of young men were too advanced for mere boys (Plut. Alc. 7.1);[880] still, holders of endowed chairs in Athens later did receive ten thousand drachmas a year for teaching boys (Lucian Eunuch 3). Further, elite teachers did invest in elite boys—for instance, Seneca, who taught Nero (among others), and Fronto, who taught rhetoric to Marcus Aurelius. At any level of education, classes could vary from several students to two hundred; teachers of larger classes often paid assistants.[881] Naturally, teachers with elite students had smaller classes consisting mostly of children from elite families (Suet. Tit. 2; Gramm. 17).

Jewish scribes also provide a relevant context for a Jerusalem education, balancing the Greek sources. “Scribes” in civic governments often held secretarial positions;[882] in the villages of the Roman Empire, “scribes” were literate (not always well-educated) professionals who executed legal documents.[883] Such persons also existed in Palestine and surrounding territories.[884] Yet neither Luke nor the other earliest extant Christian writers utilize the term in so broad a sense, and ancient views of special education in Judea[885] suggest that many “literate” professionals did more than execute documents (cf. Ezra 7:10–11; 1 Macc 5:42).[886] Presumably, many also instructed children in reciting the law, and the more advanced among them would have had adult disciples (that is, disciples older than thirteen). Many of the scribes may have been priests;[887] the better-endowed priests may have been better equipped financially than most persons to pursue such training. Likewise, some may well have been Pharisees,[888] given the Pharisees’ popular reputation for skill in the law and their availability for training. Occasionally later rabbis could look on their scribal predecessors unfavorably, perhaps recognizing their great responsibility to guide Israel rightly.[889]

III. SITTING AT A TEACHER’S FEET (22:3)

In the Greek and Roman classroom,[890] students sat on benches in a semicircle surrounding a teacher, who sat in a chair with a high back.[891] Jewish teachers also had better seats than their students; indeed, one text suggests that friends of anyone who learns wisdom make him sit in an honorary chair so that they may learn wisdom from him.[892] Some honorary seats in synagogues may have also been reserved for teachers (though it is unclear whether the phrase “Moses’s seat” applied to such chairs this early).[893] In synagogues, elderly or respectable people often sat in benches along the wall or on the bēma, but in most synagogues, it appears that most people sat on the floor.[894]

Apparently, it was a Jewish custom, however (perhaps originally conceived from necessity), for Jewish students to sit “in the dust” at a teacher’s feet. Jose ben Joezer, a pre-Christian teacher, advised hearers to sit in the dust at sages’ feet to learn from them (m. ʾAb. 1:4).[895] Later teachers instructed that students should never sit with their teacher on the same couch, bench, or stool but, rather, on the ground in front of him (ʾAbot R. Nat. 6 A; 11, §28 B).[896] Straw may have been used on the floor in some houses of study (cf. m. Šabb. 18:1) to make it more comfortable for students.[897]

This was not because chairs or couches were unknown. Reclining was common (not mentioned in Acts, but cf. Luke 5:29; 7:36–37, 49; 9:14–15; 11:37; 12:37; 13:29; 14:10, 15; 22:14; 24:30).[898] Benches and collapsible chairs were common, and so people normally sat on the floor only if mourning or attending large gatherings for which seating was unavailable.[899] In the case of disciples, however, the reason for their seating was, apparently, respect (cf. Exod 11:8 MT, on servants); to sit with a teacher was to act contemptuously toward him, but sitting on the ground displayed respect (ʾAbot R. Nat. 11, §28 B). Convention determined when to stand or sit; thus, for example, one should always allow elders to be seated first,[900] and one might stand when a person of higher rank entered.[901] For when teachers would stand or sit, see discussions at Acts 1:15; 13:14–15. Disciples regularly sat at teachers’ feet,[902] so much so that “sitting” can represent “schooling.”[903] Apparently, Judean teachers sat to teach as well (cf. Pesiq. Rab Kah. 18:5), but in some traditions only ordained rabbis sat to teach whereas disciples stood (ʾAbot R. Nat. 6 A; Gen. Rab. 98:11).

Paul’s seating himself on the floor shows that Luke knows the language of discipleship, which is relevant to his portrayal of Mary sitting at Jesus’s feet in Luke 10:39. Laying resources at leaders’ feet (Acts 4:35, 37) applies the image to submission (cf. 2:35).

IV. PAUL’S ZEAL FOR GOD (22:3)

Informed already by James that those zealous for the law suspect him of undermining it (21:20–21, though James referred to Jerusalem believers in Jesus), Paul emphasizes his own zeal for the law and expresses appreciation for others who exhibit it (22:12). “I was zealous just like you,” Paul is saying. “Just as you are displaying your zeal by wanting to kill me, I was displaying my zeal by seeking to kill Jesus’s followers” (in 22:4). One might call such zeal “murder” (cf. 9:1), but Paul words it positively (misdirected “zeal”), just as he compliments Athenians on how “religious” they are while he rejects their idols (17:22, 29). As James and the elders desired, Paul expresses his solidarity with Jerusalemites (21:20–25; cf. 1 Cor 9:20), though he will not compromise the Gentile mission (Acts 22:21).

(1) The Epistolary Paul’s Zeal

Paul stresses loyalty for his people and their ancestral traditions, continuing to build rapport with the crowd in his introduction. The epistolary Paul also stresses his love for his people (Rom 9:1–3), though in a different context.[904] Yet appeal to common ground will not allow him to compromise any crucial areas of disagreement, in the end (Acts 22:21; cf. 17:30–31); to simply affirm commonalities without drawing people to Christ might serve his personal interests here but would not serve the gospel of Christ.

Some scholars are skeptical of the accuracy of Luke’s portrayal of Paul on this occasion, objecting that Luke’s Paul (in 22:3) fails to reject his former zeal, unlike the Paul of the letters.[905] This contrast presses too much detail from the space of a few words in very different contexts: in one source, Paul builds rapport with a zealous crowd (and is speaking, in any case, of his past behavior), and in the other, he warns against inappropriate expressions of commitment to the law. Paul can use this word complex (ζηλωτής and its cognates) positively (1 Cor 12:31; 14:1, 12, 39; 2 Cor 7:7, 11; 9:2; 11:2), though he often means selfish jealousy (Rom 13:13; 1 Cor 3:3; 2 Cor 12:20; Gal 5:20). Israel had a commendable zeal, yet it was tragically misdirected because of lack of understanding (Rom 10:2; cf. 9:30–10:4); likewise, Paul’s zeal before his call was without knowledge and expressed itself in persecuting the church (Phil 3:6).

Nevertheless, Paul can also mention both his zeal and his persecuting in close proximity as features of his pre-Christian life without explicitly connecting the two (Gal 1:13–14), exactly as he does also in close sequence in Acts 22:3–4. Given the different contexts, it is the similarity between Luke’s Paul and the epistolary Paul that is most striking, not the difference.

(2) Jewish Appreciation for Zeal

Luke always employs the terms ζῆλος and ζηλόω negatively, with reference to envy (5:17; 7:9; 13:45; 17:5),[906] but these connotations do not carry over to his use of ζηλωτής, by which he designates one zealous for Israel or the law (the apostle Simon, Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13) and Jerusalem believers’ zeal for the law (Acts 21:20). Paul’s zeal for God is likely also expressed in zeal for the law.

Cognate terms for zeal appear positively with reference to learning, especially referring to imitating;[907] such imitation is suitable for relating to God’s laws.[908] One could also be zealous for one’s people (Libanius Declam. 36.36), virtue (Philo Hypoth. 11.1), lawlessness (Philo Embassy 119),[909] the temple (Ps 69:9), wisdom (Sir 51:18), or the law (2 Macc 4:2; 1QS IX, 23).[910] As one advancing in the laws of his people (Gal 1:14) and hence perhaps with scribal training, the descriptions of Paul before his conversion may suggest that he viewed his own activity partly in terms of the scribal quest for wisdom in Sir 51:17–19,[911] which employs προκοπή (cf. Gal 1:14, using προκόπτω); ζηλόω (cf. ζηλωτής in Acts 22:3; Gal 1:14; ζῆλος in Phil 3:6); and διακριβόω (cf. ἀκρίβεια in Acts 22:3).[912]

Zeal for the law could be aroused by others’ disobedience (Ps 119:139; cf. 69:9). Although the later “Zealots” were not the only group associated with zeal,[913] some of Luke’s probably post-70 C.E. audience may have thought of the group with that name, and not without some good reason here. The Maccabees were long remembered as models of zeal, including in the war of 66–74[914] (as well as later revolts).[915] The Zealots, one of the militant nationalist groups during the impending Judean revolt, took their name from the Maccabees’ model of zeal.[916] (See excursus on Zealots at Acts 1:13.)[917] When the priest Mattathias struck down an apostate Jew at the king’s altar, he expressed zeal for the law (1 Macc 2:24–26). He then summoned others zealous for the law to follow him (2:27); on his deathbed, he exhorted his children to be zealous for the law by fighting for the covenant (2:50). Josephus’s account echoes 1 Maccabees: Mattathias cried out for anyone “zealous” (ζηλωτής) for Israel’s laws and for God to join him (Ant. 12.271).[918]

First Maccabees clearly indicates that the biblical priest Phinehas, who speared through an Israelite apostate, provided Mattathias with his primary model of zeal for the law (1 Macc 2:25–26, 54),[919] as scholars commonly observe.[920] Phinehas’s act of “zeal,” which appeased God’s “zeal” (in its other sense as jealousy), occasions the first use of the noun in the LXX (Num 25:11–13) and provides a sense of the term and its cognates influential in later expressions of violent zeal (1 Macc 2:24–27, 50–58; 8:16; Jdt 9:4; 2 Kgs 10:16).

Other texts plainly use the zeal of Phinehas as a model (Sir 45:23; 4 Macc 18:12).[921] Philo praises the zeal of Phinehas (Conf. 57; Mos. 1.304) and speaks of praiseworthy, violent “zeal” against the disobedient in Israel (Mos. 1.303; Spec. Laws 3.126).[922] He also praises those who express zeal for the laws in his own day by their readiness to execute those who break them (Spec. Laws 2.253).

Other models of zeal could also be used to support violent suppression of sin in the land. Elijah, who slew the priests of Baal and was God’s agent of judgment (1 Kgs 19:10, 14), was also a frequent model of zeal (1 Macc 2:58; Sir 48:2; cf. Rom 11:3). Jehu acted zealously in a bloody purge of Ahab’s partisans (2 Kgs 10:16–17), though Saul would have known that Jehu did not turn out so favorably (10:31). God’s own “zeal” or “zealous” character in the LXX is often his zealous anger that brings judgment.[923]

Many scholars believe that the Maccabees’ and Phinehas’s “zeal” for God, which led to violence, is the model for Paul’s pre-Christian persecution of Christians.[924] Although some Pharisees emphasized peace, some of them authored popular teachings that ultimately contributed to the zealot paradigm (Jos. Ant. 18.4, 9). Some suggest that Paul may have viewed Christ, especially if already viewed by some as divine Wisdom, as a dangerous rival to Torah.[925] But whereas the Maccabees and Phinehas fought for the purity of Israel’s heritage, Paul discovered that his own zeal had been misplaced, resisting the plan of Israel’s God (Acts 22:7).

In Acts 22, Paul compares his former zeal with that of his audience, in a complimentary way comparable to his captatio benevolentiae in 17:22, where he can commend his audience for being “religious”—not a trait that guaranteed salvation but nonetheless an appropriate basis for a compliment. Although this zeal is positive, it takes on potentially negative overtones in the broader context (as in 21:20): zeal for God and the law, though a positive trait, could be used to violently suppress those thought to be God’s enemies. In Paul’s own case, his misinformation caused him to persecute God’s own work (22:4).

V. PAUL THE PERSECUTOR (22:4–5)

Paul had had “zeal” just like those who had now sought to kill him (22:3); he himself had demonstrated it similarly, by fighting against Jesus’s followers (22:4–5).[926] Acts 22:4–5 is treated much more briefly here than was 22:3 because much of it overlaps with what has already been treated at Acts 9:1–17; see introductory comment to Acts 22:6–11.

(1) Paul Persecuted the Way (22:4)

As a former enemy of the Jesus movement, Paul would have more rhetorical credibility in providing evidence in its favor.[927] The mention of “the Way,” a particularly Semitic designation, makes sense in this Semitic speech (22:2),[928] although Luke also employs the term in other settings (19:9, 23; 24:14, 22; see comment on Acts 9:2). That Paul persecuted the Way “to the point of death” seems more than hyperbole. He had agreed with Stephen’s execution (8:1); he was “breathing murder” (9:1); he voted for the death of Jesus’s followers (26:10).

He was binding and imprisoning them (8:3; 9:2; 26:10), both men and women (8:3; 9:2), the binding (also 22:5) evoking his own state (21:11, 13, 33; 22:29).[929] “Handing them over” to prison presumably evokes not only Saul’s behavior in 8:3 but also the anticipated suffering of believers more generally (Luke 21:12; cf. Peter in Acts 12:4; Paul in 28:17; with a different term for “binding,” esp. 21:11), and even the mistreatment of Jesus (3:13) and others (Luke 21:16). Normally, prisons were temporary places of detention until sentencing or punishment, rather than punishment themselves;[930] Paul’s claim suggests at least some cooperation from the Sadducees (9:1–2). Paul’s own letters indicate a severe persecution in Judea, not dependent only on himself (1 Thess 2:14–16), and that he himself not merely persecuted the church (1 Cor 15:9; Phil 3:6) but tried to destroy it (Gal 1:13).[931]

(2) His Former Superiors Can Testify (22:5)

“To the brothers” here refers to brothers in the ethnic sense, as in Acts 22:1 (see comment on Acts 9:17), reinforcing Paul’s solidarity with his hearers. Although the gospel was paramount and the primary dividing line of humanity, Paul also recognized and utilized all common human ties that he had available (whether Tarsian, 21:39; Roman, 22:25–28; or Jerusalemite, 21:40–22:20) to communicate it. On Paul’s “letters” and plan to deport Jerusalem’s fugitives back to the holy city for punishment,[932] see comment on Acts 9:2.

Appeal to witnesses was standard in forensic rhetoric (see comment on Acts 10:39; for testimony from others, see 6:3; 16:2). The current high priest (on any of the proposed dates, this would be Ananias) was not the high priest who commissioned Paul (Caiaphas).[933] The current high priest would likely, however, have known Paul or (perhaps likelier) known of him, given Paul’s distinctive activities, and this high priest would have shared the collective memory of elders now in the Sanhedrin.[934] (Paul has been away for many years and does not know who is in the Sanhedrin [23:6a; perhaps 23:5]. He is certain enough of its members’ memory to appeal to it in this setting; in a recorded legal setting, however, he qualifies his claim with a prudent “if they are willing to testify” [26:5].) See further discussion of such appeals especially at Acts 26:5. Some of Paul’s hearers may not have known that the high priests once authorized someone to stamp out the Christian movement.

Though the persecution seems to have been Paul’s initiative (9:1–2) and may have ended with his conversion and the departure from Jerusalem of the last provocations to the Hellenists (9:30–31), some of the leading high priests had been involved in subversive activity against the church (cf. 23:14–15; 25:3). Such attitudes had also contributed to persecution under Agrippa (12:3). Like any movement that has existed for a long time, the Jesus movement was now too engrained in Jerusalem’s popular culture for such treatment (21:20), and so local hearers may have been dismayed to hear an “inside” source reporting on the machinations of a previous generation’s priestly authorities. By implicating them, Paul might also protect himself against future prosecution for what he now publicly “confesses” (cf. 26:12).[935]

d. Paul’s Encounter with Jesus (22:6–11)

Acts 22:6–21 is treated much more briefly here (and 22:4–5, above) than was 22:3 because much of it overlaps with what has already been treated at Acts 9:1–17 (to which the reader is therefore referred on relevant points). This section also, however, includes new developments and emphases, and the differences prove instructive.

I. NARRATIVE AND RETELLINGS

Several introductory issues help prepare for the examination of this speech. First, there are slight variations in the retellings of Paul’s conversion in Acts; second, Paul’s narration is autobiographic; and third, various rhetorical observations aid in understanding the passage.

(1) Variation in Retellings

Scholars offer various proposals to explain the function of the different reports of Paul’s conversion in Acts. Different retellings appropriate for different audiences in Acts generate a cumulative effect.[936] Whereas the conversion account in Acts 9 is the reliable narrator’s own (and hence presented as reliable and objective), the divergent repetitions provide various perspectives.[937]

These divergent perspectives need not mean that Luke envisions the subsequent retellings as slanted, however; Paul is a generally reliable (though round; cf. 15:39) character. Whereas the reports offered by Lysias and Festus diverge significantly from the narrator’s description, the differences in Acts 22 and 26 are comparatively minor (aside from the accounts mutually supplementing one another) and would not suggest to Luke’s audience that Paul distorted the accounts.[938]

(2) Telling One’s Own Story

Since Luke writes narrative, presumably for an ideal audience attracted to this genre, narratives within the narrative will better hold that audience’s attention than would detailed argument. The narratio was a standard element in forensic speeches, and it commonly precedes any argument by explaining how the current situation arose (see comment on Acts 10:37–42). Several of the speeches in Acts have extensive narrative introductions, which may rehearse the basic gospel story (such as is found in Luke’s first volume, his Gospel), or Paul’s conversion, or other significant events leading up to the speech’s occasion.

That Paul tells his own story would not appear unusual to an ancient audience. Ancient writers used autobiography where necessary;[939] Paul includes a considerable quantity of autobiographical material in Gal 1–2,[940] where, as here, he ultimately uses it in defense of the gospel rather than primarily of himself.[941] Some ancients questioned the propriety of autobiography (as a form of self-praise); but boasting was permitted if demanded by circumstances, and the circumstances Luke portrays here would be understood to justify even extreme measures.[942]

(3) Rhetorical Observations

Normally, the narratio was best kept as concise as possible, subliminally slipping in preparations for the proofs (Dion. Hal. Lysias 18). The present narratio would not have been inordinately long for a genuine speech, but it is disproportionate because Paul is interrupted after his narratio (Acts 22:22). Luke is able to provide fuller attention to this element than in many of his other speech summaries.

Although Paul’s speech is almost entirely narratio, it anticipates the proofs as a good narratio should. Paul’s original accusers charged him with preaching against the law, Israel, and the temple (21:28); clearly he is not against the law, just as Stephen was not (22:3–5, 12; cf. 6:11–14). Although Paul is not really against Israel (see 21:26), his challenge of Jerusalem’s current anti-Gentile passion (22:21) will appear so to them. But whereas, like Stephen, he values the scattering character of the Diaspora mission over the temple’s centrality (22:18–21; cf. 6:13–14; Acts 7), he can hardly be accused of opposing the temple, where he earlier prayed (22:17) and was now engaged in offerings (21:26; 24:17–18).

In describing his background as a persecutor (22:4–6), Paul, like a good rhetorician, builds further common ground even with the most hostile Aramaic-speaking hearers (cf. the same approach in Athens, 17:22–29, until his controversial claims in 17:30–31). Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the Paul within the narrative world expects to succeed in winning over most of his Aramaic-speaking, Judean audience: Jesus had already warned him that Jerusalem would not receive his message (22:18–21), although Paul may have construed the warning as applicable primarily to an earlier period in his life.[943]

When Paul recounts a vision of the risen Christ (22:7–10), his probably stunned audience hears him out. Paul is presenting to them new evidence that Jesus does in fact appear to people alive, a controversial claim that the Pharisees, who have apparently heard of it in reports about Paul’s speech, are soon after willing to grant as a possibility (23:9). That Paul’s claims about Jesus appear credible suggests the depth of the Jerusalem church’s witness during the intervening years (21:20). Yet Paul is willing to risk his credibility by further claiming that the same Jesus in another vision sends him to the Gentiles (22:21); he is concerned not only with persuading people to believe in Jesus but with laying a longer-range strategic groundwork for a worldwide mission, in keeping with Jesus’s final commands (Luke 24:47–48; Acts 1:8).

Jerusalem’s own salvation is at stake; it depends not only on believing in Jesus but on reversing its course of confrontation with the Gentiles, as Jesus also insisted (Luke 6:27–30, 35; 19:43; 21:20–21).[944] Far from being a revolutionary (Acts 21:38) or following a revolutionary Messiah (5:36–37), Paul preaches repentance for both Jew and Gentile, a message that some more moderate Jews in dialogue with Romans might hear more appreciatively (26:17, 20, 23).

II. PAUL’S DAMASCUS ROAD ENCOUNTER

Some leaders of recent revolutionary movements claimed divine inspiration (Jos. War 2.259, 261; Ant. 20.167, 169) or signs (Ant. 20.97, 168, 170). Paul’s accounts of visions (Acts 22:6–9) might link him with popular revolutionary expectations until his vision affirming the Gentiles (22:21) discredits him with the nationalists. Whereas Paul earlier listed his qualifications (22:3–4) that would be of interest to his hearers, his focus in 22:6–11 will be what rhetoricians might classify as “accidents” or “fortune”:[945] Jesus came to him unmerited.

(1) On the Road at Noon (22:6)

That Paul was pursuing his task at noon, when few would be traveling, on the road to Damascus indicates the mission’s urgency, thereby underlining his zeal for it. Travelers often lodged somewhere to avoid noonday heat (e.g., Jos. Asen. 3:2–3). (On midday rest, see discussion at Acts 10:9; 19:9.)

Although some ancient historians appealed to those skeptical of supernatural phenomena by offering nonsupernatural explanations for unusual phenomena, it is unlikely that Luke’s Paul is allowing for the idea of noon light and heat causing blindness and hallucination.[946] Such a claim might strengthen Paul’s credibility as sincere but would destroy the centrality of his testimony about Jesus, contrary to Luke’s agenda and that of Paul within the narrative world (Acts 21:13).

Likelier on a narrative level is the stark contrast of blindness (22:11) at the brightest time of day; noon blindness was a form of judgment in Deut 28:28–29.[947] Further, the blinding light of Christ’s glory had to be far brighter than the sun to have such an effect in the midst of midday brightness (Acts 22:6–11; explicit in 26:13); this fits descriptions of divine and some angelic revelations (cf. Matt 17:2; Rev 1:16; 10:1).[948]

(2) Saul Persecutes Jesus (22:7–8)

See comment on Acts 9:4–5. Both Luke and Paul in the narrative world recount the encounter fairly graphically[949]—or at least as much as Luke can afford for a retelling and Paul could afford while holding a crowd’s attention.

In Acts 22:8 Paul specifies that Jesus was “the Nazarene,” in contrast to 9:5 and 26:14. “Jesus” (Joshua) was a common Jewish name, but “Nazarene” would leave no doubt as to who is meant (see the Jewish title “Nazarenes” for believers in 24:5, although it may be an outsider title, like “Christians” in 11:26; Jesus’s followers called themselves “disciples” or “the Way”). Mention of “the Nazarene” here may reflect the title’s appeal to those concerned for a specifically Aramaic-speaking Palestinian milieu.

“Nazarene” was not a compliment (6:14; 24:5). Negative associations of “Nazareth” as an insignificant Galilean village (cf. John 1:46)[950] are possible, but it was perhaps instead negative associations with Jesus that brought Judean derision on Nazareth.[951] In any case, after years of use, “Nazarene” probably functioned more as a descriptive than as a derisive title identifying Judean believers in Jesus. The sect identified by this name was at least tolerated and probably appreciated by many of the people (Acts 21:20; cf. Jos. Ant. 20.201). And although Judeans may have considered Galilee the “frontier” of Judea,[952] Paul’s allegiance was clearly to a Palestinian, rather than a Diaspora, teacher here.

Paul’s accusers from Asia (Acts 21:27) know him by the name Paul. The name Saul would probably not stir most Jerusalemites except with the recognition that the name was Jewish; probably Paul’s Damascus road encounter is now about a quarter century old. Although Luke has already noted that Paul heard the name Saul on the road to Damascus (fitting also the language spoken, 26:14), it is possible that its use might have also helped guard his identity for the moment from those who had heard false rumors about the anti-Judaism of one Paul in the Diaspora (spread even among believers, 21:21).

(3) Partial Revelation to Companions (22:9)

Paul’s companions saw the light but apparently heard nothing, in contrast to 9:7. Since the verb can also mean “understand,” it is possible that they heard a sound but not in an intelligible manner. The classical distinction between noun cases (here regarding φωνήν) with ἀκούω may support this claim, but given that Luke writes in Koine (and this is not an atticizing passage), that distinction cannot bear the weight of this argument[953] (though neither can the general factor of different elements of the verb’s semantic range be dismissed when one compares the passages). Still, in 9:7, the companions saw no one, but in 22:9 they saw the light; when the data from the passages is combined, Luke may suggest that they experienced phenomena (such as light and sound) but that only Paul had a personal encounter.[954]

Although this explanation is certainly plausible and could well be correct,[955] by itself the grammar cannot confirm it as certain.[956] If it is not correct, another possibility is that Luke allows Paul’s retelling in Jerusalem to vary from his own account. Such minor variations were acceptable rhetorical adaptation to one’s audience, and Luke portrays Paul as a good speaker. But how would this variation communicate to Luke’s audience? Would not the companions’ hearing the message have helped strengthen his case?

We might suppose that Paul’s companions, unconverted, returned to Jerusalem and did not wish their hearing the message to be known, but would this reticence invite Paul’s “discretion” in reporting their experience? And can we expect Luke’s audience to suppose this? Perhaps this account emphasizes, alongside the objective nature of the revelation, the special nature of Paul’s commission. Although Luke does emphasize this theological claim, we are again led to ask why the companions miss more of the experience here rather than in 9:7, where it might suit his purpose just as well.

Possibly Luke does not provide a resolution to the matter simply because it was unimportant to him.[957] Although knowing that a shift in cases would not sufficiently clarify the difference in meaning, Luke did not choose to clarify further (as he could have more easily by switching verbs). More than likely, this failure to clarify the distinction suggests that he did not view variation on such details as problematic, in contrast to some of his modern commentators. It would be anachronistic to read modern historiographic definitions of errors into Luke’s ancient historiography, which allowed greater flexibility on minor details than we do (though even modern histories include some unexplained tensions because of the limited details selected for each retelling).

Acts is a relatively finished literary work (even if, as some think, a further edition was intended); Luke would have worked through it multiple times, probably securing feedback after public readings. If Luke did not clarify, it was either because he found no contradiction or because he regarded minor variations in the retellings of an account (here as in his Gospel) as inconsequential (just as most readers find his minor variations from his Markan source inconsequential in the Gospel). In view of the larger scheme of his account, regarding this variation as anything other than minor seems simply pedantic.[958]

In any case, the theology is clearer than is the best way to explain the variation: Luke affirms the principle of selective revelation (10:40–41); for Paul alone to receive the revelation in the presence of others heightens the dramatic character of Christ’s power to communicate (cf. Daniel’s vision while others experienced only terror, in Dan 10:7).[959] (See further discussion at Acts 9:7.)

(4) Entering Damascus (22:10–11)

The Lord’s answer in 22:10 parallels 9:6 but adds an intervening question. The question was easily omitted in 9:6 without altering the sense (or the appropriate answer in 9:6); its inclusion here emphasizes Paul’s willingness to obey, which might be of special interest in a context involving obedience to God (cf. 22:3).[960] The question “What shall I do?” parallels questions, often about salvation, elsewhere in Luke-Acts (2:37; 16:30; Luke 3:10, 12, 14; 10:25; 18:18; see comment on Acts 9:6). In 22:10, the Lord tells Paul to “go” to Damascus for further instruction; in 22:21, in Jerusalem, the Lord tells him to “go” to the Gentiles for ministry. Paul’s experience in 22:11 parallels 9:8; see comment there. On “noon” blindness, see comment on Acts 22:6.[961]

e. An Orthodox Prophet’s Message (22:12–16)

Jesus’s agent to Saul is known for his devoutness in the law, and he delivers (and, in the context of the rest of Acts, confirms) Jesus’s revelation of Saul’s calling to all people. Saul then “takes the plunge,” committing himself irrevocably to Jesus in baptism.

I. THE DEVOUT PROPHET (22:12–13)

Ananias’s orthodoxy makes him a suitable prophet for Paul’s audience, and his prophecy thereby confers more status on Paul. That God uses an ordinary disciple underscores the extent to which the gift of the Spirit—and, consequently, prophecy—has been democratized (2:17–18; cf. 8:4). To the account in Acts 9 Paul adds Ananias’s devoutness in the law,[962] fitting an emphasis throughout his speech.

Because there were Essenes in Damascus (if the Damascus Document’s claim to this effect is literal),[963] the proposal that devout Ananias belonged to Jewish Christians with a background in Essenism cannot be dismissed as impossible. But other Jews were also devout in the law without such a background, and Damascus’s church consisted initially of fugitives from Jerusalem (cf. 8:1, 4; 9:2; 11:19). Although these could have included former Essenes (see comment on Acts 6:7) or could have evangelized Essenes in Damascus, nothing in the title “devout” (εὐλαβής) requires this interpretation (Luke 2:25; Acts 2:5; 8:2).[964]

Others could still testify about Paul years later (Acts 22:5); Ananias was likewise well attested by others in the period Paul reports (22:12; on the phrase for “well attested” here, cf. 16:2 and see comment at Acts 6:3). Perhaps Paul omits being filled with the Holy Spirit (9:17) in 22:13 because the Spirit’s activity in the present would unnecessarily introduce another controversial issue into his speech.[965] Against this supposition, such a claim, like Paul’s vision claims (22:6–8, 17) and Peter’s appeal to the outpoured Spirit as evidence of Jesus’s messianic reign (2:17–18), would have reinforced Paul’s case. As noted above, Luke does not need to repeat every point in each retelling (and the length of his speeches implies that they are summaries, in any case, as is Luke’s direct narration in Acts 9).

II. GOD’S PROPHETIC CALLING FOR SAUL (22:14)

Not only does Ananias act as Jesus’s prophet; he delivers notice to Saul that he, too, will speak as God’s prophet (cf. the probable allusion to Num 24:16 below). Luke did not report Ananias’s corroboration of Paul’s account (Acts 22:14–16) in 9:17, and so it is of special interest here to Luke’s audience. To some extent, however, it repeats the substance of Jesus’s message to Ananias about Paul’s calling (9:15) and the record of his baptism (9:18), while allowing Paul to delay specific mention of the Gentiles until 22:21; rhetoric advised delaying particularly controversial points until later in one’s speech (as in, e.g., 17:30–31).

The title “God of our fathers” (22:14) was relevant to specifically Jewish audiences (3:13; 5:30; 7:32; 24:14).[966] The term for “appointed” or “chosen” here also appears at Paul’s call in 26:16 and Jesus’s role in 3:20 (fitting Luke’s defense of Paul). To “know God’s will” would appeal to Jewish hearers, though not to them alone.[967] Likewise, “knowledge” of God would appeal to both Jewish and Gentile audiences;[968] among many Greek thinkers, such knowledge helped conform one to the deity’s character.[969] Knowing God’s will is important for Luke, though obeying it is a higher emphasis (Luke 22:42; esp. 12:47); Paul speaks before this hostile crowd precisely because he is obeying God’s will (Acts 21:14).

“Knowing God’s will” is paralleled with “seeing the Righteous One” and “hearing his message.” This phrase suggests revelatory knowledge, including through visions (cf. 2:17; 9:12; 16:9–10; 18:9; 26:19; 27:23).[970] Paul would be a witness of what he had seen and heard (22:15), perhaps especially referring to what he had experienced on the Damascus road, including his calling and mission (on which see 26:16–18).[971]

Less obviously, these parallel lines echo an analogous visionary parallel (hears, knows, sees) in Num 24:16. This echo suggests a correspondence between Paul’s encounters with Jesus and Balaam’s encounter with the Almighty. The analogy points only to a shared experience of divine revelation, however. Despite Paul’s Gentile mission, it should not be pressed to compare Paul to Balaam as the inferior prophet of the Gentiles, whom Jewish sources viewed negatively in that role vis-à-vis their superior prophet Moses.[972] (Paul as apostle to the Gentiles compares better to Jeremiah as prophet to the nations; see comment on Acts 9:15.)

Even if the Gentile allusion is present, Paul cannot intend here an allusion to Balaam’s character, which would undercut his entire argument: Jewish sources regularly view Balaam negatively.[973] But Paul’s hearers probably would not catch the allusion to Balaam (and, in the context, would not read so much into it if they did) without further supporting cues. “The Righteous One” is a title that would not offend Paul’s Jewish contemporaries (see Acts 3:14 and comment there).

III. A WITNESS OF HIS EXPERIENCE (22:15)

Being a “witness” of what one had “seen and heard” is a common motif in Luke-Acts (Luke 2:20; 7:22; Acts 4:20; cf. 2:33).[974] In Paul’s later recital of the event, the Lord makes him a witness not only of what he has already seen (past tense, hence the resurrection appearance of Acts 22:7–8) but of what he will see in subsequent visions (26:16), reinforcing the visionary claims of 22:14 (where he “sees” and “hears” the Righteous One). In this speech, Paul’s being a “witness” connects him also with Stephen (22:20).

That Paul is here a witness “to all people” is more general than 9:15’s explicit inclusion of Gentiles; although it includes Gentiles (indeed, all of them) if taken literally, Paul’s hearers would not necessarily assume that it should be pressed so literally at this point. Paul is holding back the offense as long as possible (until 22:21) to establish as much common ground as possible in order to ensure as favorable a hearing as possible.[975]

IV. WASHING AWAY SINS (22:16)

The expression τί μέλλεις can suggest “Why do you delay?” (cf. 4 Macc 6:23; 9:1).[976] This was essentially an exhortation to act immediately.[977] Baptisms were normally immediately after (or during) conversion (Acts 2:38; 10:47–48), and the question might resemble “What hinders baptism?” (8:36; 10:47). But already by classical Greek, the phrase had come to have the extended sense of simply urging action.[978]

Luke elsewhere associates baptism with calling on Jesus’s name, as a concrete expression of that confession (2:21, 38).[979] That Jesus’s name is invoked reflects the centrality and importance of Jesus that pervaded the early Jesus movement.[980] The association of baptism with washing is natural, given the frequency of ritual lustrations throughout the ancient world.[981] The association of baptism with deliverance from sin appears elsewhere (Rom 6:3–6; Col 2:12; 1 Pet 3:21), though the same theological debates surround those texts as here. (Thus, in 1 Pet 3:21, for example, baptism saves not by removing dirt but as a statement of Christian commitment.)[982]

Likewise, other early Christian texts portray salvation as washing (1 Cor 6:10; probably Eph 5:26; cf. Titus 3:5; 2 Pet 1:9; continually, 1 John 1:7, 9; variant in Rev 1:5). Because baptism functioned as an act of conversion for Gentiles in Judaism,[983] the image is not surprising.[984] The Greek verb’s middle voice (βάπτισαι) for “be baptized” here (unique in the NT [except for Mark 7:4, which is irrelevant]) probably invites Paul’s participation in baptism.[985] This information does not affect the point, however, since most baptism was probably self-administered (dunking oneself forward),[986] albeit (in its Christian form) under supervision.

“Washing” constituted one of several images for conversion in early Christianity (see 1 Cor 6:11, using the same term; Titus 3:5; cf. Eph 5:26; 2 Pet 2:22). This image probably either reflected the experience of baptism or a common earlier biblical foundation that affected both.[987] Various earlier biblical texts refer to washing away sins; ritual texts include literal washings (Lev 14:19, 31; 16:30; Num 8:21), but other texts probably apply the image figuratively (Josh 22:17; Pss 19:12 [18:13–14 LXX]; 51:2 [50:4, 9 LXX]; Prov 20:9; Jer 2:22; 33:8 [40:8 LXX]; Ezek 36:33; 37:23; 43:22).[988] A key passage in some early Jewish circles was Ezek 36:25, in which God cleanses Israel with pure water, and its context, in which God gives them a new heart and puts his own Spirit in them.[989]

Early Christians continued to use some of these passages figuratively; see 1 Clem. 8.4; 18.3, 7, which employ the same term as Luke and cite Ps 51:2, 7 (50:4, 9 LXX) and Isa 1:16. The Gospel of John even applies Ezekiel’s water, which Ezekiel conjoins with the Spirit, directly to the cleansing Spirit (John 3:5, probably a hendiadys in view of 7:37–39).[990] Philo applies the same term, often taken from ritual washings, to spiritual purification.[991] Luke is familiar with figurative use of water imagery in Scripture (see Acts 2:17–18). The extent to which Luke is applying a metaphor will continue to be debated, but it is clear that he associates baptism with conversion (see discussion at Acts 2:38).[992]

In Acts 9:17, Ananias promises that Saul will receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit; here he summons Paul to arise and be baptized. In 9:18, Saul does receive his sight, and he also arises and is baptized (as Ananias calls for here). His being filled with the Spirit is never narrated but may be safely assumed (cf. his empowerment in 9:22; the parallel with Peter’s boldness in 9:28 and with Stephen in 9:29).

f. Paul’s Call to the Gentiles (22:17–21)

Paul now moves from the initial encounter with Jesus and the subsequent calling (or its confirmation) to a more detailed affirmation of the controversial aspect of his calling, having already sought to establish as much audience rapport as possible. In the temple, where one would expect only a true vision, he again sees Jesus (cf. 22:14 if it has future import), and he again rehearses briefly the story of his past (22:19–20). Jesus’s message to Paul that climaxes the speech (because of its “premature” ending) sends Paul to the Gentiles.

I. PAUL’S TRANCE IN THE TEMPLE (22:17)

Even more clearly than 22:14–16 (elements of which overlap with points stated or implied in Acts 9), the account narrated in 22:17–21 appears nowhere else in Acts. This passage recounts a supplemental affirmation of Paul’s call to the Gentiles, one that he recounts in the place of an earlier opportunity in the narrative (cf. 9:15; 26:17), because good orators often reserved their most controversial points (as 22:21 certainly is; see 22:22) for later in a speech, after building as much common ground as possible.

The view that Luke has simply relocated Paul’s calling to the Gentiles and contradicts his own account portrays him to be unnecessarily inept as a writer;[993] Luke himself portrays multiple affirmations of Paul’s calling (e.g., 18:9–10; 23:11; 27:24) but insists that the first was at Paul’s conversion (26:17). The reaffirmation of a calling at multiple chronological points in a narrative would not have been unfamiliar to Luke or to his first audience (cf., e.g., Gen 12:1–3, 7; 13:15–17; 15:5, 7, 18; 17:8; 18:18; 22:17–18). At least some people knew that Paul historically claimed to have many visions (2 Cor 12:1; cf. 12:9; probably also 12:2–5).

That Paul has this vision while he is praying fits the setting of some other significant visions in Luke-Acts (Acts 10:9, 30; 11:5; cf. Luke 3:21–22)[994] and invites the audience (especially within the narrative world) to consider the pious setting of the revelation about Gentiles that he will soon recount (Acts 22:21). A further confirmation of the vision’s pious setting is its location;[995] the early Christians continued to honor the temple (see comment on Acts 2:46; though Paul undoubtedly shared Stephen’s perspective on the temple’s inadequacy, cf. 7:49; 17:24).

Ancients considered temples to be especially suitable places for revelations, though these were often dreams for those who slept overnight there,[996] including in ancient Israel (cf. 1 Sam 3:3–10; 1 Kgs 3:5) and early Judaism (Jub. 32:1; 2 Bar. 34:1–36:1). Although there is no thought of Paul sleeping here, his experience may evoke that of the prophet Isaiah, who also apparently saw the Lord in the temple (Isa 6:1). Most important for Luke’s audience, however, is that Paul’s temple experience is consistent with Luke’s own depiction of divine revelation (Luke 1:22).[997]

II. WARNING TO FLEE JERUSALEM (22:18)

Earlier Paul was to hurry and be baptized (Acts 22:16); now he is to hurry and flee. The experience depicted in 22:18 occurred after his leaving Damascus (22:11) and returning to Jerusalem (22:17), if fitted into Luke’s chronology presumably regarding the Jerusalem visit reported in 9:26–30. On this occasion, Paul did try to witness in Jerusalem (9:28–29; 22:18–19); his witness was rejected (9:29; 22:18, 21), and he did have to leave quickly (9:30; 22:18; see Gal 1:18–19). Presumably this vision helped motivate his departure, though fellow disciples aided it (Acts 9:30).[998]

Paul’s testimony, which Jerusalem would reject (22:18), was the same testimony the Lord had commanded him to offer to all in 22:15 (concerning what he saw in 22:7–8); but those who rejected a testimony were not always guaranteed continuing opportunities (Luke 10:10–11; Acts 13:51). What is striking from Luke’s standpoint is the contrast between the Lord’s command here to depart quickly and Paul’s delays in other locations in Acts 14:20 and 16:40, as if to imply that God’s own people sometimes could prove the most stubborn and dangerous of all!

One recalls not only Luke’s recognition of appropriate retreats (14:6) but the need to flee from Jerusalem in light of its impending judgment (Luke 21:20–21) for killing God’s messengers (13:34–35). Prophets who were killed in and around Jerusalem (13:33–34) already included Jesus (23:46), Stephen (Acts 7:60), and James the son of Zebedee (12:2); Luke’s audience might also recall the death of James the brother of Jesus (Jos. Ant. 20.200) only several years after Paul left Judea. Luke’s view, however, is one of tragic pathos (cf. Jesus’s lament over Jerusalem, Luke 19:41–44). Although Paul was not supposed to remain and testify there before, it is appropriate for him to do so now (Acts 23:11), regardless of the cost to his life (20:22–24; 21:13).[999] He was, after all, called to testify to all (22:15); nevertheless, as the Lord had warned, his testimony would be rejected (22:22).[1000] Paul’s recitation of Jesus’s warning thus proves ironic in view of the crowd’s impending response.[1001]

III. PAUL’S OBJECTION (22:19–20)

Paul now recounts a story within a story, which in turn is embedded in Luke’s larger story. Greek epic often used stories within stories as a literary device; ancient Israelites also could allude to other stories within a story (e.g., Judg 11:16–22; 2 Sam 11:21). Paul is not the only person in Acts to offer an objection before acceding to a command (e.g., Acts 9:13–14; 10:14).

The beatings he mentions here (22:19) may have been standard synagogue beatings (2 Cor 11:24), except that the beatings mentioned here occur in connection with (and perhaps after) the prisoners’ period of detention. Later rabbis attributed Judean floggings to the hazzan of the synagogue; still later sources indicate that the judges delivered their judgments in the synagogues (also Matt 10:17).[1002] Public shame served a deterrent value. Paul may also refer, however, to beatings in prison to compel Jesus’s followers to repudiate their dangerous views (see Acts 26:11; a practice that later rabbis would not have endorsed). On imprisoning, see comment on Acts 22:4. By mentioning his participation in “beating” them, Paul further welcomes even those who have participated briefly in beating him (21:32) to join his perspective. Jewish tradition may exaggerate the number, but there were undoubtedly many synagogues in pre-70 Jerusalem (see comment on Acts 6:9).

That Paul was “approving” (συνευδοκῶν) of Stephen’s killing (22:20) echoes 8:1, the previous description of Paul’s approval and the only other use of the term in Acts. Together both claims echo the first and only other use of the term in Luke-Acts, where the law teachers prove to be witnesses against themselves that they “approve” of their ancestors killing the prophets (Luke 11:48). For many early Christians, “works” committed in the heart (Matt 5:28; 2 Pet 2:14; 1 John 3:15)[1003] or by “approval” (Rom 1:32, συνευδοκοῦσιν) counted no less than the outward acts to which they would have led had external factors not inhibited their expression.

Stephen was a witness, just like Paul in Acts 22:15;[1004] this claim thus climaxes the comparison between Stephen and Paul in the preceding context (see comment on Acts 21:28). (The claim also contrasts Stephen as the Lord’s witness with the false witnesses who testified against him [6:13].) Thus Paul was seized for the same reasons as Stephen (6:13–14; 21:28); he starts his speech like Stephen’s (7:2; 22:1) and mentions his death toward the end (22:20).[1005]

This comparison builds suspense: will Paul face the same fate as he helped bring on Stephen in Jerusalem, for the same charges? By God’s mercy and through Roman intervention, Paul does not, though he continues to suffer (cf. 9:16). But the comparison is also part of Luke’s technique of comparing his protagonists (see the commentary introduction),[1006] thereby revealing a common pattern of suffering. Stephen’s blood was “shed,” like that of the prophets (Luke 11:50) and Jesus (22:20).

IV. SENT TO THE GENTILES (22:21)

Although Acts 22:21 climaxes Paul’s narratio, for Luke it may function as something like a propositio by implying what Paul’s thesis in the speech would have been. (Luke has supplied the proofs elsewhere in his narrative and speeches and hence need not repeat them for his own audience here.) Although Paul did not bring a Gentile into the temple (21:38–39), he will not speak in a way that could sound like a repudiation of his friends and coworkers (whose presence in Jerusalem may eventually require explanation, in view of his accusers’ possible complaints). Stephen built his speech to a climax of prosecuting the judges (7:51–53), which was appropriate only for those who, like Socrates, voluntarily courted death (Epict. Diatr. 2.2.17–20). Paul does not condemn his judges, but the direction of his narrative implicitly (by rhetorical insinuation) challenges their deepest convictions.

Paul has elsewhere built common ground with an audience (Acts 17:22–29) until the climax of a controversial claim (17:30–31) that his audience then mostly rejects. He is therefore aware of the risk of speaking further; indeed, Jesus has already warned him that Jerusalem will not hear his message, at least during an earlier period of his life (22:18–21).

Paul is bound, however, to fulfill his calling and warn Jerusalem of the truth. A nonnegotiable element of his gospel in Athens was Jesus’s resurrection; through the testimony of the Jerusalem church, the resurrection is now less controversial in Jerusalem. But Paul must now emphasize what, for him, is another nonnegotiable part of the gospel, one that the Jerusalem church was not proclaiming in Jerusalem: that this message is given also to the Gentiles. Certainly salvation for Gentiles was part of Paul’s historic message (e.g., Rom 1:13–16; 3:29; 10:12; 15:18; Gal 1:16; 2:8–9; 3:8, 14, 28; Eph 3:6, 9), as Luke well knew. Jerusalem’s very rejection in the past allowed this favor to the Gentiles (Acts 22:18–21), and its imminent rejection of this part of the gospel (22:22) will propel Paul’s mission to Rome. Although Paul’s execution may lead many early Christians to think that Paul’s mission to Rome failed, it was part of God’s plan, a seed that would eventually bear fruit just as Stephen’s martyrdom had.

It is possible that Paul’s mention of the Gentile mission in 22:21 also links him, for the audience, with the work about which negative rumors were circulating (21:21); it is more certain that it evokes the charges against him (21:28), for those aware of them (cf. 21:34).

Paul’s description of the vision in 22:17–21 could be read as a defense. Although he could not deny going to the Gentiles, he could assure Jewish hearers that it had not been his choice; he had insisted that he could minister to Israel (22:19–20), but God had insisted otherwise (22:21).[1007] This sort of claim would constitute a rhetorical argument from necessity, common in defense speeches (e.g., Hermog. Issues 76.5–7; 77.20–78.21), and fits Peter’s defense in Acts 11:5–17. Nevertheless, Paul cannot but expect a hostile response; indeed, James and the elders warned him of the hostility that even of many of Jerusalem’s believers felt toward his mission (21:21), and Paul was persuaded enough of their warning to accommodate the church’s concerns (21:26). He had also been warned by the Lord Jesus himself of opposition in Jerusalem (22:18).

If Paul has been countering the charge that he is a hellenizing apostate, his admission here seems to the crowd (22:22) to confirm it instead. He speaks not only of going among Gentiles (which suited his Diaspora accusers, 21:27, but not his Aramaic-hearing audience, 21:40) but of Gentiles receiving the divine message instead of Jerusalemites (22:18, 21). Despite his initially conciliatory approach to gain a hearing, in the end he proves nearly as daring, and as prepared to die, as Stephen (7:51–60). Stephen relativized the temple’s importance in light of God’s speaking everywhere (7:2–3, 33); Paul, in the temple, is told to fulfill God’s mission among the Gentiles.

“Go” (πορεύου) recalls Jesus’s command to “go” into Damascus instead of back to Jerusalem in 22:10;[1008] now Jesus sends Paul from Jerusalem to the Gentiles. Despite the different wording, this command also may evoke Stephen’s preaching of God’s call to Abraham to depart from his people to a promised land (7:3). The command to “go” is common Greek (e.g., Luke 5:24; 7:50; 8:48; 10:37; 22:8), including for divine commands (Acts 5:20; 8:26; 9:15; 10:20); conjoined with a term for “sending,” the command here might evoke Isa 6:8, from a context significant for Luke (Acts 28:26; Luke 8:10), or possibly Jer 1:7 (cf. Judg 6:14), to which Luke’s source might allude (cf. comment on Acts 26:16–18). Luke associates μακράν with the Gentile mission as early as 2:39 (another of only five uses of μακράν in Luke-Acts). That Jesus will send Paul as “far” as the Gentiles might thus recall Isa 57:19 (one of only seven uses of μακράν in Isaiah) by way of the clearer allusion to Acts 2:39.

Thus the former approver of the killing of God’s agents (cf. Luke 11:48) now becomes one of God’s agents himself (cf. 11:49), rejection of whom counts toward the judgment against Jerusalem (11:50–51). In the context of the entire work, Paul’s preaching of a different way of dealing with the Gentiles may have been one of Jerusalem’s last chances to evade the coming war that would destroy Jerusalem (21:6, 22–24). As in 19:42–44, Jerusalem failed to recognize the time of its visitation.[1009]

Those looking for a principle applicable beyond Jerusalem would not be hard pressed to find one, however. Luke’s theme of the Gentile mission is one that demands cross-cultural, multiethnic unity within the church. Subsequent history reveals that the church in other locations has often done no better than did the church in Jerusalem and has often failed for poorer reasons. The Donatist schism (which involved Latin-Berber conflict as well as doctrinal differences) and Byzantine exploitation both weakened the church in North Africa; the schism between the Roman and Byzantine churches (including the former’s sack of Constantinople) helped the latter succumb to Islamic conquest. The colonialism, racism, and slavery practiced by Western nations with a Christian heritage (though much of the African slave trade developed from Muslim Arab models, in turn taken over especially from the Sassanians)[1010] have tarnished the church’s claims despite the strongly Christian impetus for most of the abolitionist movement.[1011] Although there are many examples in the church’s history[1012] and in contemporary missiology that better reflect Luke’s theology here, it remains evident that too many Christians have been happy to profess Luke’s writings as part of their canon while ignoring significant elements of his message.

5. Discovering Paul’s Citizenship (22:22–29)

Ironically, the crowd’s rejection of Paul for honoring Gentiles (Acts 22:21–22) nearly causes his scourging by Gentiles. But as Paul established his pious Jewish credentials in 22:2–5 (cf. 23:3–6), here he establishes his honorable Roman ones (22:25–28).

a. The Crowd’s Outcry (22:22)

The crowd’s outcry cutting short Paul’s speech when he speaks of a call to the Gentiles reveals that the real issue is ethnic prejudice. The crowd’s reaction here recalls especially the Jerusalem crowd’s response to Jesus before his execution. It also confirms the very rejection in Jerusalem that Paul’s vision announced (22:18). Following a speech mentioning Stephen’s martyrdom (22:20), it may remind the hearer that Stephen’s killers confirmed his warning of rejection as well (7:51, 54; cf. Paul in 13:41, 45).

Despite these important literary connections, it is also likely historically that a riot in Jerusalem surrounded Paul’s visit (cf. also Paul’s concern about potential trouble in Rom 15:31). Despite Luke’s obvious eagerness to refute the sedition charge reported in Acts 24:5, Luke reports another riot connected with Paul’s presence (cf. earlier 19:29–32). Although Luke emphasizes Paul’s innocence on each occasion, it was apparently difficult to ignore the recurrence of unrest at times when Paul preached his controversial message. (Paul was not violent, but he was passionately insistent about his message, as Gal 2 and other passages in his letters reveal.) Local believers in less hospitable environments were often more comfortable if Paul left town (Acts 9:25, 30; 17:10, 14; see comment on Acts 20:16).

I. INTERRUPTION

Crowds often listened to their own favored leaders but drowned out any other officials’ voices with noise (e.g., Livy 3.49.4). Although Paul is still in his narratio (or just moving past it), for Luke’s purposes enough has been said[1013]—and for very different reasons, the crowd in the narrative world apparently agrees. Likewise, interruptions appear in Acts 2:37 (at the appropriate deliberative climax) and 10:44 (just after the narratio in 10:42 transitions to proofs in 10:43, similarly to here). The interruption comes at a strategic point in each case. Indeed, Luke’s interruptions may often highlight the closing words cited.[1014]

While Luke often employs this standard literary device (on which see comment on Acts 2:37; 10:44), he does so more plausibly and tastefully than some of his detractors imply.[1015] The Judean crowds here shout against Paul for confirming the suspicion of his association with Gentiles. Why had not his Asian Jewish accusers interrupted his speech earlier, since this was their own charge (21:28)?[1016] Undoubtedly they could not understand Aramaic (or probably much spoken Hebrew);[1017] even if they had understood but could not speak, it would hardly credit them to denounce in Greek someone potentially viewed as more “Judean” and “orthodox” than themselves. The crowd could give credence to Paul rather than to his accusers—until his own words seemed to confirm the charge that some had raised against him.

II. CONNECTIONS WITH OTHER LUKAN RIOT SCENES

This riot contrasts with the riot in 19:23–34, which had probably increased the enmity of the Asian Jews in 21:27–29. In the Jerusalem temple there was no one to prevent Paul from speaking (contrast 19:30–31 with 21:40), and no official to insist that he and his colleagues had not defiled a temple (contrast 19:37 with 21:28). The threat of Roman intervention could more easily tame Ephesus’s civic pride than Judean nationalism.[1018] In both cases, however, some sort of civic authority provided a defense against mob action; Luke views the state as a potential protector rather than as a persecutor of the apostolic message (closer to Rom 13:1–7 than to Rev 13:1–18).

That Paul’s hearers lifted their voices[1019] contrasts with their silence in Acts 21:40–22:2 but resembles the crowd reaction in 7:57 and Luke 23:23. The crowd, previously crying, “Away with him!” (Acts 21:36), now picks up with the same cry with which it left off, bracketing Paul’s dialogue with the tribune and his speech to the crowd (which highlight the crowd’s injustice).[1020] Now to “away with him” the crowd adds explicitly, “from the earth”—that is, to death (made more explicit in its following cry, that he should not be permitted to live).

Precisely the same pattern appears in Luke’s passion narrative: the crowd in Luke 23:18 cries, “Away with him [Jesus],” and in 23:21 more explicitly cries, “Crucify him!”[1021] The particular wording “Away from the earth” is significant. “Taking up” Paul’s life “from the earth” echoes the Isaiah servant quote in Acts 8:33 (where Luke applies it to Jesus; Isa 53:8, using the same words), just as Paul fulfills an Isaian servant passage in Acts 13:47. Although most in the crowd presumably do not know Paul’s name, their “such a one” (τὸν τοιοῦτον; NRSV: “such a fellow”) could well reflect the derisive use of conspicuous-anonymity conventions.[1022]

III. REJECTED PROPHET AND IMPENDING JUDGMENT

In view of Judean nationalism and Roman mismanagement of the province, Paul’s experience of rejection is not surprising. For example, Josephus recounts a prophet who, in the midst of Judean prosperity in 62 C.E., announced impending judgment on Jerusalem (War 6.300–301) and was severely repudiated and punished by the municipal aristocracy (6.302–4).

That Paul should not be allowed[1023] to live (repeated in different words in Acts 25:24) indicates that the crowd would approve of murdering Paul, Christ’s witness, as he had once approved of murdering Christ’s witness Stephen (22:20). That Paul is rejected in Jerusalem, essentially his hometown (22:3), fits the pattern suggested by Jesus that prophets are rejected in their hometowns (Luke 4:24)[1024] as he was in Nazareth (4:23, 28–29). It also fits the paradigm of prophets not suffering outside Jerusalem (13:33) and being killed by their own people (Acts 7:52). Greeks also understood that condemning an innocent person invited divine judgment on a city (Max. Tyre 3.8, on Socrates’s condemnation).

Whereas some themes in Luke-Acts are simply repeated, this theme is also developed. Two generations earlier, Simeon and Anna were prophetic figures speaking in the temple (Luke 2:25–38), which also hosted the ministry of the godly priest Zechariah (1:8–23). The temple at that time was a place hospitable to God’s message. Simeon also prophesied that Jesus would be a light to the nations (2:32); the temple was hospitable to God’s plan for the Gentiles. But oppression under prefects and procurators and the rise of a new nationalism under and since Agrippa I had blunted the voice of the Spirit. The promised judgment would come in a generation that merited it (cf. Gen 15:16).

Jerusalem’s central role here fits the rest of Luke’s narrative. The Gospel is framed by revelation in Jerusalem (emphasizing the church’s heritage), but Acts moves from Jerusalem to Rome, emphasizing the church’s mission. Paul’s rejection in Jerusalem, following the model of Jesus, fits the larger pattern in his ministry, of going to Gentiles when synagogues reject his message; it also provides a partial theological explanation for Jerusalem’s destruction and the transition of focus to the heart of Luke’s Gentile world.

Jerusalem’s rejection of its prophets, including the Messiah, warranted judgment. Jesus came for Jerusalem’s salvation (Luke 2:38), which included Israel’s exaltation (2:32) and political deliverance (1:52, 54, 68–71, 74) as well as spiritual deliverance (1:77–79). But Jesus also announced Jerusalem’s judgment in the nearer future (19:42–46; 21:20–24). The reader of Luke-Acts knows the prophecy of Luke 21 (and probably its fulfillment). No stone would be left on another in the temple (21:6); Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies (21:20) and leveled (19:44) because it did not recognize the time of its visitation (19:44).[1025] Thus would be fulfilled the vengeance prescribed in the OT (21:22; cf. 11:50–51).[1026]

In contrast to Peter’s Pentecost speech (Acts 2:41), Paul’s “Pentecost” (cf. 20:16) speech reactivates a riot instead of yielding converts; the moment of protest, however, is significant. Since Peter’s speech a generation before, the Jesus movement has become more tolerated as a sect within Judaism; the local political situation, however, has increased the tension with Gentiles. If Luke writes for a predominantly Gentile audience after 70 C.E., Paul’s agenda appears prescient and heroic; Paul’s stance not only refutes the charges against him (24:5; 25:8) but also dissociates him from the Judean revolt of 66–70, which for many must have discredited Jewish messianism. Paul’s Roman custody, then, should not be an embarrassing memory to the Gentile churches, nor should the riot in Jerusalem. Paul was following God’s plan to help the Gentiles.

b. Cloaks and Dust (22:23)

The crowd’s actions with their cloaks and dust both suggest strong emotion. In the case of the cloaks, Luke may also insinuate the crowd’s guilt.

I. THROWING OFF CLOAKS

Ironically, on the level of Luke’s audience, the mob’s members throwing off their own cloaks reveals their own guilt. By themselves, the words would not demand this interpretation. In a hot climate, people often strip off clothes for exercise or a fight (see comment on Acts 7:58),[1027] and the ἱμάτια represent the outer garments here, which might not prove strictly necessary for warmth as late in the season as Pentecost. Commentators note that the expression can mean literally casting off clothing (as in Lucian Syr. G. 51)[1028] or simply waving it, the way some were known to wave their togas (Ovid Am. 3.2.74).[1029]

Casting off garments was probably similar[1030] to rending them, which in both Greek[1031] and Jewish[1032] culture signified mourning and hence also horror over blasphemies against God’s honor[1033] (as in Acts 14:14). Ironically, the reader knows that Paul opposes blasphemy (14:14), that accusations of blasphemy against Jesus and his agents are false (6:11; Luke 5:21) and risk being blasphemous themselves (Luke 12:10; 22:65; 23:39; Acts 13:45; see esp. 18:6, involving clothing), and that it was Paul’s preconversion agenda that would have proliferated blasphemy (26:11; on the term’s general meaning, see comment on Acts 6:11).

Luke probably insinuates the crowd’s guilt, however, because the description here recalls 7:58, where Luke apparently convicts Stephen’s false witnesses by letting them strip themselves instead of Stephen; by similar (except more violent) language here, Luke reveals the guilt of Paul’s mob accusers. The likelihood that an allusion to Stephen’s accusers is in view is reinforced by the recollection of that event in the immediately preceding context (22:20).[1034]

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