“Brought up in this city” (Acts 22:3)
“Brought up in this city” (Acts 22:3)
This phrase in Paul’s speech on the temple steps has given rise to a debate about whether Paul’s early years were spent in Tarsus or Jerusalem. The issue has attracted so much attention because it figures in the debate about Paul’s thought world: was he indebted more to the Greek world or to the Jewish world for his teaching? The contribution of this phrase to the debate depends on two issues. First, does "this city” refer to the city in which Paul is speaking (Jerusalem) or to the city he has just mentioned (Tarsus)? Nigel Turner has argued for the latter, 5but the former is more likely, considering the setting of the speech. The second issue is the punctuation of the verse, the two possibilities being clearly represented in the NIV and RSV:
NIV: I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers....
RSV: I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers....
The NIV, by putting a period after "this city,” separates "brought up” from "under Gamaliel,” and this suggests that "brought up” refers to Paul’s parental nurturing as a young child. Paul would then be implying that, although born in Tarsus, he was raised in Jerusalem. 6The RSV rendering, on the other hand, by linking "brought up” with "at the feet of Gamaliel,” requires that "brought up” refer to Paul’s rabbinic education, a process that would have begun in his early teens. On this interpretation of the verse, Paul would perhaps be suggesting that he was brought up in Tarsus, moving to Jerusalem only when he went away to school. 7 But the punctuation represented by the NIV should probably be adopted. The three-stage sequence—born/brought up/educated—was a natural autobiographical pattern. Nevertheless, this does not solve the matter, nor is it the decisive point in the debate about Paul’s background. On the one hand, Paul would have had ample opportunity to pick up Hellenistic ideas during his education in Jerusalem (Hellenism was by no means unknown in Jerusalem) or during his decade-long ministry in Tarsus after his conversion. On the other hand, even if Paul did spend the first ten or so years of his life in Tarsus, he need not have been imbued with Hellenistic ideas. Paul himself stresses that he was a "Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil. 3:5), apparently meaning that both his parents and he himself were, linguistically and culturally, Jewish and Palestinian in their orientation (see 2 Cor. 11:22, and the contrast between Hebrew and Hellenist in Acts 6:1). The home in which he was raised, whether located in Tarsus or in Jerusalem, was one in which Aramaic was spoken and in which traditional Palestinian Jewish customs were preserved. 8So to the extent that Paul’s background influenced his theology, that influence was mainly Palestinian and Jewish. But having said this, we must also be careful not to erect rigid distinctions between "Hellenistic” and "Palestinian” or "Hellenistic” and "Jewish.” That there was a difference is clearly implied by Paul’s own claims. But that the difference can be exaggerated has been revealed by the extent to which Hellenistic ideas had penetrated Palestine and Judaism in the first century. 9"In antiquity ideas did not flow in pipes,” 10and Paul’s world was one in which he was exposed to many different influences and combinations of influences.