Paul’S Missionary Career And Its Chronology
PAUL’S MISSIONARY CAREER AND ITS CHRONOLOGY
The Problem of Sources
While referring occasionally to his early life, past travels, and future plans, Paul’s letters do not provide us with the kind of information necessary to reconstruct a "life of Paul.” This is no more than what should be expected. Paul wrote his letters to deal with specific issues, and only where it was important to those issues, or where Paul was requesting prayer for a certain situation, does he mention his own history. Traditionally, then, an outline of Paul’s missionary career has been built on the more detailed and sequential data provided by Acts, with Paul’s letters fit into the general scheme given by Luke. But several scholars contest the legitimacy of such an approach. They argue that the Pauline letters provide the primary data for reconstructing a life of Paul and that Acts, because its historical accuracy is questionable, should be used only in those specific places where its accuracy can be validated or where it corroborates data attained from a study of the letters. 35 Outlines of Paul’s career and its chronology constructed on the basis of these constraints look quite different from traditional models. There are two particular points at which most revisionist models disagree with the usual chronology developed on the basis of Acts. The first is the placement of the apostolic council. Luke places it before the second missionary journey, but the data of the Epistles, it is argued, suggest that the council followed the second journey. The second major area of difference is the number of visits Paul made to Jerusalem. The letters of Paul refer to only three: three years after Paul’s conversion, the convening of the apostolic council, and the occasion when he delivered the collection money at the end of the third missionary journey. The two additional visits mentioned in Acts—the famine-relief visit of Acts 11:27-30 and the visit between the second and third missionary journeys in 18:22—are therefore deemed to be unhistorical. Some revisionist schemes differ at many more points from the traditional outline of Paul’s life based on the sequence of Acts. 36 It is questionable, however, whether such revisions are helpful, let alone necessary. Paul’s own writings are indeed the primary material for a study of his life. But since his own writings simply do not provide the necessary data for the piecing together of a chronology of his life, it is entirely legitimate to turn to other sources. Acts must be considered to be a reliable source of such data. It was written, as we have argued (see chap. 6 above), by Luke, a companion of Paul, and we can expect his information about the apostle’s movements to be quite good. Moreover, we have found good reason to respect Luke’s historical accuracy. This does not mean that we should prefer Acts to Paul’s letters when they differ. But many of the differences that have been found are the product of certain specific interpretations that are by no means the only ones possible.
A careful comparison of Paul’s statements about his movements with the movements of Paul recorded in Acts reveals an amazing degree of correspondence. 37 The relegation of Acts to a secondary status in the construction of a life of Paul is simply not legitimate. We will therefore use Acts as a key source in the following sketch of Paul’s missionary career and its chronology. Having established a relative sequence of movements based on both Acts and the Epistles, we will then work toward an absolute chronology.