The Chronology of Paul’s Missionary Career
The Chronology of Paul’s Missionary Career
Combining the evidence of Acts with indications in the letters of Paul enables us to establish a relative chronology of the life of Paul. But since neither Luke nor Paul furnishes us with any absolute dates in the career of Paul, the determination of absolute dates depends on the correlation of events mentioned in Acts and Paul with externally verifiable dates. The most important such event is Paul’s appearance before the Roman proconsul of Achaia, Gallio, while he was in Corinth on the second missionary journey.
48 Inscriptions enable us to determine that Gallio was proconsul of Achaia from July 51 to July 52. 49 Luke suggests that Paul left Corinth rather quickly after the encounter with Gallio—"some time” (Acts 18:18) always denotes a rather short time in Acts (see also 9:23, 43; 27:7). This means that the extreme possibilities for Paul’s eighteen-month stay in Corinth are spring 49 to autumn 51, and spring 50 to autumn 52. If, as many surmise, the Jews took advantage of a new proconsul to press their case against Paul, the former dates are slightly more likely. Either sequence of dates also fits Luke’s reference to the edict of Claudius (18:2), which was probably issued in 49. 50
This relatively secure date in the middle of Paul’s missionary career is a fixed point from which we can work both backward and forward. Working backward first, an arrival of Paul in Corinth in the spring of A.D. 49 would place the beginning of the second missionary journey sometime in the summer or autumn of 48. The apostolic council must have been shortly before this, probably also in 48, with the first missionary journey in 46-47 or 47-48. This in turn puts Paul’s famine-relief visit to Jerusalem in 45-47. This date fits Josephus’s references to a severe famine in 45 or 46. One problem with this date for the famine relief visit is that the death of Herod Agrippa I, narrated by Luke in the following chapter (Luke 12:19b-23), took place in 44. But there is every reason to think that Luke has arranged his material here topically and that the description of Agrippa’s death is placed here simply because it is a natural sequel to the story of his persecution of believers (12:1-19a).
If the famine relief visit was in A.D. 45-47 and the "fourteen years” of Galatians 2:1 is to be reckoned inclusively and from the time of Paul’s conversion (see above), then Paul’s conversion could be dated anywhere from 32 to 35. Two other considerations impinge on the date for Paul’s conversion. First, a certain amount of time, probably at least a year, must have elapsed between Jesus’ crucifixion and Paul’s conversion, to allow for the events of Acts 1-8.52 If the crucifixion is dated in A.D. 30, then the entire range of dates—32 to 35—is still open. But if Jesus was crucified in 33, then we are limited to the latter part of the range only. Second, Paul’s reference to the involvement of King Aretas in seeking his arrest in Damascus (2 Cor. 11:32) may favor a date for this event after 37, since it is thought that only after this date would Aretas have had any influence over Damascus. 53 And Paul’s escape from Damascus, as we have seen, must have taken place about two years or so after his conversion. Though there is considerable uncertainty about the date of Jesus’ crucifixion, these two factors slightly favor the latter end of our range of dates for Paul’s conversion—perhaps 34 or 35. The difficulties involved in interpreting Paul’s reference to Aretas do not allow for any dogmatism, 54 so an earlier date for Paul’s conversion cannot be excluded.
Working forward from the Gallio date, we find Paul ending the second missionary journey in the late summer or autumn of A.D. 51, and beginning the third probably relatively quickly, perhaps in the spring of 52. It is uncertain how long it would have taken Paul to reach Ephesus, but we can assume he was in that city from about mid or late 52 to mid or late 55. After leaving Ephesus, Paul may have spent considerable time in Macedonia or traveled to Illyricum; 55 at any rate, it is likely that he did not begin his return trip to Palestine until the spring of 57. This conclusion rests on the growing consensus among scholars that Festus must have replaced Felix as governor of Judea in 59. 56 Since we know that Paul’s two-year imprisonment in Caesarea ended shortly after Festus replaced Felix (Acts 25:1-12), then he must have returned to Palestine in the spring of 57. (We know that Paul’s return to Jerusalem occurred in the spring because the Feast of Unleavened Bread took place during the trip [Acts 20:6] and because Paul was anxious to reach Jerusalem before Pentecost [20:16].)
If this reasoning is correct, Paul began his voyage to Rome in the autumn of 59 (Acts 27:9, stating that "sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Fast,” shows that it was autumn), 57 and he arrived in Rome in the spring of 60. On the assumption that Paul was released after the two-year period Luke mentions in Acts 28:30-31, he engaged in further ministry in the East (e.g., Ephesus [see 1 Timothy] and Crete [see Titus]) during the years 62-64. Paul was probably rearrested at the time of Nero’s persecution and executed shortly thereafter (64 or 65). Table 6 summarizes our suggestions for the chronology of Paul’s missionary career.
Table 6
Chronology of Paul’s Missionary Career
Event
Probably date
Conversion
A.D. 34-35 (or earlier)
Ministry in Damascus and Arabia
35-37
First Jerusalem Visit
37
Ministry in Tarsus and Cilicia
37-45
Famine-Relief Visit
45, 46, or 47
First Missionary Journey
46-47 or 47-48
Apostolic Council
48 or 49
Second Missionary Journey
48 or 49-51
Third Missionary Journey
52-57
Caesarean Imprisonment
57-59
Voyage to Rome
59-60
Roman Imprisonment
60-62
Ministry in the East
62-64
Death
64-65