St Paul: did he live once, thrice or not at all?
by Gunnar Heinsohn
Portrait of Saint Paul based on surviving images from the 1st millennium AD, created by the State Criminal Police Department of the Land of North-Rhine - Westphalia, Düsseldorf, Germany (2008).
“It might come as a surprise, but outside our New Testament records we have very little additional historical information about Paul other than the valuable [although 300 years later; GH] tradition that Jerome [347-420 AD] preserves for us that he was born in the Galilee. The early Christian writers of the second century (usually referred to as the “Apostolic Fathers”) mention his name less than a dozen times, holding him up as an example of heroic faith, but nothing of historical interest is related by any of them...“ Even Paul's “own” works cannot be taken as proof of his existence. After all, text-critical research has found that of the thirteen letters (plus Epistle to the Hebrews) attributed to Paul – a weighty component of the New Testament – seven at most can securely be traced to one and the same author.