Christianity, in a real sense, has two founders: Jesus and Paul. Paul never met Jesus. He appears in early Christian history only after Jesus' death and presumed resurrection, as a staunch Jewish persecutor of Jesus' Jewish followers. Many scholars argue that Jewish authorities sought to suppress the Christians among them because they feared additional hardships under the Romans if they were in any way connected to the followers of Jesus, who were viewed by the empire as insubordinate threats. Paul's extraordinary conversion to Christianity is recounted in Acts of the Apostles, which also traces his quick rise to prominence in the early Christian communities throughout the regions of Palestine and Asia Minor.
Given that Jesus lived only 33 years and left his teaching to no disciple in particular, Paul's exceptional gifts served the early Christian community well. Paul was a skillful organizer, tireless writer, traveler, and thinker—an apparent "workaholic." Well-trained in both Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions, he had a forceful personality and carried the important credential of Roman citizenship. Although his only encounter with Jesus was in a vision on the road to Damascus, Paul provided what became the definitive philosophical and theological interpretation of Jesus' life, teaching, and death. It is no accident that much of the Christian New Testament comprises Paul's letters to the various faith communities in Rome, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, and so on.
Paul
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