Apostle Pauls view of the Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Apostle Pauls view of the Law - Essay Example His Hebrew name was Saul and while still a Pharisee he persecuted the Christians. He was a person of prominence in the holy city of Jerusalem and had supervised the stoning of a Christian named, Stephen. As Paul himself says in Gal. 1.13 and also in Gal. 1.23, â€Å"I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it†. After the incident of murdering Stephen, Paul asked permission from the religious authorities to go to Damascus and persecute the Christians there. On his way to Damascus he had a vision of the Christ rising from the dead, and this vision made him temporarily blind. It was a pivotal moment in Sauls life and it changed the course of both, his life and the history of the world. On reaching Damascus still blind, Saul was treated by Ananias, and later baptized to Paul and Christianity by the same person. On changing religion, now he became the persecuted and had to flee to save himself from the Jews. St. Paul as he was known later was one of t he earliest Christian missionaries along with St. Peter and his fellow apostle, James. St. Paul is credited with writing the thirteen epistles in the New Testament though now speculation has arisen as to whether he is the actual author of six out of the credited thirteen. Amidst all the authors of the New Testament Paul is the most influential one of all. Pauls view of the law as we can see from the gospels written in the form of letters to the Galatians and the Romans is the most controversial part in the studies on New Testament. It has also been said that the two letters written to Galatians and Romans contradict each other in context to the laws, as Paul changed his views while writing them. However a closer look into the two letters reveal that they complement each other while Paul talks about the Law and there is nothing to show his contradictory talk on it. Other academicians speculate that there was no study or understanding of the Laws by Paul, he just responded