Seven letters still reshape Christian thought after two millennia
Paul of Tarsus—born Saul around 5 AD, dead about 64/65—never met Jesus in life yet became Christianity's great traveling theologian. Fourteen New Testament books were traditionally his; scholars treat seven as undisputed and several others as debated or pseudepigraphical. Latin and Orthodox traditions alike still drink from his epistles.
Acts and his letters map journeys, preaching, and claimed miracles. Not one of the Twelve, he reports a post-resurrection revelation. His Hebrew name Saul may echo the Benjaminite king; Paulus, meaning small, was a second name for Roman contexts, not a conversion rename. Roughly half the narrative material in Acts and the letters tracks his routes.
Undisputed authentic letters sit at the core; Ephesians, the Pastorals, and others are widely judged later compositions in his name, while Colossians and 2 Thessalonians stay contested, and Hebrews' Pauline claim is rejected by most modern scholars. That sorting still leaves a towering corpus of argument about law, grace, and Gentile inclusion.
Western and Eastern churches treat him as foundational for theology, worship, and pastoral practice. The apostle who began as a persecutor became, through contested texts and undisputed ones, the most quoted architect of Christian identity after the gospels.
Most of what is known about his early years comes from Acts, since his letters say little about life before conversion. He was probably born between 5 BC and AD 5 in Tarsus, a busy trading port in the Roman province of Cilicia famed for its academy, into a devout Jewish family. He described himself as a Hebrew of the tribe of Benjamin and a Pharisee, and Acts says he earned a living making tents or working leather. While still young he went to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel, a celebrated teacher of Jewish law. Acts first calls him Paul on Cyprus, long after the Damascus-road vision, treating the two names as interchangeable. Early Christian writers outside the New Testament, among them Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp, already cite him.
Source: Paul the Apostle
