Paul was wealthy

[TedM]

Arguments for/against?

[stephan happy huller]

He founded a whole new religion that eventually took over the world. Hard to do when your broke.

[Andrew]

He's described as a tentmaker, which doesn't sound like the kind of job a wealthy person would have, but what do I know.

[TedM]

How could he attain an appointment as 'persecutor' of Christians? Might that be more likely if he came from means?

Does his only reference to a family member by name mean anything?: "Greet Herodion, my kinsman"

[TedM]

Peter mentioned that long letters normally would suggest wealth.

[TedM]

In 1 Cor, Paul says he is poor (at least at that time):

1 Corinthians 4:11

To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless;

In 1 Cor 6 9: 10

10 as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things.

[TedM]

http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/eisenman.html

It is not very likely that Paul could have made the miraculous escapes he does without the involvement of some combination of these powerful Herodian/Roman forces. Nothing less is conceivable under the circumstances of the attack on Paul in the Temple and his rescue by Roman soldiers witnessing these events from the Fortress of Antonia (Acts 21:31f). This episode, too, makes mention of a nephew and possibly a sister of Paul (identities otherwise unknown) resident in Jerusalem, but also presumably carrying Roman citizenship. It is they who warn him of a plot by "zealots for the Law" or others interested in Nazirite oath procedures to kill him. Without this kind of intervention, Paul could never have enjoyed the comfortable protective custody he does in Caesarea and never been packed off in relative security to Rome (where Felix and Drusilla precede him). He arrives with funds gathered in overseas fund-raising from many of the areas into which Herodians have expanded and, in part because of this, those areas where circumcision had become such an issue because of the marital practices of Herodian princesses.

[outhouse]

He founded a whole new religion that eventually took over the world. .

You have to be kidding me?


He was a very very small cog in the wheel that developed christianity from different groups that evolvedinto the dogma set after 400 CE

[outhouse]

Arguments for/against?

He was poor.

He was a prisoner much of the time.

[steve43]

Paul had wealthy family in Jerusalem. They might have had the means to move from Tarsus to Jerusalem just for the purpose of getting Paul (Saul) fast-tracked on the Priesthood pathway. Saul was as educated as any Temple priest.

Felix, when he arrested Paul, was hoping for a ransom to be paid. Felix kept him for two years.

I vote for as wealthy as he wanted to be. Likely he received enough in donations to live off that.