When Was Paul Called?

The book of Acts nowhere states in which calendar year Paul was called on the road to Damascus. Yet there is enough information to approximate that year with reasonable accuracy. 34 AD emerges prominently. The starting point is that Jesus Christ died and rose in 30 AD. This dating is not undisputed, but it is widely defended. It also fits the remarkable fact that exactly forty years lie between Jesus’ death and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD – a period for which both the “sign of Jonah” (Matt. 12:39-41) and an ancient Jewish tradition provide interesting indications. That argument has been discussed (in Dutch) more extensively elsewhere on the GoedBericht.nl website and will not be addressed further here.

a fixed point in time

An important historical anchor is found at the end of Paul’s second journey. In Corinth he is brought before the tribunal of Gallio:

“Now, Gallio being proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord assaulted Paul, and they led him to the dais,”
—Acts 18:12

Gallio is also known outside the Bible. An inscription from Delphi makes it possible to date his term as proconsul of Achaia to around 51/52 AD. This gives us one of the most important fixed points in the chronology of Acts.

By then Paul had already been in Corinth for quite some time. Acts records a stay of a year and six months (Acts 18:11). Before that, during his second journey, he had visited Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens, among other places. That entire journey began only after the apostolic conference in Jerusalem in Acts 15. We therefore arrive at a date for that conference several years before Gallio, around 48/49 AD. This also fits Acts 18:2, where Paul meets Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth. They had “recently come from Italy” because Emperor Claudius had ordered the Jews to leave Rome, an event generally dated to around 49 AD. In the chronology followed here, the apostolic conference is dated to 48 AD. This dating was also followed in the chronology previously presented on this website.

fourteen years back

This makes one statement by Paul himself particularly important. Concerning his visit to Jerusalem, he writes:

“Thereupon, after the lapse of fourteen years, I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also along with me.”
—Galatians 2:1

This visit corresponds to the apostolic conference of Acts 15. Not only does Paul go to Jerusalem with Barnabas in both cases, the subject is also the same: the position of believers from the nations in relation to circumcision and law. In Galatians, Titus, an uncircumcised Greek, is even mentioned as a concrete example (Gal. 2:3).

The “fourteen years” of Galatians 2:1 are sometimes added to the three years Paul mentions earlier (Gal. 1:18). In that case, approximately seventeen years would lie between his calling and the apostolic conference. But Paul’s argument gives little reason to do so. His autobiographical review begins with his calling, when God unveiled His Son in him (Gal. 1:15-16). The visit to Jerusalem three years later is merely an intermediate point in that account and serves to make clear that his apostleship and evangel were not dependent on Jerusalem.

It therefore makes sense to reckon the fourteen years of Galatians 2:1 from that same starting point—his calling. If the apostolic conference took place in 48 AD, the calculation is simple:

48 − 14 = 34 AD.

Moreover, that result fits the course of Acts remarkably well. Counting seventeen years would take us back to around 31 AD and, assuming Christ’s death and resurrection in 30 AD, would leave hardly any room for all the events of Acts 1–8.

why the year 34 matters

Thus the year 34 cannot be established with absolute certainty, but it does emerge through a clear and independent chronological route. And that is precisely what makes this result interesting. Elsewhere on this website it has been argued extensively that Daniel’s seventieth year-week covers the seven years from Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan to the stoning of Stephen. The death of Christ stands in the middle of this week. Daniel 9:27 foretells that the Messiah would confirm the covenant for one week and, in the middle of that week, cause sacrifice and offering to cease.

If Jesus’ baptism is placed in the fall of 26 AD, three and a half years later brings us to His death and resurrection in the spring of 30 AD. Another three and a half years brings us to the fall of 33 AD, at the stoning of Stephen. Up to that point, the message to Israel in Jerusalem is confirmed by miracles and signs. Stephen himself also “did great miracles and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). With his final testimony before the Sanhedrin, this period reaches its decisive end. In the previously presented timeline, the seventieth year-week was therefore depicted as two periods of three and a half years: Jesus’ baptism, His death in the middle, and the stoning of Stephen at the end.

It is precisely at the stoning of Stephen that Saul first appears prominently. The witnesses put off their garments at his feet (Acts 7:58), Saul endorses Stephen’s assassination, and he subsequently becomes the great persecutor of the ecclesia (Acts 8:1-3). Shortly afterward, Acts 9 records his calling on the road to Damascus. According to this chronology, the seventieth year-week therefore ends in the fall of 33 AD, after which Paul is called in 34 AD. And that is exactly the year at which we had arrived by an entirely different route, through Galatians 2 and the apostolic conference.

the year 4000

In the Biblical chronology, this also marks a significant transition. The seventieth year-week runs from 3993 through 3999 AH: seven years. The final year, 3999 AH, is moreover a sabbatical year. With the end of that year, the seventieth year-week also ends and the year 4000 AH begins. According to the synchronization with our calendar, that is 34 AD—the year in which Paul is called.

Thus two calculations constructed independently of one another arrive at the same point. From Paul’s own information, the route leads through the apostolic conference and the fourteen years of Galatians 2 to 34 AD. From Daniel’s seventieth year-week, the line runs from Jesus’ baptism in 26, through His death in 30, to Stephen in 33, after which the year 4000 AH begins. Precisely at that transition, the man appears on the scene who, more than anyone else, will determine the course of the remainder of Acts: Paul, the apostle of the nations.

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