Beyond the Torah at Antioch: The Probable Locus for Paul's Radical Transition

Abstract

The fragments of epistolary evidence we possess, principally in Galatians, suggest the perhaps surprising biographical judgment that Paul did not abandon a torah-based ethic for his converts from paganism immediately after his call near Damascus. Moreover, recent “Lutheran” criticisms of this biographical judgment lack cogency. Paul seems to have abandoned a torah-based ethic for his converts from paganism, as Acts 11:26 suggests, only after encountering this radical Christian praxis in Syrian Antioch, and hence after his first visit as an apostle to Jerusalem and two to three years after his call.