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Did God change Saul's name to Paul?: Difference between revisions

Did God change Saul's name to Paul? (view source)

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=What does the Bible say?=
=What does the Bible say?=


As is well known, God prominently changed the names of two Old Testament patriarchs: Abram to Abraham (Gen. 17:5) and Jacob to Israel (Gen. 32:28).  William Branham thought that something similar happened to Paul when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus Road (Acts 9).
The Olaments Test contains many examples of people’s names being changed to better fit their circumstances. God changed the names of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah (Gen 17:5, 15); He also changed Jacob’s name to Israel (Gen 32:28). Moses changed Hoshea’s name to Joshua (Num 13:16).<ref>John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ru 1:20.</ref> William Branham thought that something similar happened to Paul when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus Road (Acts 9).


There is no scriptural evidence, however, to support a name change for Saul/Paul. Here are six pieces of biblical evidence that prove William Branham's view to be completely wrong.
The suggestion that Saul’s name was changed to Paul at the time of his conversion has absolutely no support in the New Testament.<ref>C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, International Critical Commentary (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 48.</ref>


==Jesus addresses him as “Saul, Saul” in Acts 9:4==
Here are several examples that illustrate this
 
==Jesus calls him as “Saul” in Acts 9:4==


In Acts 9:4, we read:
In Acts 9:4, we read:
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:''And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Acts 9:4</ref>
:''And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Acts 9:4</ref>


Nothing in the narrative suggests Jesus subsequently changed Saul’s name. In Galatians 1:15–17, Paul speaks of being set apart before birth to preach to the Gentiles, but there is no mention of any name change.
==Ananias refers to him as “Saul” after his conversion==
 
==Ananias addresses him as “Saul” after his conversion==


Acts 9:17 states:
Acts 9:17 states:
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:''So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Ac 9:17.</ref>
:''So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Ac 9:17.</ref>


There is no mention of a name change, and he is still calling him “Saul” after Christ appears to him.
==The Holy Spirit refers to him as “Saul”==
 
==The Holy Spirit calls him “Saul” before his first missionary trip==


Acts 13:2 says,  
Acts 13:2 says,  


:''While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” <ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Ac 13:2.</ref>
:''While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” <ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), Ac 13:2.</ref>
It would be odd for the Holy Spirit to keep calling this man by his “persecutor” name if Jesus had changed it to his “apostle” name four chapters earlier.


==After the conversion experience, he is called “Saul” 14 more times==
==After the conversion experience, he is called “Saul” 14 more times==
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#Acts 13:9
#Acts 13:9


Again, this would be odd if Jesus had changed his name to Paul.
==What caused the shift in the name?==
 
==The decisive shift from “Saul” to “Paul” in Acts happens only once Paul sets off on his missionary journeys away from Jerusalem.==
 
This subtle shift occurs in Acts 13:13: “Now Paul and his companions set sail.” The person who “changes” his name is not Jesus, but Luke.
 
==Saul and Paul were two names for the same person all along==
 
Acts 13:9 is the clincher: “But Saul, who was also called Paul, [was] filled with the Holy Spirit.” Here the converted person is being called both Saul and Paul—not “Saul the tyrant who was renamed Paul the Christian.” Saul and Paul are dual names of one man, both before and after his conversion.
 
==Paul Is Saul==


As it turns out, “Saul”—derived from the famous first king of Israel, from the tribe of Benjamin, to which Saul/Paul himself belonged (Phil. 3:5)—is simply the Hebrew name for this person.  “Paul”—a normal koine name—is his Greek name, derived from the Latin surname Paulus.
Had Paul not been a Roman citizen, it would have been natural to suppose that ‘Paul’ was simply a Gentile name possessed by him from childhood alongside his Jewish name ‘Saul’; for the use of a Gentile name in addition to a Jewish, particularly one more or less like-sounding, was by New Testament times a well-established custom among Hellenistic Jews.


For someone born in Tarsus (Acts 21:39) but educated under Gamaliel in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3) in a strict form of Pharisaism (Gal. 1:14; Phil. 3:5–6), this is not unusual. Much as many immigrants to English-speaking worlds take an Anglicized name on top of their ethnic name, many Greek-speaking Jews in Paul’s day would have a Jewish/Hebrew name and a Hellenistic/Greek name.
But, since Paul was a Roman citizen, the matter is rather more complicated. It is very probable that he possessed the three names characteristic of a Roman citizen, a praenomen or personal name, a nomen or clan name and a cognomen or family name. It is probable that one of the two names given in Acts 13:9 was one of Paul’s official tria nomina, and the other a signum or supernomen, an unofficial, informal name, additional to the three official names, such as was common at this time in the east.  


Here’s the smoking gun: When Paul recalls his conversion, he specifically notes that Jesus was “saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’” (Acts 26:14). Paul draws attention to how Jesus addressed him in his Hebrew name, and makes no mention that it is now abandoned.
‘Saul’ in a Latinized form could have been the apostle’s cognomen, and ‘Paulus’ his signum. But it is much more likely that it was the other way round, that ‘Paulus’ was his cognomen and ‘Saul’ in its Semitic form his signum. That in his work as a missionary among the Gentiles he should have preferred to use one of his Roman names is readily understandable.  


When Saul/Paul launches his Gentile-focused ministry among primarily Greek-speakers (beginning with Acts 13:9), it’s natural for Luke, the author of Acts, to begin referring exclusively to him by his Greek name. Nor is it surprising that he’s later referred to as “Paul” in Jerusalem, since there were Greek speakers there too. Indeed, Luke could be making a thematic point by shifting from Saul to Paul around chapter 13, given the broader theme of Acts (e.g., 1:8). After all, the church’s nucleus is shifting from predominantly Jewish-centered Jerusalem to the Greek-centered “ends of the earth,” such as Rome.
The complete disappearance of two of Paul’s names may seem surprising; but Paul, while ready to insist on his Roman citizenship when to do so might be to the advantage of his mission, is not likely to have emphasized it in his dealings with his fellow Christians, most of whom were of inferior worldly status, and he may well have chosen to use only one of his names in view of the fact that most of his fellow Christians only possessed one name. If only one of the tria nomina was to be used, it would naturally be the cognomen "Paul", since that was the most distinctive.<ref?C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, International Critical Commentary (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 49–50.</ref>


The apostle’s two names is not unique. Several other figures in the New Testament have two given names: Joseph, later called Barnabas (Acts 4:36); Simeon, also called Niger (Acts 13:1); and Thomas, also called Didymus (John 21:2); among others.
Acts 13:9 makes it very clear: “But Saul, who was also called Paul, [was] filled with the Holy Spirit.” The Bible says he had both these names.  Any assertion by William Branham that God changed his name from Saul to Paul is clearly false.


=Why It Matters=
=Why It Matters=
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