Biblical Profile: Paul of Arabia? The Apostle’s Early Adventures - The BAS Library
Login
Home > Magazines > BAR > Winter 2021

Biblical Profile: Paul of Arabia? The Apostle’s Early Adventures

By Ben Witherington III

Certainly one of the verses that Pauline scholars have regularly puzzled over is Galatians 1:17. Talking about the time immediately after his Damascus road experience—an encounter with the heavenly Jesus—and his days in Damascus recovering from that experience, Paul says this: “I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus” (NIV; italics mine). Arabia? In the first place, Paul is not referring to the area we today call Saudi Arabia. He is talking about the region that bordered the Holy Land to […]

You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Footnotes

1. See Glenn J. Corbett, “Solving the Enigma of Petra and the Nabataeans,” Bible History Daily (blog), published in August 2012.

2. It should be noted, however, that by the Byzantine period, Petra was home to a thriving Christian community, as evidenced by the famous Petra Papyri, dated to the sixth century A.D. See Joseph J. Basile, “When People Lived at Petra,” Archaeology Odyssey, July/August 2000.

3. See, e.g., the Babatha Archive; Anthony J. Saldarini, “Babatha’s Story,” BAR, March/April 1998.

4.
The vision referenced in this passage would have been during the hidden years in Nabatea and Cilicia—14 years prior to the writing of 2 Corinthians.

Endnotes

1.
See Ben Witherington III and Jason A. Myers, Paul of Arabia: The Hidden Years of the Apostle to the Gentiles (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020). Jason Myers wrote “Closer Look” sections for this book to explain the historical context.