Paul and Jesus: The True Story

Having followed Paul's footsteps with some care up to Ephesus, we are shortly going to leave him – not because his story came to an end in Ephesus, but for the sake of brevity and because we have already covered enough ground to answer our main questions, in particular about the reliability of Acts and Paul's relationship with Jesus.

But although we will not take the story much further, we will make a few brief comments on evidence from the later parts of Acts and of Paul's letters which is relevant to our questions.

According to Acts Paul went on from Ephesus to Macedonia (20.1), and then travelled on to Achaia (i.e. probably to Corinth), where he stayed three months.

This is confirmed by 2 Corinthians and by Romans, a letter probably written from Corinth before Paul set off for Jerusalem and Rome (Romans 15.23–5, 16.1). 2 Corinthians fills out the picture of Acts in various ways, referring to a 'painful' visit made by Paul to Corinth (2.1), which Acts does not record, and describing some tensions between Paul and the Corinthians about his travel plans (1.15–24).

When Paul's stay in Corinth came to an end, he retraced his steps through Macedonia, then across the Aegean Sea to Troas and down the coast of the province of Asia (the west coast of Turkey) to Miletus, where he met with the elders of the Ephesus church at Miletus, and said his farewells to them. Paul then travelled on, eventually landing at Caesarea, and heading up to Jerusalem (Acts 20–1).

In Acts Paul's journey seems a little like Jesus' last journey to Jerusalem. He and others knew that sufferings awaited him in Jerusalem, and he speaks of not seeing those whom he meets again (20.22–3, 38, 21.4, 10–14). The writer of Acts may well have seen significance in the parallel between Jesus and Paul, but this

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