Abstract
The 77th ETS Annual Meeting
November 18-20, 2025, Boston, Massachusetts
Damascus Road as Bethlehem’s Field
The Rebirth of Saul in Acts 9 Corresponds Intertextually to the Birth of Jesus in Luke 2
I argue that through the literary technique of recursion (parallel, narrative analogy), the key events and major characters in the depiction of Saul/Paul in Acts 9-28, were strategically arranged to correspond intertextually with the key events (ex., birth, feeding of the 5,000, temptation, Gethsemane, trial—“away with this man,” death, resurrection, ascension, and succession) and major characters (ex., Joseph, Anna, Simeon, Barabbas, Roman centurion) in the portrait of Jesus in the Third Gospel.
Recursion, a literary device which dominates the tripartite Hebrew Bible, common to the Hellenistic literature of the day, part and parcel of Luke’s literary strategy, is the author’s deliberate shaping of narrative events so that key elements of one narrative are repeated (they recur) with variation in others.
Luke concentrates on Saul/Paul in Acts 9-28 because, to some Jewish and Gentile readers, his apostleship was suspect, even doubted, handicapped by an unknown association with Jesus, well-known as an adversary, persecuting the church and attempting to wipe it out. And, to some Jews within the Church, Paul offering the Gospel to Gentiles was without sanction and unacceptable.
Luke signals his intent to sanction Paul first by aligning his dramatic engagement with Jesus and spiritual rebirth, a key event, on the Damacus road in Acts 9, to correspond intertextually at multiple levels (semantic, lexical, geographic, thematic, morphological, chronological), with the equally dramatic event, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem in Luke 2.
The intertextual linkage connecting Paul’s new birth to Jesus’ birth is just the opening salvo of the battle to sanction Paul. From the Damascus Road transformation all the way to Paul’s arrival in Rome, Acts 9-28 contains a chain of recursions showing how Paul resembles Jesus. The more Paul mirrors Jesus the founder, the more persuasive is Luke’s claim. Paul as Jesus.
Tim Cole
St. Petersburg, FL