Did Saul modify his name to Paul when he became a follower of Jesus? This seems to exist a mutual stance amidst Christians. Before long before the movie "Paul, Apostle of Christ" came out in 2018, Jim Caviezel (who played Luke) said in an interview that Saul had changed his name to Paul. Paul'southward supposed conversion name-modify is mentioned frequently in sermons, and it shows up fifty-fifty in Christian comics.

Fourth-century painting of the apostle Paul, from the catacomb of St. Thecla.

Only the Bible never actually says that Saul changed his proper name to Paul. Others in the New Attestation change their names, and such events are always highlighted. Jesus renamed Simon equally Peter (Marking iii:xvi); the apostles gave the name Barnabas to Joseph (Acts 4:36). We don't have whatsoever such account for Paul.

So why have then many people claimed that Saul changed his proper name to Paul? In Acts, Luke calls him Saul for the first thirteen capacity, and so calls him Paul for the residue of the book, so some people take causeless that there was a name change. But the chronology of Acts doesn't actually match the claim that Saul inverse his name to Paul at his conversion. Expect at the post-obit references in Acts:

I was recently converted into Paul and my Saul ID is no longer valid. Is there a form for that?
  • 7:58, 8:1 – Saul is nowadays at the execution of Stephen and "agreed with his murder."
  • 8:3 – Saul begins persecuting Christians.
  • 9:one-11 – Saul goes to Damascus to persecute Christians, but meets Jesus and becomes his disciple.
  • 9:22 – Saul preaches that Jesus is the Christ.
  • 9:24 – Opponents of the faith plot to kill Saul because of his preaching.
  • 11:25 – Many years after, Barnabas tracks down Saul and asks him to help him with the church in Antioch.
  • eleven:30, 12:25 – A year afterward, the church building at Antioch sends Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem with a gift to assist during the famine.
  • 13:ane-2 – Some time later, the Holy Spirit speaks to the leaders of the Antioch church: "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work…"
  • 13:7 – While Barnabas and Saul are preaching the gospel on Cyprus, the proconsul asks them to come and give him their message.
  • 13:ix – "But Saul, who was besides Paul" denounces the magician Elymas and proclaims the gospel.

Paul's conversion was almost AD 34-37, and he arrived on Cyprus in AD 48, which means that he continued to use the name Saul for perhaps equally long as 14 years afterwards his conversion.

So what is going on? Why the name switch? The answer lies in Paul'southward claim that he was built-in a Roman citizen (Acts 22:28), but also had faithful Jewish parents (Acts 23:6, Phil iii:5). Roman citizens usually had full Roman names. Even those who were not ethnically Roman were granted Roman names if they received citizenship. We don't know Paul's other two names, just he would accept had a name something like Marcus Antonius Paulus or Gaius Tullius Paulus. (For Romans, the 3rd name, called the cognomen, was the i well-nigh ordinarily used. The other two were used formally, like on nascence certificates or other legal documents.)

But Paul's parents as well valued their Jewish heritage, and so they give him some other name, Saul. That was an appropriate name for a male child from the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:v), since King Saul was Benjamin's most famous fellow member.

Having different names for unlike cultures was a somewhat common practice. The "replacement apostle" Joseph had two Jewish names, Joseph and Barsabbas, and 1 Roman name, Justus (Acts 1:23). The companion of Paul and Barnabas had a Jewish name, John, and a Roman proper noun, Marcus (or Mark; Acts 12:12). The adult female Peter raised from the expressionless had a Jewish name, Tabitha, and a Greek name, Dorcas (Acts 9:36). And several examples tin can be found in non-biblical accounts from the time, such as Josephus.

While Paul was in his early phase of ministry building, it would take been more beneficial to employ his Jewish proper name, Saul. It may have been his "default proper name" since he moved from Tarsus to Jerusalem as a young man. Fifty-fifty when he ministered in mainly Gentile Antioch, he joined a squad of leaders that was almost all Jewish (Acts thirteen:one), and and so using his Jewish name would have been more than natural. Simply once Saul formally began his Gentile mission, it was most useful to employ his Roman name, Paul.

Is this claim, that Paul always had both names, some crazy new idea? No. All the Acts commentaries on my shelf agree with this evaluation (see the excellent commentaries by Craig Keener, Darrell Bock, F.F. Bruce and I. Howard Marshall, for example). And information technology is non a new claim at all. In AD 256, in the oldest surviving commentary on Romans, Origen said this:

… it appears to us that Paul likewise used two names and while he was ministering to his own people he was chosen Saul considering it seemed more colloquial to his native country, but he was called Paul when composing laws and precepts for the Greeks and Gentiles. For the Scripture that says, "Saul, who was as well chosen Paul," shows very plainly that he is non beingness designated Paul in that location for the starting time fourth dimension, only rather this had been an old designation.[1]

References:

[1] Origen, Comm. in Epist. ad Rom., pref ix. From Origen: A New Translation, transl. Thomas Scheck (Catholic University of America, 2010), 57-59.