Well, that didn't take long did it?
At least the "night worm" (Sassernacht. Remember that moniker?) attempted to give an answer:
He was a Roman Citizen and a Jew.
Did anyone who was Jewish get the right to hold power outside what was allowed by the Romans?
Tit for tat... ROMANS AND JEWISH leaders avoiding conflict then.
Yup - it is obvious that Paul was a Jew, the Roman Citizen part. A probability. It cannot be denied though that he was a full-on Greek speaker who grew up in the Jewish Diaspora around the Turkish/Syrian border area known as "Cilicia" in his day. Or Can it?
"Was he Greek or Jewish?"
Paul clearly a Jew by religion. Where the GREEK comes in, I am not sure...
He was obviously trained in the judicious classical Greek, by virtue of his writings and philosophical outlook on the impending "Kingdom" he was waiting for.
But apart from that what do we really know about Paul?
Well from his genuine letters we can read he was possibly a Pharisee, because he was allegedly weirdly zealous about the Jewish traditions handed down from “the fathers” (Gal 1:13-14): “For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, that I was persecuting the church of God beyond all measure and trying to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.”
He seemed very keen on keeping the Pharisaic traditions of the Torah-observance that was prevalent in his day. Now this sectarian group were not that interested in pagans.
Pharisees were more concerned with other Jews who wrongly interpreted their own religion. Which is why he had this beef with the Jewish cult he knew as the "church of God".
As an aside. Were these members of the "church of God" he was persecuting 'Christians' or Jews? (Think language).
