The vision of Jesus that changed Paul from a Pharisaic Jew to a Christian Jew happened, says Luke's Acts of the Apostles, on the road to Damascus. That event is so important that Luke records it three times for maximum emphasis: first, as it happens (9:1-19); next, as Paul tells it to the Roman officer in Jerusalem (22:3-21); and, finally, as Paul tells it to the Jewish king, Agrippa II at Caesarea Maritima (26:1-18). But that triple account, written around 50 years after Paul's death, has two major historical problems.
The first problem is that, according to Acts, Paul is travelling to Damascus empowered with authority from the high-priest to arrest dissident Christian Jews and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. But, whatever about high-priestly power in Judea, it could never have been exercised across Roman provincial borders as far away as Damascus.
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