Michael Kochenash, “Better Call Paul ‘Saul’: Literary Models and a Lukan Innovation,” JBL 138, no. 2 (2019), 441.
Although Luke’s presentation of Saul appears to be modeled on King Saul, the influence of this imitation extends only to Saul’s name, his belligerent disposition, and his persecution of the Son of David. Luke supplements this characterization with language that recalls Pentheus’s persecution of Dionysus in the Bacchae. Doing so introduces, for those with the appropriate cultural competence, a particular logic: Jewish opposition to the proclamation about Jesus is akin to Pentheus’s opposition to Dionysus’s religious movement—and may incur a comparable punishment. Saul’s persecution of the Way and his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus are narrated three times in Acts, once by the narrator (Acts 8:3, 9:1–9) and twice by Paul (22:4–11; 26:9–18). Each of Paul’s versions contributes additional details that allude to Euripides’s Bacchae with increasing explicitness.
The Amateur Exegete 
Thanks for sharing this. It’s always fascinating to think about literary parallels and possible sources in the wider Greco-Roman world for certain familiar New Testament or Apocryphal passages. I had heard that the stories of Dionysus in the Bacchae and other similar accounts had parallels to the New Testament but didn’t consider that they might have influenced the story of Paul/Saul in the Acts of the Apostles. The fact that so many of the plays of the Ancient Greek dramatists are now lost to history just makes one wonder what else the New Testament authors might have “re-appropriated”…
Another interesting parallel that has been suggested as a possible source for Luke is the account of Heliodorus in 2 Maccabees (as compared to Saul’s conversion story). Given that the person who originally floated this is apparently Robert M. Price (with his dubious “Jesus mythicism”), some caution is probably in order but it is intriguing nevertheless. (In Galatians, Paul never goes so far as to suggest that he had anything other than a simple “religious moment” or “realization.”)
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I came back to this page because while thinking about some biblical studies topics, something about the parallels between the accounts of Paul’s conversion and those in 2 Maccabees referred to in the above post struck me as odd.
Due to my Protestant evangelical background before becoming a skeptic, I didn’t learn much about the Apocrypha like someone from a more Catholic or Eastern Orthodox background might have, so I wanted to familiarize myself with the Heliodorus account in 2 Maccabees 3 and Paul’s conversion story in Acts 9.
Upon reading both passages sequentially, there are more than enough parallels between the two: Both have an initial antagonist hostile to the religion preached by the authors (Heliodorus vs. Saul/Paul), the villains’ journeys mirror one another (Heliodorus: Seleucid Province of Coele-Syria to Jerusalem; Saul/Paul: Jerusalem to Damascus in Syria), both are looking to seize something in a profane way (Heliodorus: Treasury in the Jewish Temple; Paul/Saul: Christian believers), and engage in signature ceremonies of the group they opposed after their “religious experiences” (Heliodorus: Offers a sacrifice to the Jewish God; Saul/Paul: Receives Baptism).
The similarities that seemed to lead to the most questions were those in the actual visions: Heliodorus is accompanied by bodyguards (v. 24), sees a rider on a horse that attacks him (v. 25), is maimed at the hands of two “young men” who are strongly suggested to be angelic (v. 26), and has to be taken off in “a stretcher” by his retinue of bodyguards after he is knocked to the ground (v. 27-28). The Jewish high priest Onias intervenes on Heliodorus’ behalf by making a sacrifice in the temple to heal him (v. 32) and the angelic “young men” from earlier re-appear instruct him to “report to all people the majestic power of God.”
Acts 9 has Paul accompanied by a retinue (v. 7), see a blinding light with its source in heaven (v. 3), hear the words of a heavenly Jesus (v. 5-6), knocked down on the ground (v. 4), assisted by his companions after he loses his sight (v. 8), and enter Damascus to meet the Christian Ananias who heals him (v. 17-18). Ananias earlier receives a vision from God before encountering the new convert: Paul will be a missionary for the sect he once opposed (v. 15 – 16).
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(Continued from above)
Besides these parallels, there are two other oddities:
i. The story of Zechariah receiving the news of the imminent birth of his son John (the Baptist) in Luke 1:11-20 has the familiar story of the angel Gabriel rendering him mute for his disbelief. Paul’s entourage is said to be made “speechless” after hearing Jesus’ voice in Acts 9:7.
ii. In light of the proposal put forth by some scholars that Paul might have considered Jesus a sort of “exalted angel,“ the parallels in the tropes of the messengers from heaven got me wondering if Luke-Acts intends Jesus to be understood this way as well or is giving a “nod” to this idea: Heliodorus was spoken to (and almost killed?) by two angels, Zechariah had an angel pronounce him speechless, and Paul is blinded when Jesus sends a heavenly light before speaking to him. (Could the explanation for “Luke” having Jesus send sensory phenomena from heaven rather than manifesting himself directly through his presence be that he has already ascended to heaven and isn’t supposed to return until the Parousia?)
One of the books that familiarized me with current Bible scholarship was John Barton’s A History of the Bible. I remember in the sections on the Apocryphal Books of the Bible how he pondered their underappreciated influence on the early church. Cases like the above would vindicate his point.
So, in short, I’m starting to think that the writer behind Luke-Acts’ use of the Heliodorus account (along with the Bacchae of Euripides) in Paul’s Christian “origin” story is more than a distinct possibility: The Book of Acts is the only Christian work that even mentions the familiar vision story and according to the Paula Fredriksen Mythvision video interview I saw featured on an earlier page on the site, Paul was speaking of an internal experience based on a literal reading of Galatians 1:16. So this would mean that Acts 9 is a literary composition by “Luke” and its prestige in the Christian church has overshadowed anything the historical Paul ever thought about his own conversion. Though I’m not sure what to make of the differences between Acts 9 and those passages that have Paul giving his own accounts of his conversion like Acts 22:6-21 or 26 12-18.)
I was curious if you or anyone else had more thoughts on the parallels or these possible influences on Acts. As a final sort of aside, I found it weird that the scholarly Harper-Collins Study Bible I consulted referred to 4 Maccabees and works in the Old Testament in the annotations to Acts 9 but never brought up 2 Maccabees or Heliodorus.
Thanks, and sorry for the long post,
J.
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