I have received an inquiry about an issue that I debated with the Church-of-Christ preacher Jerry McDonald in 1992 concerning when the apostle Paul first went to Jerusalem after his conversion. Unable to locate a website that had allegedly posted our exchanges on this issue, I have prepared this article from the manuscripts that McDonald and I exchanged. It will show that there are obvious discrepancies in what Paul and the author of Acts (Luke?) said about this. Although there is disagreement about the authorship of Acts, for the sake of convenience, I will accept the popular view and refer to the author of this book as Luke, who, as the quotation from Acts immediately below shows, obviously thought that Paul left Damascus soon after his conversion and went directly to Jerusalem. Later, we will see that the apostle Paul claimed that he didn't go to Jerusalem until he had spent three years in Arabia.

Acts 9:22 Saul [Paul] became increasingly more powerful [after his conversion] and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah. 23 After some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul [Paul]. They were watching the gates day and night so that they might kill him; 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. 26 When he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.

In one sentence (v:25), Luke had Paul in Damascus but then in Jerusalem in the very next sentence (v:26). This disagrees with Paul's own account of when he went to Jerusalem after his conversion.

Galatians 1:15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. 18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother. 20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!

Inerrantists will quibble that Luke did not say that Paul went immediately to Jerusalem but only that when he did go to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. They will quibble that there was a "time gap" between verses 25 and 26 in Acts 9. Inerrantists will often talk about time gaps when they are confronted with a discrepancy like this, but if such a gap existed, Luke certainly didn't indicate it. We would have every right to wonder why an author who was writing under the guidance of an omniscient, omnipotent deity would not have known to signal to his readers that there was a time transition between these two verses, especially if omission of that transitional device would create the problem with another "inspired text." To make this clear, Luke would have had to do nothing more than say, "When Paul had come to Jerusalem years later, he attempted to join the disciples." This would have required nothing more than the addition of two words, and two words wouldn't have been any problem even for a writer struggling with Robert Turkel's "paper shortage" problem that he uses to "explain" why biblical writers sometimes left out important information.

Luke's account of Paul's conversion just doesn't leave any room for the three-year delay that Paul swore had passed before he returned to Jerusalem. So who was right, Luke or Paul? And regardless of who was right, why would divinely inspired writers have so obviously contradicted each other in relating a simple fact like the first time that Paul went to Jerusalem after his conversion?

Inerrantists, of course, are going to quibble endlessly that there is no discrepancy in these two accounts. One of their favorite quibbles is that one can correctly report a travel itinerary without listing every single stopping place in the trip. If one should leave St. Louis, for example, go to Denver for a while, then on to Phoenix for a period, and finally to Los Angeles, he would not be incorrect if he later said, "I left St. Louis and went to Los Angeles." This is similar to the commonly heard argument that there is no inconsistency in the resurrection narratives just because the different writers mentioned only some of the women who went to the tomb instead of all of them. Hence, they argue that Paul went from Damascus to Arabia, where he stayed for three years, and then went on to Jerusalem. Luke simply "chose" not to mention the trip into Arabia because it wasn't relevant to the point he was trying to make.

This quibble about Paul's itinerary is technically correct, but it does not explain why the disciples in Jerusalem did not know after an interval of three years that the great persecutor of Christianity had been converted.

Acts 9:26 When he [Paul] had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

Paul's reputation as a persecutor had preceded him to Damascus, even though the account of his persecutions in Acts indicates that nowhere close to three years had passed since he began his persecutions and the time that he went to Damascus. He was first mentioned in the account of the stoning of Stephen.

Acts 7:55 But filled with the Holy Spirit, he [Stephen] gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 "Look," he said, "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" 57 But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. 58 Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 60 Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he died.

8:1 And Saul approved of their killing him. That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.

The rest of chapter 8 tells of the evangelism of Philip in Samaria and his conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza. Then the next chapter turned to Paul's persecution of Christians.

Acts 9:1 Meanwhile Saul [Paul] , still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

There doesn't seem to be any time lapse here anywhere close to three years, yet we are told that on the road to Damascus Paul met Jesus and was then baptized after he went into Damascus. He immediately began to preach the gospel to the amazement of the people who had heard of his persecution of Christians.

Acts 9:19 For several days he [Paul] was with the disciples in Damascus, 20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." 21 All who heard him were amazed and said, "Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?"

So within what seems to have been a relatively short time, word of Paul's persecution of the church had traveled from Jerusalem to Damascus, but inerrantists expect us to believe that after three years, not even the inspired apostles believed that Paul had been converted.

Acts 9:26 When he [Paul] had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.

Word of Paul's persecutions had traveled from Jerusalem to Damascus in what sounds like a relatively short time, but three years was not enough time for news of his conversion to travel from Damascus to Jerusalem. Is that what inerrantists expect us to believe? To make this "solution" even halfway plausible, there are some questions that they will need to answer.

• Why would the apostles, who had been baptized in the Holy Spirit (Acts 2), not have known after three years that Paul had been converted? The baptism of the Holy Spirit had apparently given the apostles special insights. Peter, for example, was able to recognize that Ananias and Sapphira were lying about the amount of money they had received from selling a piece of property (Acts 5:1-10), yet inerrantists expect us to believe that except for the intervention of Barnabas, this same apostle would not have known that Paul had been converted.

• Why did Paul himself, according to speeches that Luke attributed to him, indicate on two separate occasions that he had gone from Damascus to Jerusalem after his conversion?

Acts 22: 12 "A certain Ananias, who was a devout man according to the law and well spoken of by all the Jews living there, 13 came to me [Paul]; and standing beside me, he said, 'Brother Saul, regain your sight!' In that very hour I regained my sight and saw him. 14 Then he said, 'The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his own voice; 15 for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.' 17 "After I had returned to Jerusalem and while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw Jesus saying to me, 'Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.' 19 And I said, 'Lord, they themselves know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. 20 And while the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him.' 21 Then he said to me, 'Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'"

In verse 16, Paul told of his baptism; then in the very next verse he spoke of his return to Jerusalem. Do we have a "time gap" here too? This is a bit hard to imagine, because this speech confirmed what Luke claimed in Acts 9:26-28. The Christians in Jerusalem did not believe on Paul's first trip there after his conversion that he was one of them. Again I must ask inerrantists to explain why Christians, who were being led by apostles who had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, did not know after a lapse of three years that their persecutor had been converted in a city not even 200 miles away. Who can believe it besides dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalists who are going to believe in biblical inerrancy no matter how compelling the evidence against it may be?

In his speech to king Agrippa, Paul allegedly gave the same missionary itinerary (Damascus, Jerusalem, Judea, and then the Gentiles) following his conversion.

Acts 26:15 I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' The Lord answered, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. 17 I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles--to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' 19 "After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance. 21 For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

These statements from the pen of the "inspired" Luke are obviously inconsistent with what the "inspired" apostle Paul said in his epistle to the Galatians, but there is still another problem. In Galatians, Paul said that when he did go to Jerusalem after a three-year sojourn in Arabia, the only apostles he visited there were Cephas and James the Lord's brother.

Galatians 1:15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. 18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother. 20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!

This is inconsistent with Luke's claim that when Paul went to Jerusalem after his conversion, he met and mingled with all of the apostles.

Acts 9:26 When he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.

So we have Paul claiming that he visited only Cephas and James when he went to Jerusalem but Luke claiming that Barnabas allayed fears about Paul among the disciples by taking him to the apostles and telling them about his encounter with Jesus and his subsequent conversion. After that, Luke claimed, Paul went "in and out among them in Jerusalem." The only logical antecedent for the pronoun them in this sentence would be "the apostles" to whom Barnabas presented Paul. So who was right here, Paul or Luke? Did Paul not confer with any of the apostles but Cephas and James, or did he go in and out among the apostles while he was in Jerusalem?

Believe it or not, some inerrantists will quibble that Paul had actually visited only with Cephas and James during the trip to Jerusalem described by Luke, and so there is no discrepancy in what Luke said and what Paul said, because if Paul had visited only Cephas and James, then he had visited apostles, because two would be plurality. I trust the judgment of readers, so I have no doubt that they will recognize a quibble when they see one. Luke's account was obviously not referring to a limited audience with just two people when he said that Barnabas had brought Paul to the apostles and told them about his conversion.

The claim that Paul had gone "in and out among the apostles" presents another problem. Paul said in the Galatian text quoted above that he had spent only 15 days in Jerusalem when he finally went there after his three-year sojourn in Arabia, but Luke's claim that he had gone in and out among the apostles and had spoken boldly in the name of the Lord suggests a longer stay than just a mere 15 days.

There is yet another problem for inerrantists to explain. Luke, as noted above, said that the apostles and disciples in Jerusalem did not believe that Paul was a disciple when he made his first trip there after his conversion, but Paul himself indicated otherwise in his letter to the Galatians.

Galatians 1:18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother. 20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22 and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23 they only heard it said, "The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy." 24 And they glorified God because of me.

Jerusalem was in Judea, so Paul said that at the time of his visit to Jerusalem, even though he was unknown by sight to the churches of this region, they had heard that he was now proclaiming the faith he had once destroyed, and they glorified God because of him. Luke said that the apostles and disciples in Jerusalem didn't believe that Paul was a disciple, but Paul said that the churches of Judea were praising God because the one who had been persecuting them was now preaching the faith he had tried to destroy. Maybe Paul just meant that the churches in Judea didn't really believe that he was a disciple, but just in case he was, they praised God for it.

There are obvious inconsistencies in what Paul and Luke said about Paul's trip to Jerusalem after his conversion, and only the most brazen-faced Bible fundamentalists intent on preserving an untenable belief in the inerrancy doctrine would even try to reconcile them, and, admittedly, there is no shortage of these types.

I would be interested to see some inerrantist show us that Luke's and Paul's accounts are perfectly harmonious without having to resort to silly "explanations" such as a "paper shortage" or "it doesn't matter because people at that time were more interested in substance than consistency" or "if Paul visited Cephas and James, then he visited apostles." Silly, far-fetched scenarios may satisfy those people who have an emotional need to believe that the Bible is the "inspired word of God," but they just don't work with people who look at extraordinary claims with a critical eye.