Quotes about Tarsus

Saul of Tarsus, in other words, had found a new vocation. It would demand all the energy, all the zeal, that he had devoted to his former way of life. He was now to be a herald of the king.

Like many other Jews of his day, Saul of Tarsus, thinking as a Jew while taking on board the theories of the wider world, would reflect on the similarity and dissimilarity between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of Israel.

But all the signs are that Gamaliel's bright young pupil from Tarsus wasn't satisfied with this approach. His "zeal" would have placed him in the opposing school, following Hillel's rival Shammai, who maintained that if God was going to establish his reign on earth as in heaven, then those who were zealous for God and Torah would have to say their prayers, sharpen their swords, and get ready for action.

Tarsus, a noble city in Cilicia, ten miles inland on the river Cydnus in the southeast corner of modern Turkey

We don't know how long his family had lived in Tarsus. Later legends suggest various options, one of which is that his father or grandfather had lived in Palestine but had moved during one of the periodic social and political upheavals, which, in that world, always carried "religious" overtones as well. What we do know about them is that they belonged to the strictest of the Jewish schools. They were Pharisees.

When the brothers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,

But Paul answered, “I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Now I beg you to allow me to speak to the people.”

“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but raised in this city. I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel in strict conformity to the law of our fathers. I am just as zealous for God as any of you here today.

Saul of Tarsus. The young man's face was aflame with the same fiery vengeance that filled Ezra's heart. The elders dropped their cloaks of office by Saul's feet and moved forward as the crowd unfolded. That was how it seemed to Ezra. They were a human fist, cloaked not in their robes but in rage, and they flexed their fingers in preparation of doing away with the man who dared offend the Sanhedrin.

Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city.

Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.