The book of Acts begins by describing what happened after the Resurrection. New followers of Christ spreading like wildfire. They're changing the status quo. They're making people uncomfortable. They are "full of the Spirit" with the excitement and impetuousness typical of baby Christians.

Read Acts 8:1-3

(This passage immediately follows the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr. If you have the time and want to read the full story of Stephen, start at Acts 6. Stephen testified at length to the Sanhedrin, going over the full chronology of Old Testament stories starting with Abraham, stories very familiar to these learned Jewish men. He attempted to show them how their whole history shows their inability to recognize God's will. Even now, they cannot recognize that Jesus is the Messiah they have been waiting for all these years to arrive. If you have time and want to read Stephen's testimony, start at Acts 7. When they stoned Stephen, "the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul." (Acts 7:58b)

Read Acts 9:1-9

Think about how your thinking may be similar to the thoughts going through the head of Saul of Tarsus. How do you feel about followers of Islam? Mormonism? Jehovah's Witnesses? How do you feel about specific denominations or churches among your own denomination who espouse stances that you do not agree with? I pose these questions in no way comparing Saul's mistaken aggression against the early Christians. I want us to investigate our own human feelings in our current setting to try and understand the emotions and feelings Saul was dealing with.

This was the world, but what about the Jewish Nation? After the last prophet, there was the silent years which is not recorded in the Bible. A period of 400 years in which God did not speak to the His people. It is during this time, and especially after the destruction of the Temple in ~200-100 BC that the Jewish nation began to divide due to diverging opinions about the interpretation of the Torah. By the time Jesus shows up, the Jewish people are divided into essentially three groups--the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes.

The Essenes    The Essenes were a very strict, self-isolated, Jewish group thought to be the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Although Essenes lived throughout Israel, their population centered around Qumran in the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea where they lived a quiet, communal lifestyle. The Essenes believed that they were God's elect and rejected the philosophy and traditions of both the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They upheld the Torah in a very strict and literal sense, rejecting verbal traditions. They followed strict laws of purity and proper observance of all Jewish festivals and Sabbaths. They believed in the ritual of baptism as well as Resurrection. Josephus reports that this group believed in pure Fate, meaning God was acting actively in their lives and in His time, will defeat the enemies of Israel, bring judgement to the evil and corrupt (the Temple priests, Pharisees and Sadduccees) and raise the Essenes up as His people. Because of this belief, they spent their time pursuing purity and holiness and biding their time.

The Sadducees    Sadducees means "righteous" in Hebrew. This group, like the Essenes, did not believe in the verbal traditions and like the Essenes, followed the Torah in a strict, literal sense. The Sadducees were the chief priests and aristocracy and placed into power by the Romans. They were not Levites, the traditional Jewish line of priests, but because they had control of the Temple, they controlled the economic and political power of the country. The Romans used them as the link the Jewish people, holding them responsible for the conduct of the people. This status held considerable power and was recognized by both the Romans and King Herod.

The Sadducees did not believe in Resurrection. You can clearly see why if you view their interpretation of resurrection. To the Jews of this time, resurrection meant the reconstitution of Israel from their present "exile" and final redemption, forgiveness of sins and victory under a Messiah. This line of reasoning pointed to the Sadducees as enemies of God and when the resurrection would mean loss of their power. This concept was unacceptable to them, of course. The Sadducees, according to Josephus, also believed in Free-will as opposed to the Essenes' belief in Fate. Their attitude was that God helps those who help themselves and that there was no divine intervention.

The Pharisees     The Pharisees, like the Essenes, held to a very strict observance of purity and holiness; however, unlike the Essenes or the Sadducees, they taught that the proper interpretation of the Torah was based on the oral traditions not the written law. This meant that observances and regulations need not be followed literally, but that proper interpretations needed to be made with regard to what was written. They were continually at odds with the Sadducees with regard to religious observances and put moral pressures on this existing power base. They had very little political power, but they had a strong following of people who listened to their teaching on ceremonial purity and practicing the regulations of the Torah.

The Pharisees believed in Resurrection, seeing this as freedom from Rome and the return of the Temple to the true priests. According to Josephus, they had a mixed philosophy of both Free-will and Fate, believing that they were the chosen of God, but that they needed to act on their own behalf in order for God's will to be done. This belief is shown out in the Pharisees' support of rebellious acts against Rome.

The Sanhedrin     Sanhedrin was a term used for the ancient Jewish court system. Sanhedrin comes from the Greek term sunedrion meaning "sitting together." There were many local Sanhedrin throughout Israel, however the Sanhedrin who judged Jesus and later Peter and John and Stephen was the Great Sanhedrin. The Great Sanhedrin met daily in Jerusalem to judge whether people violated Jewish law. This religious body was made up of 71 men, all fathers of families. They could be priests, elders, scribes, Pharisees or Sadducees. They were required to have served previously in lower Jewish courts in order to be able to serve on the Great Sanhedrin.

We have evidence that Saul was extremely devout and intelligent. We see this evidence in Acts 26:4-5 where Saul says, "that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee." Again, in Galatians 1:14 Saul writes, "I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers." We know from Acts 22:3 that he studied under Gamaliel and here he says that he "was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today."

Saul was also born a Roman citizen (see Acts 22:25-29). Some think Saul claimed this because Tarsus was a free city, but just being born in a free city does not necessarily insure Roman citizenship. But we see that Roman citizenship was common for this region when we read in Acts 23:34 that Governor Felix makes special note of the fact that Saul is from the province of Cilicia. Cilicia was a Roman province in SouthEast Asia Minor (modern Turkey). Tarsus was the capital, known for its school of literature and philosophy. The school was said to be as good if not better that those of Athens and Alexandria. Most scholars however seem to agree that one of Saul's ancestors either purchased or was rewarded citizenship.

Finally, we also know that Saul was trained as a tentmaker (Acts 18:1-3).