St Paul discrepancies

Every serious student of Paul soon discovers that the story of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles differs in several respects and incidents from the story in Paul’s letters. For example, Acts 9 implies that Paul went to Jerusalem within a short time after his Damascus experience, but in Galatians 1 Paul says he went to Arabia and after three years went to Jerusalem. There are many other variations. The discrepancies led one historian to write, “In short, the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Epistles are two different men…. Of the two pictures, that in the Epistles is on any showing earlier than that in the Acts. The latter, therefore, must be unhesitatingly dismissed as unhistorical.” A straightforward biography of Paul is impossible to write. Sources are few and inconsistent. What we can assert is Paul’s conviction that he was called by Christ to bring the gospel to the gentiles.