Comments on: Why did Paul change his name from Saul to Paul?

By: P Paige

P Paige — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:57:40 +0000

St Paul is the foremost apostle to the Gentiles. To become this Jesus radically changed him.
With regard to to his name change I suggest the following:-
Before his conversion Saul, (a Jewish name and associating him with the tribe of Benjamin), persecuted the Christians and he was well known. On conversion he realised by revelation that Jesus teaching was for all people. In order to set out on his mission for Jesus specifically to the Gentiles, a change of name would help him as the ‘new man’ that he had become according to the intellectual miracle that he received from Jesus.

By: Jonathan Morgan

Jonathan Morgan — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:14:17 +0000

It’s possible. We don’t have any further information on why he changed his name, so anything else is just a guess.

By: liam

liam — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:33:34 +0000

did saul change his name to paul to start new so he could try forget about what he use to do?

By: Jonathan Morgan

Jonathan Morgan — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:32:26 +0000

All we know is that every reference before Acts 13:9 talks about Saul, and the only references to Saul after that are when Paul is telling people about what happened before that time. Everywhere else he is referred to as Paul. And it isn’t just that Acts has changed from referring to Saul to referring to Paul, because all his letters use the name Paul as well. This clean break seems like it could suggest a permanent change in name, though it could just be a result of the name making his mission to the Gentiles more approachable, as suggested in the first comment.

So no, there doesn’t seem to be any other scripture that confirms that his name was changed, but the name used in the record definitely changed at that point.

By: shervin green

shervin green — Mon, 23 May 2011 18:47:00 +0000

is there any other scripture to confirm that paul’s name was change

By: Rick Adkins

Rick Adkins — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:51:48 +0000

In Acts 13:9, we read “Saul who was also called Paul.” So, it wasn’t a name change, he was also known as Paul. See, Paul was a Roman citizen, and Romans had 3 names; the first was known as “Pranomen” which was just a title formality. the second name was known as “nomen” and it identified the tribe you came from or identified the person from whom you received Roman citizenship. The third name was the most important, it was known as your “cognomen” which identified your family name. Saul was Paul’s Hebrew name, and many scholars believe that he was named after king saul because they were both from the tribe of Benjamin, Saul’s Latin name, “Paul” is actually his cognomen “Paulus” and it means “small” and many scholars believed that he took up that name because according to 1 Corinthians 15:9, he wanted to be known as the “least” of all the apostles, or the smallest, which would signify his cognomen “Paulus” meaning small.

By: Grahame Grieve

Grahame Grieve — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:20:31 +0000

David Rohl proposes that Saul himself had a name change, that his original name was “Lebayu” (though everything proposed by Rohl is controversial)

By: Rob J Hyndman

Rob J Hyndman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:28:11 +0000

It’s possible that he always had two names — Saul being his Jewish name and Paul his Roman name. This was quite common, especially for someone who was both Jewish and a Roman citizen. His apparent change of preference to use Paul rather than Saul may also have been to help in his efforts to preach to non-Jews.