Choose Life! (Deuteronomy 30:15-19)

Moses was born in 1571 BC (Ussher). For the first 40 years of his life he lived in the court of the ruler of Egypt. He later had to run away from Egypt, however, and lived the next 40 years in the wilderness of Sinai tending sheep. Finally, in 1451 BC, the Lord, the one odd god of freedom, truth, love, and vitality, sent him back to command the ruler of Egypt to liberate the people of Israel.

Athens: Beginnings to 479 BC

The two most important municipal states in Hellenia between 800 and 300 BC were Sparta and Athens. Sparta dominated the large peninsula called the Peloponnese while Athens controlled the area known as Attica.

People had settled at the site of Athens before 3000 BC. They first built the city on a hilltop surrounded by a fertile plain about 12 miles (20 km) from the Mediterranean Sea.

Sparta (1200-500 BC)

Dark ages descended upon Hellenia (see Glossary) around 1200 BC. Minoan and Mycenean civilizations were destroyed and nothing creative replaced them. Hellenian societies and cultures only began to shine again after 800 BC.

Reflections on Young Paul and Moral Codes

Paul was born in AD 1 and raised as a Jew. He grew up thinking of himself as one person belonging to the one people chosen by God to live as a unique witness to him.

In AD 27 he even moved to Jerusalem to study with the famous teacher Gamaliel. He committed himself as an adult to learning from the best possible teacher what living in the best possible way might mean.

Paul the Apostle: Painful Years, Liberating Letters (49-61)

In 49, Paul suggested to Barnabas that they return to the congregations they had started on Cyprus and in Anatolia. They had sharp disagreements, though, and decided to stop working together. Barnabas sailed for Cyprus and into obscurity. With a friend named Silas and the blessing of the church in Antioch, Paul left for Anatolia.

Paul the Apostle: Years of Transition (32-49)

Until confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus, Saul led a thoroughly conventional life. Because he was a Pharisaic Jew, he thought of himself as a faithful witness to God. In truth he was simply an emotionally intense if smart Olympian.

Paul the Apostle: Birth to Conversion (AD 1-32)

A definitive biography of Paul the Apostle is impossible to write. We lack sufficient documentation from his times. In interpreting what documentation we do have, scholars give different dates for his birth, missionary tours, and death, and debate which letters he wrote and when.

We have enough information, however, to write a plausible biography of Paul. By doing so, we may organize what information we do know about Paul into a story that makes his life easier to remember and celebrate.