I do have to disagree in part with you. As Saul he sought the end of the Christian movement through legal means (sort of the 1st Century equivalent of what the anti-gay groups do to us).

As Paul, he sought to give structure to the new movement and reign in some of the wilder elements. While Christians today give broad interpretation to the remonstrations in Pauls epistles, they mostly were direct instruction to real people in exact situations. (As one of the more not-brilliant examples: His objections to idol worshipers have been stripped of context and are now, according to Exodus, Scriptural evidence that “change is possible”)

One of Paul’s dominant themes is his change and how he was a different man. So much so that he took a new name.

And, to some extent, he was. He was instrumental in negotiating compromise on areas such as circumcision, dietary rules etc., all of which was a sharp break from Saul.

I think one of the illustrations of how Paul benefited from having been Saul is his sensitivity in one passage. He said that he felt no restriction about eating meat that had being ritually offered to an idol but that he realized that others would be confused or think that Paul was honoring other gods so, for their sake, he would just avoid eating meat in a temple.

But, yes, even though he thought of himself as “free” (and, considering his background, had come a long ways) his first instinct remained towards rigidity, conformity, and more than a little self-importance. That was probably an asset when dealing with a bunch of start-up self-monitored churches all claiming to be Christian but with no written doctrine, no agreement on what being a Christian meant, and with the limitations of communication at the time.

But today, some of Paul’s writing – stripped of the context of who he was writing to, the culture in which they lived, why he was writing, and what he was writing about – can seem like intolerance and rigidity. For example, while Paul’s position on a woman’s role was wildly liberal for the time and community he was talking to, in today’s world it would be seen as sexist, if not downright misogynist. And, of course, most of the clobber passages are attributable to Paul*. Literalists (both within and without Christianity) want only to deal with the specific words that they think proves their point (which has become far too often the only reason to quote Scripture) but someone looking at the themes of his writing and what it meant to his audience can find an entirely different message.

But he certainly was direct and aggressive. And well… If I knew Paul, I probably wouldn’t disagree with your assessment of his personality. Yeah, he probably was pretty much an a-hole

:)

(* caveat: I wonder if perhaps Paul’s decision to make up words that have been presumed to be about homosexuality rather than use the common words at the time may at some point in the future be seen as radically liberal and counterculture. I don’t know, but religious conclusion may at some point be that he wanted to criticize specific excesses – Paul hated excesses of all sorts – but did not want to do so in a way that did not demean people. Maybe.)

The Gnome T Shirt slogans, word-play, and merchandising could have been epic!

Irreverent yes; not true; think about it for a minute.