According to Acts, Paul himself stated, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today” (Acts 22:3, see also 21:39 NRSV). Using this as their starting point, Paul’s modern biographers almost all understand him as a Hellenized Jew from a middle-class family (according to Acts 18:3, he himself was a tentmaker) who received both a Jewish and Greek education. Before moving to Jerusalem, according to this narrative, he would have learned Scripture in Greek as well as at least some basic elements of Greek philosophy and rhetoric. This reconstruction explains Paul’s interest in Jews outside of Palestine; his knowledge
of Greek and Scripture; and his acquaintance with Greek ideas and forms of letter-writing.
Only in rightly aligning Paul as rooted in his Jewishness and training as a Pharisee can he be correctly interpreted. Paul's view of the Torah was always positive. He separates Jesus' mission among the Jews from his call to the Gentiles. The Pharisee Saul of Tarsus is arguably one of the
most influential religious figures in the history of Western culture.
On the one hand, Paul did not view Jewish Torah-observance as a means of eschatological salvation.
On the other hand, Jewishness is not erased or inconsequential in Messiah. Rather, for Paul, Jewish Torah-observance is a distinct “calling” or a “vocation” (Acts 21:17-26) within a more fundamental Messianic identity (7:19). The Mosaic law, therefore, applies to Messianic
Jews and Gentile Christians in different ways. Paul understood this difference; hence he lived consistently as a Jew but never insisted that Gentile converts do the same.