The question came in my g-mail this morning and a quick response grew into this blog post.
The Question: "How old do you think Paul was - at any given time - let's say his death?"
My answer: The only educated guess I can make on Paul's age would be as follows, based on the most likely dates as I've worked out Paul's timeline:
"Paul" is not a system of thought. "Paul" is not a collection of writings.
Paul of Tarsus was a man of God who walked the earth and built the church.
Examine his life, and examine your own. And please, God, be merciful to all of us, after that!
Paul died in 64 AD, and met Jesus on the Damascus road in 34 AD. I don't know how long Pharisaical training used to take, but I don't suppose we should imagine Paul was less than 20 years old at Stephen's death. At Paul's own death, untimely as it was, being caused by execution and not by old age, it wouldn't be very reasonable to imagine Paul living past age 60. Kings and Emperors lived to 70 sometimes, but they had the best of comfort, health, medicine, etc. Common folks very often didn't live to age 50, which may help a bit to explain the remark about Jesus' age in the Gospel of John. Today we think of 100 as an age most people don't reach, but the few who do are considered really old, and it seems to me '50' had that same relevance then.
So, then, here is one possible reconstruction: If it was possible to become "a Pharisee of Pharisees" by age 20, then we're safer putting Paul's age at Stephen's death much closer to age 20 than to age 30. On the road to Damascus, then, Paul would be in his early to mid twenties. At his return to Tarsus, only 3 to 4 years older than that. At the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), Paul would be in his mid to late 30's. At his death in Rome, Paul "the aged" would indeed be around 50 years old, but probably not much older.
It's hard to imagine Paul living that long with all the travelling he did and all the beatings he took, but of course one option is to assume divine providence over Paul's longevity. Still, it's more reasonable to put the execution near 50 (than 60). Also, "Pharisee of Pharisees" doesn't sound like he'd attained lofty status. If Paul started training around age 13, he could easily have felt very full of his own knowledge by age 18. On the balance, then, my "possible reconstruction" above could be stretched a bit in either direction, which makes me happy enough to stick with these dates, given the understood "margin of error".
Calendar Year Paul's Age (approximate, plus or minus 3 to 5 years)
AD 34 ---> 21 (Damascus Road experience)
AD 35 ---> 22 (Unknown activity in Nabatea)
AD 36 ---> 23 (Paul left Nabatea, returned to Damascus, fled to Jerusalem)
AD 37 ---> 24 (Left Jerusalem for Tarsus, this year or late last year)
AD 38 ---> 25 (In Antioch with Barnabas, by this year at the latest)
AD 39 ---> 26
AD 40 ---> 27
AD 41 ---> 28
AD 42 ---> 29 (Approximate year of Paul's "3rd heaven" vision)
AD 43 ---> 30
AD 44 ---> 31
AD 45 ---> 32
AD 46 ---> 33 (Approximate date of the prayer meeting in Acts 13, plus 'trip prep')
AD 47 ---> 34 (Approximate start of the Gentile mission with Barnabas)
AD 48 ---> 35
AD 49 ---> 36
AD 50 ---> 37 (Council of Jerusalem, this year or last; Paul writes Galatians)
AD 51 ---> 38 (Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth; Paul writes 1 & 2 Thess)
AD 52 ---> 39 (Corinth, Jerusalem, Antioch of Syria)
AD 53 ---> 40 (Paul joins Aquilla & Priscilla in Ephesus)
AD 54 ---> 41 (Paul writes 1 Corinthians, before Claudius' death in October)
AD 55 ---> 42 (Paul by this time is said to demonstrate some healing ability)
AD 56 ---> 43 (Paul writes 2 Corinthians, after planting a church in Dyrrachium)
AD 57 ---> 44 (Paul writes Romans, 1 Timothy, arrested in Jerusalem)
AD 58 ---> 45 (Caesarea prison, from AD 57 to 59)
AD 59 ---> 46 (Caesarea to Crete, shipwreck on Malta)
AD 60 ---> 47 (Paul reaches Rome)
AD 61 ---> 48 (Paul writes Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, this year or last)
AD 62 ---> 49 (Paul writes Philippians, this year or last)
AD 63 ---> 50 (Paul released, this year or last; arrested again in Asia Minor)
AD 64 ---> 51 (Paul writes 2 Timothy; Nero persecutes the Roman church)
Note One: I do not entertain the timelines that keep Paul alive after Nero's purge for a number of reasons. For a brief sketch of my Timeline on Paul's activity, see here.
Note Two: I do hope no one is eager to use Paul's age as a comparison for accomplishments, against themselves or against anyone else. For one thing, that's not at all fair. More importantly, the best use of reconstructed data like this is to help us flesh out the details of Paul's story. Hopefully there's a lot we can learn from Paul's life, and not just from Paul's words. Perhaps the best thing a list like this can accomplish is to make us think four-dimensionally about a human being whose living and active engagement with God's mission on Earth was much more than the sum of his collected thoughts put down on paper.
One last thing, just because it's been on my mind.
The work of History, rightfully, is about taking 2 and 2 and coming up with 5. It doesn't give us rules to stand on. It gives us potential realities to consider... and a fleshed-out depiction of actual reality - while understanding that it happens to be an approximate and reconstructed reality - is always going to be much more valuable for real people to consider, and much more enriching for our actual lives, than always focusing merely on extracted principles, taken at random from decades of thought, which are then artificially cut down to a [seemingly] manageable size.
The work of History, rightfully, is about taking 2 and 2 and coming up with 5. It doesn't give us rules to stand on. It gives us potential realities to consider... and a fleshed-out depiction of actual reality - while understanding that it happens to be an approximate and reconstructed reality - is always going to be much more valuable for real people to consider, and much more enriching for our actual lives, than always focusing merely on extracted principles, taken at random from decades of thought, which are then artificially cut down to a [seemingly] manageable size.
"Paul" is not a system of thought. "Paul" is not a collection of writings.
Paul of Tarsus was a man of God who walked the earth and built the church.
Examine his life, and examine your own. And please, God, be merciful to all of us, after that!