Saul probably understood his zeal in similar terms. In Galatians 1:13–14, he writes: For you have heard about my former way of life in Judaism, that to an extraordinary degree I was persecuting the church of God, and trying to destroy it, and was progressing in Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my nation, because I was a far more zealous adherent of the traditions handed down by my forefathers. (ESV) In the first century AD, the term usually translated “Judaism” in Galatians 1:13–14 apparently