(Acts 16:37; 22:25). Paul was born about the time of Christ’s birth, in Tarsus (Acts 9:11), an important city (Acts 21:39) in the Roman province of Cilicia located in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). He spent much of his early life in Jerusalem as a student of the celebrated rabbi Gamaliel(Acts 22:3). Like his father before him, Paul was a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), a member of the strictest Jewish sect (Philippians 3:5). Miraculously converted while on his way to Damascus (ca. A.D. 33–34) to arrest Christians