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Were all of them dead by this time?
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He swears they didn't know his face,
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which seems to me to say that Paul is claiming
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he wasn't in Jerusalem when he was persecuting the church.
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He was persecuting Christians in Syria.
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He was persecuting followers of Jesus in the Jewish Diaspora,
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not in Judea at all.
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That's what Paul's claiming.
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And then he goes to Damascus, he goes to Jerusalem for
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fifteen days but only sees these people,
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and it's seventeen years total is the first time he's seen
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publicly in Jerusalem by many different followers of Jesus.