---
title: "Sources and bibliography"
canonical: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/sources"
published: "2026-07-19"
updated: "2026-08-14"
license: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/license"
source: "Pauline Letters"
---

# Sources and bibliography

> The sources for Paul’s life do not agree with one another at every point, and the disagreements are more informative than a smoothed-over consensus would be.

**Which sources support the chronology, letter settings, manuscript claims, and uncertainty labels?**

Acts and the letters are the primary sources, and they are not always easy to align. Beyond them this project leans on standard reference works for chronology and geography, on published gazetteers for coordinates, and on Josephus where he describes officials Acts also names.

## What is cited here

The primary sources are Acts and the letters themselves, quoted from the World English Bible, a public-domain translation. Readings in the King James, New International, English Standard, Common English Bible, and New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition are available through the translation picker. The WEB text is generated directly from a pinned source file rather than typed by hand, so a quotation cannot drift from the edition it claims to be. The CEB and NRSVue text was imported once from named publisher or licensed passage pages through a source-, edition-, coverage-, and hash-checked pipeline; neither is fetched during a build or in the reader.

Beyond Scripture, the chronology leans on standard reference works for New Testament introduction and Pauline biography, on published gazetteers for geography, and on Josephus where he describes officials Acts also names, among them Felix, Festus, and Agrippa. Manuscript images come from Wikimedia Commons with their licence and attribution carried onto the page.

## What this project is not

Pauline Letters is an independent educational synthesis. It is not peer-reviewed, it carries no institutional sponsorship, and it does not claim to have discovered anything. Its contribution is arrangement: putting narrative, letters, geography, dates, and manuscript evidence in one place with their uncertainty still attached.

That is why the source registry is a page rather than a footnote. A reader who wants to disagree should be able to see what the disagreement rests on. Where this project has chosen among defensible options, as with an early date for Galatians and a Roman setting for the captivity letters, the guides name the choice as a choice.

## Common questions

### Where do Acts and the letters disagree?

Most visibly over Paul’s movements after his conversion. Acts 9 reads as though he went to Jerusalem fairly promptly; Galatians 1 says he went to Arabia and did not go up to Jerusalem for three years. Both can be harmonised, but the harmonisation is a reconstruction, and this site marks it as one rather than presenting it as narrative.

### Which translation is quoted?

The World English Bible by default, because it is public domain and can be reproduced in full without permission. Its text is generated directly from a pinned source file rather than typed by hand, so a quotation cannot drift from the edition it claims to be. King James, New International, English Standard, Common English Bible, and NRSVue readings are available through the translation picker.

### Is Josephus reliable here?

He is useful and interested, which are different things. Where Josephus names an official Acts also names — Felix, Festus, Agrippa, the high priest Ananias — he provides an independent check on the setting. Where he characterises motives he is writing for a Roman readership after a war, and this project cites him for the frame rather than the sentiment.

---

Canonical: https://paulineletters.com/explore/sources