<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Of the 27 books in the New Testament, 14 have been attributed to Paul; 7 of these are widely considered authentic and Paul's own, while the authorship of the other 7 is disputed . The undisputed letters are considered the most important sources since they contain what everyone agrees to be Paul's own statements about his life and thoughts . Theologian Mark Powell writes that Paul directed these 7 letters to specific occasions at particular churches . As an example, if the Corinthian church had not experienced problems concerning its celebration of the Lord's Supper, today we would not know that Paul even believed in that observance or had any opinions about it one way or the other . He asks if we might be ignorant of other matters simply because no crises arose that prompted Paul to comment on them . </P> <P> Although approximately half of Acts deals with Paul's life and works, the Book of Acts does not refer to Paul writing letters . Historians believe that the author of Acts did not have access to any of Paul's letters . One piece of evidence suggesting this is that Acts never directly quotes from the Pauline epistles . Discrepancies between the Pauline epistles and Acts would further support the conclusion that the author of Acts did not have access to those epistles when composing Acts . </P>

The life of saul before he became paul