In a very interesting post on 3/18/2026 at BSA titled “Paul as Jeremiah,” Michael Waddle pointed out where Paul said he was like various prophets. Below is Claude.ai’s summary of Michael’s post. A second response expands on Michael’s comments and other comparisons.
Summary
The author argues that Paul likely saw himself as a Jeremiah figure, while acknowledging parallels to other Hebrew prophets as well.
The Jeremiah Case
The strongest evidence is Galatians 1:15–16, where Paul’s description of being “set apart before I was born” closely echoes the prophetic call in Jeremiah 1:5 — both in content and in the Greek (LXX) wording. The shared language of being appointed “to the nations/Gentiles” makes this likely an intentional allusion.
The author also connects Paul’s suffering catalogs in 2 Corinthians 11:23–29 and 2 Corinthians 4:10 to Jeremiah’s “confessions” (Jeremiah 11:18–23; 12:1–6; 15:10–21; 17:14–18; 18:19–23; 20:7–18) and the tradition of Jeremiah as the “suffering prophet.”
Finally, Paul’s “new covenant” theology in 2 Corinthians 3:6 is linked to Jeremiah 31:31–34, the only explicit use of that phrase in the Hebrew Bible.
Other Prophetic Identifications
The author notes Paul also drew on other figures:
- Moses — suggested by 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 6
- Elijah — Paul explicitly quotes the Elijah narrative in Romans 11:2–4, citing 1 Kings 19
- Isaiah’s Servant — parallels between Isaiah 49:1–6, Galatians 1, and Romans 15
Quote from the post with my formatting
- Now I don’t want to overstate this; Paul didn’t exclusively identify as Jeremiah or anything. In some ways he seems to have identified as a new Moses: the leader of a new exodus community, mediating a covenant, giving instruction to congregations in the wilderness of the present age (e.g. 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 6).
- In other places Paul compares himself to Elijah, particularly in Romans 11:2–4, where Paul explicitly quotes the Elijah narrative from 1 Kings 19. In it, Elijah complains that he alone remains faithful, and God’s response is that seven thousand have not bowed to Baal — Paul applies it directly to the present situation of Jewish unbelief. Paul seems to cast himself as an Elijah-like remnant figure: the lone (or nearly lone) faithful Israelite whose existence proves God has not abandoned his people.
- Paul also compares himself to Isaiah’s “Servant” in many places: texts like Isaiah 49:1–6 (the Servant called from the womb, given as a light to the nations) overlap significantly with Galatians 1, and Romans 15 uses Isaiah references extensively.
Follow-up Prompt: Are there other places critical bible scholars say Paul identified himself with a prophet? Cite the scholars/sources.
Here is a survey of what critical scholars have argued beyond what was covered in the original post, organized by prophetic figure:
Isaiah’s Servant
This is probably the richest area in scholarship beyond what the post mentioned. Bart Ehrman (UNC–Chapel Hill) has argued extensively — including in his book The Triumph of Christianity and in lectures at the Biblical Archaeology Society — that Paul believed he was personally fore-ordained to fulfill God’s plan for the human race, as proclaimed by the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, specifically pointing to Isaiah’s declaration “I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). Ehrman’s view is that Paul’s calling to preach was anticipated in the Jewish Scriptures, and that Paul himself was the fulfillment of prophecy — the one God had chosen to bring salvation to the world through his proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
More specifically on Romans 15, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ commentary notes that Paul’s citation of Isaiah 52:15 in Romans 15:21 concerns the Servant of the Lord, and that according to Isaiah, the Servant was first of all Israel, which was to bring the knowledge of Yahweh to the nations — but that in Romans 9–11, Paul showed how Israel failed in this mission, and therefore he himself undertakes almost single-handedly Israel’s responsibility as the Servant.
The Working Preacher commentary (Luther Seminary) adds that Paul interpreted Isaiah’s reference to the incredible news about the Servant to emphasize the importance of spreading the gospel, specifically in Romans 15:18–21, which cites the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 52:15.
Paul as “Prophet-Like Apostle” — The Scholarly Debate Broadly
The foundational academic work on this topic is Karl Olav Sandnes (MF Norwegian School of Theology), whose 1991 monograph Paul — One of the Prophets? A Contribution to the Apostle’s Self-Understanding (Mohr Siebeck, WUNT II/43) is the landmark study. Sandnes emphasizes that Paul never calls himself a prophet, nor is he titled so by Luke, but argues this does not negate the quest for prophetic elements and features in Paul’s ministry — noting that it is a commonplace in Pauline scholarship that Paul’s apostolate was more or less marked by prophetic features.
Sandnes’s 2015 article in Biblica (“Prophet-Like Apostle”) elaborates on the structural features of Galatians 1:15–16: he identifies all the essential elements of a prophetic call narrative in that passage — inauguration, election, commission, and addressee — arguing that Paul’s apostolic self-understanding was totally dependent upon the message he was commissioned to pass on, and that the very consciousness of preaching the eschatological comfort-gospel seems to have been an important reason for Paul to present his apostolate as prophet-like.
Jeffrey W. Aernie, in his 2012 monograph Is Paul Also Among the Prophets? (T&T Clark), took Sandnes’s work further by examining 2 Corinthians. Aernie argues that Paul presents himself as a member of the prophetic tradition generally, rather than the typological embodiment of any single figure, and identifies a “distinctly prophetic hermeneutic” in 2 Corinthians, whereby Paul incorporates prophetic material into his rhetorical argumentation — rooting the origin, nature, and function of his apostolic ministry in the prophetic narrative of Isaiah.
Paul as Elijah-Figure
Craig Evans, as cited in academic literature, draws out the Elijah connection specifically: Paul did not regard himself as an apostate from Judaism (Romans 11:1) but rather as an apostle and prophet to an apostate Israel, even as Elijah the prophet had been sent to an apostate Israel. This sharpens the Elijah parallel in Romans 11:2–4 beyond merely citing the narrative — Paul is positioning himself structurally in the same role Elijah occupied.
Paul and the Compulsory-Preaching Tradition
Sandnes also connects Paul’s famous “woe is me if I do not preach” statement in 1 Corinthians 9:16 to the prophetic tradition of compulsory proclamation: Paul is under an obligation to preach the gospel, and the alternative is woe — a concept that goes beyond normal servanthood and is best explained with reference to analogies in the prophetic literature, specifically Jeremiah, as the classical example of someone entrusted with a commission leading to compulsory preaching.
The “Call vs. Conversion” Question
Several scholars — including Krister Stendahl (Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 1976) and Pamela Eisenbaum (Paul Was Not a Christian, 2009) — have argued that the Damascus event should be understood as a prophetic call rather than a religious conversion. Eisenbaum argues that Paul was “called rather than converted,” and was thus a Jew who understood himself to be on a mission — which is an important building block in her conception of Paul’s prophetic identity. This framing has become influential in the “New Perspective on Paul” and its more radical variants.
In sum, the scholarly consensus — anchored especially by Sandnes, Aernie, and Ehrman — is that Paul drew broadly on the whole prophetic tradition rather than identifying with any single figure exclusively, but that the Isaiah Servant and Jeremiah parallels are the strongest anchors, with Elijah providing a more situational self-identification in the specific context of Jewish remnant theology in Romans 9–11.
