Did Paul (Saul of Tarsus) have a clearer understanding of who Jesus really was than the other disciples?
No, he did not. The eleven other Apostles had just as clear a grasp of who the risen Christ was as did Paul, after his Damascus Road experience. It was just that the scholarly Paul could use his theologically trained mind to explain the vital connection between the risen Christ and the foretold Messiah of the Old Testament. Paul knew the Mosaic law inside out and back to front. Once he saw the risen Christ, everything fell into its proper place and the revelation inspired him not only to preach but to write. It soon became clear to him and the other disciples that God had assigned him the primary task of reaching out to the Gentiles. He was supported by the others (despite some differences of opinions from time to time). When you stop to think about it, his transformation from persecutor to the persecuted was an incredibly powerful witness to his former theological friends. They might have despised the followers of The Way, calling them Galillean nonentities, but they couldn’t say that
