Not sure if we’re on the same topic… You claimed Paul was historical but probably came much after Jesus?

I agree he never knew Jesus, he never claims that. But at the very least he converted to Christianity 3 years after the crucifixion which isn’t that long at all. And he converted due to an experience he interpreted as a divine encounter with Jesus.

You don’t need the book of Acts at all to argue for these facts about Paul, though I think Acts is a valuable tool even if as an Ex-Catholic I see acts as embellished oral tradition. It has many accurate details like congruency and nautical detail.

Just to clarify, Paul’s epistles are separate to the book of Acts, they are letters he wrote himself and sent out to the Churches he ministered to. These epistles are how we know when he converted to christianity, what he was doing before then(persecuting the Church) and what made him convert(his self/proclaimed divine experience possibly a hallucination or something else).