I'm so glad you have resolved that question. As a student of Paul/Saul, I have never been convinced that he WAS NOT married. Indeed, most scholars would disagree with your statement, int hat, to be a member of the Sanhedrin, it was a requirement.
On what Scriptures do you post this definitive statement? Since you are a seminary student, you may want to do more research on your own, and deepend less on those "teachers" After all, those "teachers of the law" are the ones that had Jesus crucified!
...When Paul talks about being buffeted by a thorn in the flesh, he is in fact almost quoting passages from the LXX of Num. 33:55 and Josh. 23:13, where " thorns" which would buffet the eyes of Israel were the Canaanite tribes (cp. Ez. 28:24); and especially, in the context, their women. If they intermarried, those women and what they brought with them would be made by God as thorns in Israel's flesh. The implication could be that Paul had not driven out his Canaanites earlier, and therefore God gave them to Him as a thorn in the flesh, just as He had done to Israel earlier. There is fair reason to think that Paul had been married; he could not have been a member of the Sannhedrin and thus had the power to vote for the murder of the early martyrs unless he had been married and had children (Acts 26:10). His comment that he wished all men to be in his marital position (1 Cor. 7:8) has another slant in this case: he wished them to have had the marriage experience, but be in the single state. As a leading Pharisee, his wife would have been from an appropriate background. " ...for whom I have suffered the loss of all things" would then have been written with a sideways glance back at his wife, children he never saw... all that might have been. In gripping autobiography, Paul relates the innocent days when (as a child) he lived without the knowledge of law and therefore sin. But then, the concept of commandments registered with him; and this " wrought in me all manner of concupiscence" (Rom. 7:8). " Concupiscence" is a conveniently archaic word for lust; and in the thinking and writing of Paul, the Greek epithumia is invariably used in a sexual context. - http://www.aletheiacollege.net/bl/14-11Pauls_Thorn_In_The_Flesh.htm
Let’s hope that Christian scholars, especially evangelical ones, are not like the Pharisees who required things additional to the Torah, like that members of the Sanhedrin would be married.
The vast majority of New Testament scholars, currently, and historically, do acknowledge the Apostle Paul was single—according to the New Testament record. I fully concur, and see no evidence contrary...
Almost no scholar of good repute I know of is definitive about Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” and historically also, it’s been as big a guessing game as the authorship of Hebrews.
Scripture never names Paul as a “member of the Sanhedrin” either, rather as a Pharisee...a much larger group, than the 71 leaders in the Sanhedrin. As a brilliant student of Gamaliel, surely he would’ve personally known members of the Sanhedrin, which is why some assume he was a member—or he could have been a candidate for membership (before his conversion), however scripture is actually silent on his membership.
I Cor. 7 clearly indicates Paul is single, and, Paul teaches that for those who can, singleness is to be preferred. For most singleness is not to be preferred and they should get married.
Again, my own reading of scripture, and the vast consensus of all Christian students of the Bible historically, reflected in scholarship, and denominational requirements, is that both single and married can be called of God to be worthy ministers of the Gospel. God has called people to be both single and married—each state has its own advantages and disadvantages—one is not morally superior to another.
What organized Church group/denomination REQUIRES pastors to be married?