What was Paul like before God saved him according to Galatians 1?

Les explains that Paul was a Jewish religious zealot, one who was in the Jews' religion and was more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated him from his mother's womb and called him by His grace to reveal His Son in him, Paul was saved so that he might preach Christ among the heathen Gentiles. Les points out that as soon as God saved this Jewish religious zealot, He did not permit him to have contact with the twelve. He purposely kept him from them and sent him instead down to Mount Sinai in Arabia to give him these revelations, because if Paul had gone back to Jerusalem, the twelve would have drummed into him what they had been preaching—that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, the Son of God, crucified and raised, still willing to be King of Israel if Israel would repent. Instead, God would show Paul these things from His own position in heaven.