"'Christianity was founded by Paul of Tarsus' is a shopworn idea still for sale in the hand-me-down shops. The story goes that Jesus was a moral teacher but Paul transformed him into a deity. The idea 'lets Jesus off the hook,' so that he can still be respected as a nice guy and shifts the blame to Paul, the deluded fanatic. But it ignores the fact that the divinity of Christ is repeatedly affirmed throughout the New Testament. To deny Christ's divinity one has to deny the New Testament as a whole, which is of course what those propagating this myth really intend. Whether the New Testament is true or a web of fictions, singling out Paul goes against the textual and historical evidence. The best sources about the earliest followers of Jesus are the letters of Paul. They show him engaged with people who had been established worshippers of the divine Jesus for a long while. And these followers believed in the physical resurrection of Jesus, in his divinity, and in his redemption of humanity. As a contemporary Jewish scholar puts it, 'One cannot any longer say that [Paul] was the founder of Christianity.'"1
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnote:
1. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends, p. 206-207.
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Comments
In the book, he says that Paul is a false apostle, among other things (he also repeats that old canard that the gospels are forgeries).