The more I get through Paul's various letters, the more i feel that Christianity could fairly be called "Paulism". Anyone else feel the same?

@LeopoldBloom The Jerusalem faction disappeared after the AD70 war, but would have lost anyway. There were a lot more non-Jews in the world than Jews...

@LeopoldBloom

Interesting.

@Pikachu The Jerusalem faction viewed Christianity as an outgrowth of Judaism.

What's interesting about Paul is that we learn almost nothing about Jesus from him. He's far more focused on talking about himself. Every time he brings up his "conversion," the story gets more convoluted.

Paul destroyed Christianity almost as soon as it began.

@LeopoldBloom

Yeah Jesus didn't seem to be trying to make Jews not Jews. It's Paul who keeps saying the old law is a path to failure.
lol yes he does seem to humble brag more than once. It really does strike me as a man just trying to grow his church, his religious movement.

@Pikachu Nietzsche observed that Paul had the novel idea of divorcing Christianity from Judaism, simplifying it and making it appealing to the pagans. Nobody is going to convert to Judaism, but if you tell a polytheist that there is just one more god they need to follow, that's not a huge stretch. "Paul remained Saul - the persecutor of Jesus."

@LeopoldBloom

Interesting.
lol yeah i guess following the laws of Moses is probably a hard sell if you're not born into it.