Both.
Christianity as we know it today is largely the creation of Paul. At the same time, in the words of Thomas Jefferson in his ‘Letter to William Short’ of 13 April, 1820:
“Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and firm corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines led me to try to sift them apart.”
Or to quote Soren Kirkegaard,
“In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther, in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ. Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down, making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ.”
So yes, both. It would be an interesting “What If” of history if Paul hadn’t come along - what shape would Christianity have taken? Paul was certainly the great popularizer of Christianity, but if his own theological interpretations are removed wholesale from Christianity (the Pauline Epistles, etc.) we’d likely have something that looks a like Thomas Jefferson’s edit of the Bible.
Thank you.
I figured this out all on my own.
Soren Kirkegaard? Really? Liberal theological tradition era soundly refuted.
ProtestantISM as we know it today is largely the creation of these guys....
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
There would have been greater emphasis placed on books such as James or of Peter which also had some things to say about sin. Paul wasn’t the only one to condemn homosexuality....John does in the book of Revelation listing homosexuals as among those who would not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Take out the Pauline gospels and you’d simply have the same repent and be saved messages as Paul wrote. Paul simply supplies the sinews that connect new Testament times with old Testament times, showing that Christ was at the center all the time...even in times of old!