Originally Posted by
Choux
Saul(St. Paul) was a Pharisee who never met the man called Jesus. He was a highly educated man, educated in Greece and having lived in Greece, and on the road to Damascus he was struck with the idea of blending the teachings of Jesus with the Greek Mysteries and the hopes for Jewish Messiah!
Paul took the teachings of a simple Jewish rabbi, teachings that stressed love over anger, helping the poor by sharing the wealth, not to worry about one's future, to be humble, and so on, and changed that peaceful message into a nightmare of focusing on sin and death, homosexuality, and oppressing females, among other negative things.
Saul founded the religion called Christianity and promoted it first to the Jews then all over the Mediterranean world. Saul was a very ambitious fellow and first corrupter of the teachings of Jesus.
Good question, Crow!