Monger wrote:Sure Paul made big changes to it, but Christianity, with its worship of Jesus, sacraments, gentile members & belief that sins are atoned for by Jesus' death, had already been "founded" before Paul became its persecutor & then its missionary.
err..sort of. The "Jesus Movement" was likely perpetuated by James and the rest of the family. Christianity as we know is today is a purely Pauline construct. The whole idea that Jesus was an incarnate deity is the product of Paul. The resurrection also has Pauline roots. The virgin birth may be Pauline, or may be (most likely is) a later construct, stemming from Jerome's mistranslation of the Aramaic
almah, meaning simply young woman of marriageable age, into
virgo or virgin, via the earlier Greek mistranslation as
parthenos, which also means virgin. The parthenos translation was not consistent, and would seem to have been "selected" to be the proper translation in order to fit evolving dogma.
Interestingly, the method by which the Christ figure achieved atonement is still the subject of much discussion. the leading arguments would seem to be:
--The shedding of blood "washes" sin away. If this is the case, then the actual resurrection is meaningless.
--The death on the cross redeems mankind by paying a 'debt' to the devil, who had ruled humanity due to the original sin. Again, in this explanation, resurrection is irrelevant.
--The resurrection is the act of atonement, because it defeats death (and its master, the devil). This is actually the most recent of the theories, and dates from 14th century University of Paris.
--A popular theory in later antiquity was that the incarnation itself serves as atonement, by returning the deity to its creation and merging them again.
The sacraments are also later innovations. The jesus movement probably recognized two sacraments, the eucharist and baptism. Both were Jewish rituals common in the ancient near east at the time. The eucharist likely took the form of weekly communal meals, and included singing and dancing. Baptism was also likely a frequent event, perhaps annual or biannual. It wasn't until the twelfth century that the sacraments began to take on their present form and number (seven). During the reformation, individual Protestant groups declared their own number and types of sacraments. limitation to only six of the seven wasn't really effectively codified until the early 13th century, when absolute prohibitions agains clerical marriage were enforced. The presence of widows and widowers in holy orders still makes it possible for some people to achieve all seven sacraments.
