Sublime

The second explains the controversies, though not the crucifixion, at the expense of most of the evidence about first-century Jews. At the historical level, nobody doubts that Jesus was crucified, but a good many doubt that he entered into controversy with the Pharisees in particular. How are we to proceed?

would not be going too far to say that ‘Paul, and not Jesus, was … the Founder of Christianity’,20 and therein lie the origins of Christian heresy: ‘Paul is, in effect, the first “Christian” heretic, and his teachings – which became the foundation of later Christianity – are a flagrant deviation from the “original” or “pure” form.’21 He is the ‘fir