@sailormann >>>"...What it looked like in its original form, its doctrines, teachings, practices, was quite different from what it later became after the self-proclaimed apostle Paul took it over,..."
As someone that has read and studied the New Testament books, I would strongly disagree with that statement as would the majority of other scholars. It reads more like what is pushed by the liberal Jesus Seminar (the one with a prominent ridiculous PBS series) that had an agenda of dismissing St Paul because of scripture obviously conflicting with modern era gender issues. I'll just tersely address the St Paul issue because it is so important. Leaving readers to follow up with their own readings and research. Nor will debate such within this thread.
After St Paul who had been Saul met with Apostles, he was very much in contact with and approved by the early followers. In fact
Peter prominently stated so in multiple scriptures and is clearly explained if one read's St. Luke's
Acts of the Apostles book.
2 Peter 3:15-16
Peter said of Paul: “So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures”
IMO speculating, the reason Jesus needed Paul and used him so was because Jesus seemingly as gospel scripture shows had the expectation that the church St Peter was tasked to build would not succeed and rather die out. Accordingly, there was an expectation God would step in with an army of angels to subdue humans and their evil so by the end of the early follower's lifetime's the Revelation comings would occur.
But since soon after the Resurrection, the church looked likely to continue, Jesus had a problem. First Saul was strongly persecuting followers. Second, the Apostles were simple uneducated persons with none literate in Greek much less able to write. Thus were unable to record events beyond oral traditions. So Jesus killed two birds with one stone since Paul was highly educated including in the Jewish religion. And that worked out spectacularly.
Most of Paul's letters were before any of the 4 gospels were written. The following is often considered the most important scripture in all the New Testament that legitimatizes the Apostle's Creed. In part because it was written so early about 53 AD and if false, large numbers of still very much alive followers would have corrected it as after the Jerusalem Dispersion many fled to Greek cities Paul started churches within .
1 Corinthians 15
1 Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand,
2 by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
3 For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He (Christ) appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve.
6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
Hubby said no. Of course, if I really wanted to bring my knitting I would have.
