A Dutch historian wrote a book that analyzed Paul's actions as if he was a Roman double agent who had to stop religious uprising against the Roman empire. If you read the bible in that way it gets hard to ignore it. The romans were treated as an instrument of god, whose taxation should be payed without disagreement.

It's my personal favorite interpretation of the christian faith ever. How a disinforming operation became bigger than the institution it was meant to protect and eventually overtook it.

Oh thanks.

Yeah you know I have decided to just trust Paul was telling the truth about things as far as he knew it. A bias on my part. I like the guy. Always felt something for the larger than life types. Besides he really does seem to struggle with the events he heard and the prophecy he expected. So if he was lying he could have saved himself a lot of effort and avoided squaring the circle.

He said he met James so I will go with that. Pretty sure James and Peter were running a grift that Paul got suckered into. Among other things it explains why the Romans were ignoring them for decades. Rome had no problem with charity work/mystery cults. They let them do their thing. If they had killed Jesus they probably would have finished the job especially since the community was in Jerusalem.