Pretty much everything in Acts is bullshit, there’s a lot of controversy over Paul’s theology, and the Gospels come after a period of considerable intellectual evolution; so I’m inherently distrustful of this sort of textual harmonization. The basic idea that Paul lowered the barriers to entry is of course solid but also frankly uninteresting (although that’s a subjective judgment.)
Historically, most Christians ignored Paul (at least, we don’t have any record of any Christians appealing to him as any sort of authority) until around the early/middle of the 2nd century, when Marcion first appealed to Paul as an authority. As it turns out—since Marcion was a heretic—Acts of the Apostles was written to counter Marcion and his interpretation of Paul (see Marcion and Luke-Acts.
Marcion’s Bible was the first Christian Bible, and it’s simple happenstance of proto-Catholics modeling their Bible off of Marcion’s model (Paul-obsession, really) that Paul seems to be such an important figure.
Pretty much everything in Acts is bullshit, there’s a lot of controversy over Paul’s theology, and the Gospels come after a period of considerable intellectual evolution; so I’m inherently distrustful of this sort of textual harmonization. The basic idea that Paul lowered the barriers to entry is of course solid but also frankly uninteresting (although that’s a subjective judgment.)
Basically.
Historically, most Christians ignored Paul (at least, we don’t have any record of any Christians appealing to him as any sort of authority) until around the early/middle of the 2nd century, when Marcion first appealed to Paul as an authority. As it turns out—since Marcion was a heretic—Acts of the Apostles was written to counter Marcion and his interpretation of Paul (see Marcion and Luke-Acts.
Marcion’s Bible was the first Christian Bible, and it’s simple happenstance of proto-Catholics modeling their Bible off of Marcion’s model (Paul-obsession, really) that Paul seems to be such an important figure.