Okay, so now what do we say about Paul. Was he a deceiver? Would Christianity as we know it be changed if we indeed found Paul guilty of infiltrating the Christian movement for nefarious purposes? Let's reason this out by doing a small experiment. Let's take ALL of the writings of Paul out of the Bible. Just paperclip each letter together and put a red tag on it and say in bold letters on it saying, "do not read." Do not forget to do the same in the account of the Acts of the Apostles as provided by the apostle, Luke for indeed Luke wrote about Saul of Tarsus and his conversion and later acts. In essence, does the deletion change the message of Jesus Christ regarding salvation? No. Are not the teachings and preaching of the Good News by Jesus the Christ clear enough that all might be saved? I submit the single word, yes. Would His crucifixtion and sequential resurrection be different? No. Now, to Paul. Paul was a very well schooled member of the Jewish Sanhedrin and knew, what we call the Old Testament scriptures, documents, and geneology. The majority of what we read in his New Testament teachings are simple comparisons regarding Old Testament salvation by works as compared to salvation by grace. He taught that works alone were not enough to be saved, which were initially taught by the Master Himself. He didn't negate good works but merely said that good works alone wouldn't cut the mustard. If we took the word Apostle out of the equation, would his message and travels have changed? Probably not. Nor would the message that Jesus had sent out via over 70 other disciples (apostles by definition) in the great commission. Do Note: The first chapter of Romans reveals the gospel and the law of Moses working hand in hand. Since my time is limited let me say lastly that if Paul was indeed up to no good then things backfired on him. The Christian church was strengthened and furthered by his teachings and travels, for without his missionary work regarding the Gentiles, the church would not have grown as swiftly as it did. Note: Had it not been for an arbitrary flipping of the pages I would not have seen Romans 8:38-39. Those two verses led me to Jesus Christ and His wonderful offering of salvation. Again, if Paul were a fraud, he did it badly for it did not work.