I'm probably beginning to sound like a broken record, but I keep bringing up Colossians 1:23, and no one ever really addresses it. If Paul's focus, his gospel, was on Jesus of Nazareth, how could this good news have already been preached in all creation under heaven, and why did Paul say that he "BECAME A MINISTER" of this already-preached gospel?
If, on the other hand, Paul was thinking of a Christ Consciousness, a "gnosis" that swept through a wide region at the beginning of the first century, through groups like the Nazarites and the Essenes, a re-telling or expansion of the teachings previously attributed to Buddha, Mithra, Zoroaster, Hercules, etc..... I think that would explain this whole dilemma with Paul, and with Christianity in general. Basically, they understood the Bible's metaphors and allegories. They didn't take it literally because, well, it simply wasn't the literary style to write literal stories in Bible times. It was much easier to explain metaphysical truths through parables and symbolism. Masters have said that it is IMPOSSIBLE to put many of these concepts into words. This is probably why the Catholic Encyclopedia says that the Trinity is "incomprehensible to human intelligence".
This would also explain what St. Augustine of Hippo was referring to when he said that what BECAME the Christian religion goes back to the beginning of recorded history.
Just look at the mass confusion that the Bible has caused the literalists, to the point of creating more than 40,000 Christian denominations.... and the endless debates and arguments that continue on forums like this one when these things have already been argued ad nauseum for 2,000 years. No one will EVER be able to make a coherent set of doctrines by reading the Bible literally.
Now if you add the Nag Hammadi Library to the Bible and put it all together, you have a much more complete picture of what was going on during the first 300 years of the Christian era, because it's all the stuff that the Church destroyed, and we just don't have ANY of the original books that were accepted into the Canon.
