"My dad taught comparative religions for over 30 years, and his expertise is Confucianism"

That is impressive and he is to be commended for studying many other religions, if that's what he did? And though many theologians are also Biblical scholars, the vast majority have studied only what they were told is truth as the Church teaches it. If they'd studied the actual history of religions rather than just the words gathered to create the Bible, then they'd notice that if the Gospels are true then Jesus couldn't have been born 4 years after Herod's rule, yet the Gospels claim that King Herod sent out the order to have all newborn up to two-year-old boys to be put to death. There're a lot of records of Herod's rule as King and none have him alive at the time the Church claims Jesus was born (and Romans were meticulous record keepers) nor is there anything at all recorded about the decree to kill all the baby boys.

But that was needed to make it seem to fit predictions that God would call his Son out of Egypt. Isaiah was referring to Israel, not Jesus. But to make the timeline suit the early Church's teachings, Jesus had to have been born in the year they claim. So, it was either recorded history and through the Gospels that were so carefully written by educated scribes as lies or ignore historical facts. The Church leaders decided to go with the falsified story over historical facts. The same could be said of the "virgin" birth; most "gods" of the time were said to be of virgin birth, and many were also persecuted, put to death and then resurrected. The word Isaiah used meant "young woman", not necessarily a "virgin".

And Paul never met Jesus in life, but he did adopt pagan holidays into early Church worship of Jesus- who would be appalled that people worship him rather than God. Paul reached out to the gentiles (pagans) because the Church founded in Jerusalem by Peter- a man who did know Jesus in person- didn't like Paul's teachings and even called them false. Unfortunately, Peter's Church was for the Jews and Jews were not liked even then so that Church faded away.

I will give Paul the credit he's due, though: without him reaching out to gentiles (pagans), Jesus' teachings would've been lost to the sands of time as were the teachings of many other Rabbis and wandering sages of the time.