The discovery of the gnostic texts illustrates the classic development that occurs in any religion - sorting. Different aspects of the original source separate out and people sort themselves into those who follow one aspect or another. The fundamentalists who believe their way is the only way are narrow-minded; there will be fundamentalists on both sides of the divide. The closest we can get to a true picture of a founder must account for all streams that descended from that beginning point. Even then, truth? That's a pretty tall order.