Most historians tend to accept these days that there was someone, or possibly a group of people, something like the Biblical Jesus -- a great teacher, or teachers, who attracted a wide following in early 1st century Judea, and was subsequently crucified for disruptive behavior. And, that these events led to some upheaval rather shortly throughout the Roman Empire, an echo perhaps of earlier uprisings such as the Spartacus Slave Revolt of over a century earlier. The Romans actually found these Christian rebels rather puzzling, because it wasn't by any means clear what exactly they wanted, or why, only that they were most uncooperative and defiant of Roman authority, in general.

Some decades following the death of Jesus we have the final Masada uprising against the Roman authority in Judea which leads, ultimately, to the complete absorption of Judea into the Roman Empire by sometime in the 2nd century AD. Perhaps half the entire population of Judea was exterminated, and many fled to exile throughout other parts of the Roman Empire. And, it's at this point, with the final Masada uprising, that Christianity begins to be formally codified in the form of the Christian Gospels, particularly the four Gospels of Mark, John, Luke and Matthew.

The particularly interesting thing here, is that historians really haven't the slightest idea who these people were, what their actual names were, where they came from, or, even, exactly why they wrote what they wrote, or, for who. The Christian apostles, are, effectively, a total blank slate. They presume that the Gospels began with the Gospel of Mark, because the references to people, places and historical events in it correspond to the period of the Masada uprising against Rome. Actually, the earliest existing papyrus scroll with fragments of the Gospels included in it dates from the middle of the second century AD, more than a century after the death of the presumed Jesus Christ. Jesus becomes a progressively more divine and exalted figure throughout the Gospels over time, from Mark, through John, to Luke and Mathew, till, by some time in the second century AD, with Matthew, he is actually the Son of God and, God himself. It's almost as if the writers of the Christian Gospels were developing an extremely sophisticated public relations exercise over time, in an effort to convert as many people as possible, and hold them as firmly as possible, by trying out versions of the story that were most persuasive.

Is it possible, that, that's exactly what they were doing? One thing almost all historians agree on, is that the writers of the Christian Gospels could not possibly have been disciples of Jesus. They were much too well educated, they were expert writers of Greek as a second language, and Greek was an international language of the highly educated, not something the peasants of Judea, who Jesus dealt with, would have had any familiarity with. So, in fact, there were no eye witness accounts of anything Jesus might have said, or done, at all. These accounts of Jesus sayings and miraculous doings may not be entirely fabricated. Perhaps there were stories of what Jesus said and did, which the actual writers of the Gospels heard, and perhaps, there may have actually been some eyewitnesses of these sayings and doings, among them. Or, perhaps not.

So, who were these writers of the Gospels, and, why did they write them? They weren't disciples of Jesus, they were too well educated, so, they didn't actually see or hear any of the things they wrote about themselves. What, exactly were they trying to do, and why?

Well, let's suppose they were well off, highly educated upper class Jews from Judea, and they were angry about what Rome had done to their nation and people. And, suppose, they saw the potential in the Christian uprisings for a way to counterattack against Rome using these Christian rebels, and, possibly, to propagate elements of the Jewish religion simultaneously. So, they thought, "Well, we can't defeat their legions, obviously, how about some other weapons? How about we use the power of our own God, in words, in scripture? How about we forge a weapon in words, that the Romans cannot fight, that the Romans cannot defeat? How about a campaign of psychological warfare against the Roman legions that makes them the slaves of our God, rather than the other way around?" And, that's exactly what they did. The pen, is mightier than the sword.