Was Jesus Just As Wannabe Messiah, Or The Real One?

How is it that a first-Century cult birthed in the armpit of the Roman Empire, whose leader was rejected by his own people and crucified, was able to survive and thrive in the face of violent, organized state-funded resistance? Let me ask it a little differently… How did it come about that a Nazarene sect would eventually be embraced by the very empire that for 300 years sought to extinguish it? “Against all odds,(all odds in yellow)  by the third century, Christianity had become a force to be reckoned with. We still do not really understand how did this come about.” - Karen Armstrong - Field or Blood How did a religion whose first believers were twenty or so illiterate day laborers in a remote part of the Roman Empire become the dominant religion in the West, converting some 30 million people in just 4 centuries? - Bart D Ehrman No one really denies it happened, because here we are in the 21st Century, but the question is… how did it happen? Was it because of what we call the Bible? Nope, the Bible didn’t show up in any form until around the 5th Century. So what was it…