Erik, I appreciate your post. I think it’s a very common misconception that Jesus started a new religion. In reality, no one called themselves Christians during Jesus’s lifetime, and if you actually look back in the text, you will see that even when the martyrdom of Stephen is described, Paul notes that he was persecuting followers of “The Way”, which was simply considered to be another sect of Judaism at the time. I think we also have to acknowledge the degree to which paganism in Rome influenced many modern Christian traditions, for better or for worse. That’s another little known part of the history.
