wulfir wrote:
Anthropoid wrote:
Tells me there is something more appealing in Christianity than in any of the other flavors it was competing with at the time.
Talked to some Muslim kids (Shia) of Afghan origin. They said the Koran was God's words printed down, and God's words exaclty. No interpretation, no human error

- but God's exact words. Believers in a religion with a written source - did any of the religions that competed with Christianity have something similar to the Bible project to build on?
The Torah / Old Testament. Not sure if Zorastrianism had a holy tome or not. Definitely the Roman and Greco traditions had vast lore, and much of it must have been written down, though I doubt it had the same social revolutionary quality which the writings of the Levant theologians in the immediate Christ era had.
As far as I know, the New Testament was written entirely AFTER Trumps . . . erm I mean JESUS' death

. . . Much of it quite a bit after his death. Not sure, but . . . I THINK that the early popularity of the cult was more based on word of mouth and oral tradition, and that very little of the story of Christ was written down in any substantive or authoritative tomes until quite some time after his death.