You're saying Roman LEADERS were illiterate? I don't think they all were. And Josephus' ORAL sayings were eventually written down and were the basis of the New Testament? I wrote below about a book with a convincing version of these events, if you care to read my summary and offer your opinion.

@Storm1752 Exactly, and that is why many had scribes. These people were military leaders and during that time one did not have to read and write. Most history was oral.

@JackPedigo You're assuming there WAS a "Jesus and his followers," but I've read a lot of things which lead me to the opinion there wasn't.

@Storm1752 It is a controversy now but a couple of thousand years and lots of studies and PhD graduate programs show there was something. Not entirely fictional. The usual gray instead of B & W.

To get the whole gist of Flavian involvement in rising Messianic Judaean cult that eventually became Christianity I'd suggest getting hold of a english translated copy of Flavius Josephus' " The Holy Trinity of Rome, the Flavians."
That actually outlines the origin of the Christian Holy Trinity because i the times of the Roman Empire nothing gave a family greater status than to have a member deified, elevated to the status of a God, be they living or dead, hence to curry further favour with his once Owners and now a Freed man and trusted member of the Flavian household, Josephus first adopted the Flavian name, the wrote the Flavian biography in which he portrays and depicts Flavius Vespasian (Pater Familias) as the Holy Father, Flavius Titus as the Holy Son, true because Titus was the eldest son of Vespasian, and Flavius Domitian as the Holy Spirit of both the Flavian family and of Rome itself.
At the Second Council of Nicaea, C.E. 329-341, it was decided to 'borrow' the deification of the Flavians and adapt it to give more credence to the Monotheistic Concept of the Messianic-Judaean Cult that was on the rise..

I have heard many different ideas about the Jesus figure, completely mythical, myth built on a small real figure, fictional, allogorical, historical, etc. the one thing that all the theories have in common, is that the tiny amount of confused messed up and doubtful evidence is not enough to support any theory. The real answer is that nobody has, or probably ever will have, the faintest idea what the truth is.

@Fernapple That's not necessarily true. I haven't actually read Caesar's Messiah itself, but I'm reading a lot of excerpts, and it's very revealing.
It shows the unmistakable link between the New Testament and Old Testament by way of "typography," one mirroring the other to give the impression the new document is a legitimate continuation of the older one.
But it's true nature and intent is spelled out by Atwill as he points out, in detail, the New Testament parallels to Josephus' account of the Jewish-Roman War of 67-73 AD,. From this vantage point, Josephus lays out Titus' campaign to destroy Jewish resistance to Roman rule, culminating in the laying siege to and sacking of Jerusalem.
This campaign is virtually a carbon copy of the 'biography' of Jesus' life/ministry in the New Testament (written circa 61-67 A.D.), albeit at times using code words, allegory, etc. to obscure it's true identity to all but the most discerning eye.
The final event, the massacre at Masada in 73 AD,, occurred exactly 40 years after the fictitious crucifixion of 'Jesus' in 33 A.D.
The book also outlines the spread of Christianity, showing it was an orchestrated use of this new "religion" to Romanize/placate whole regions, with mixed results.
The general thrust is that the creation and spread of Christianity was NOT a spontaneous grassroots Movement sparked by the life of a real man, but rather a deliberate and brilliantly-executed example of sophisticated myth-making, passed off successfully to many as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. It was originally and specifically intended to neutralize radical Jewish zealotry, then, once that proved viable, was introduced into other troubled locales such as Egypt and Ethiopia, and eventually throughout the Roman Empire.
This effort began in ernest with the "conversion" of emperor Constantine circa 300 A.D.,, and almost immediately thereafter the establishment of Christianity as the official state religion. This was followed by the systematic destruction of competing religions everywhere within Rome's reach.

@Storm1752 Yes, I would agree that the Roman forgery conspiracy theory is one of the better ones. Not all the theories are equal. But it is still mainly speculative, and we do not know if the forgers were inventing it as new, or were using lost earlier texts and myths to build on. It certainly has many of the qualities of a forgery, but you can have copies and fakes of earlier forgeries, and earlier texts rellating can be destroyed.

Do not also forget, that the Flavians stole all the documents held in Jerusalem's temple, perhaps the only library of Jewish religious writing in the Holy Land at the time. What did they find in there ? What did they destroy ? What did they copy ? Why did they really take it ? Who else knew what was in there ? Who did they bribe to cover things up ? Was the Flavian Jesus an original invention, or was there a real Jewish leader who the Flavians wanted to eraze by substituting their own ? Or did the Flavian actually want to put the record square, in their favour, after someone else started promoting their own anti-Roman myth ?

I would say, that even if we assume that the Flavians had something to do with it, we still have no idea what was really happening.

Ps have another look at the debate we took part in with Skado a couple of days ago, I added another bit you may like.

@Fernapple Josephus was a member of an affluent, well-connected, highly-educated family. He was captured during the war and brought before Vespasian, and succeeded in winning his favor.
Vespasian returned to Rome following the death of the last Augustan Caesar, Vitellius, and named emperor, while Josephus stayed behind with Titus. Once the war was concluded, he came with him back to Rome, where he was adopted by Vespasian, and installed as a member the royal household and court.
Since Josephus was highly educated with a thorough, in-depth knowledge of Jewish culture, religion, history, etc., he was well-qualified to take on such a project, perhaps with the aid of religious writings taken from Jewish temples, and, most likely, other records found elsewhere. If there were esoteric texts known only to an inner circle, there's way to know. But the Flavians, if this account is true, appear to have created the New Testament as a wholly new invention.
It wouldn't seem necessary to do much bribing or engage in other subterfuge; Jerusalem was in ruins, the power elite broken and scattered, the land in total, exclusive Roman control. Besides, what would there be to conceal? At that time there was no elaborate plan, only the business of finishing the job at hand, and setting up a new administration.
As for the content and composition of the New Testament document, it would've been a blending of sources including ancient mystery religions (such as the Egyptian Horus), Mithraism, Greek and Roman theology, Zoroastrianism, indigenous faiths, etc.,
If certain mythic elements--a virgin birth, a child amazing learned elders, an initiation ceremony, miracles, execution and resurrection, and a Return, and so on--were useful, and consistent with the biblical narrative, they might be incorporated..
It's certainly possible the Flavians took as a model some actual Jewish person, from any number of contemporaneous would-be, self-proclaimed messiahs. Or 'Jesus' was an idealized archetype.
Maybe Nazareth was chosen as a birthplace because at the time, it was little more than a graveyard with a few buildings for the groundskeepers and perhaps a few other residents, nothing more, and definitely not many to give accounts.
Keep in mind this would've been compiled and written in Rome, far from Jerusalem, approximately 70 years after the supposed events, in a devastated land, many of it's former residents killed or exiled. Most or all of the rest would've passed on, their children of course in no position to know WHAT had happened two generations earlier.

@Storm1752 Love it well researched.

To most of those who are weak/feeble/simple/fearful minded and seek out and follow religion it is somewhat akin to a drowning person reaching and grasping onto anything at all in the hope of staying afloat.
Then you have those who see purveying religion as an ends to a means, i.e. a career/job where the work/toil is neither strenuous, laborious, tiring or all consuming, the benefits are great and almost limitless and NONE ever dare question you.

I just was reading a little today about how Islam began and particularly about Muhammed and it reads like he was a historical figure, though I didn't look that hard.

@Storm1752 Well the Faithfools fully believe that Jesus existed in history BECAUSE it is written in their special story book and the same applies with Islam as well but there is NO actual records to support either myth.

Ah yes, their old "Leap of Faith" answer to any question.
The trouble there is that anyone with a working brain cell knows that one should ALWAYS look before they leap.