Jesus was a horse thief

There is an amusing biblical reference that, I don't care if you are a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Pagan, Atheist, whatever. As an objective reader, there is no getting around the truth that indeed, Jesus was a horse thief.

http://www.flamewarrior.com/horsethief.htm

I would take this a step further, however, and point out that majority of the population had no education and were extremely susceptible to snake oil salesman and the like. The Roman Empire, wanting to maintain control over its people through government, made it their duty to eliminate and discredit these grass roots religions. Out of the thousands that developed, one happened to create a larger following than most. Does that mean it was the one "true" religion? Or just a more successful hoax.

I would go so far as to argue that the Roman leaders were trying to save the masses from these leeches on society by destroying them. Unfortunately they did not account for the martyr effect that this often produces. They should have, instead of killing them (wholly unnecessary in my opinion) simply required them to prove their powers in front of a live audience without the aid of any tools or people.

In modern society this would never fly. If some guy hot wired a car and was caught and sincerely believed that some deity told him to do it, he would either be judged as insane or put in jail anyway. That is exactly what happened 2000ish years ago but there was no GPS unit on the horse to catch the perp.