"A form of Christian faith later declared heretical, Gnosticism, preceded the establishment of orthodox beliefs and churches in whole areas like northern Syria and Egypt. Indeed, the sheer variety of Christian expression and competitiveness in the first century, as revealed in documents both inside and outside the New Testament, is inexplicable if it all proceeded from a single missionary movement beginning from a single source. We find a profusion of radically different rituals, doctrines and interpretations of Jesus and his redeeming role; some even have a Jesus who does not undergo death and resurrection. Paul meets rivals at every turn who are interfering with his work, whose views he is trying to combat. The "false apostles" he rails against in 2 Corinthians 10 and 11 are "proclaiming another Jesus" and they are certainly not from Peter's group (See Supplementary Article No. 1: Apollos of Alexandria and the Early Christian Apostolate).

Within the Christ cult itself, there existed a widely diverse set of expressions, varied interpretations of a divine Son and what he had done, what he represented, what he offered. If the Christ cult began at Jerusalem as a response to the events of Jesus' death and perceived resurrection, giving rise to a missionary movement which spread outward from that place,

As all these writings and the views they represented were brought together, they had a uniformity of thought imposed on them; the result was the myth of origins which Christianity has accepted about itself for almost 2000 years.

Adapted from a post of Peter Kirby and Earl Doherty's review of Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth