People of the period of Moses were far different than the people in the period of Jesus, so the question really is asking, were the ancient Israelites and the ancient Romanized Hebrews foolish enough to believe in God's power through parlor tricks and mysticism of wacko leaders?

My guess is, no. Folks living under Roman rule were very well educated and were not the back-water types of reclusive people that we observe joining modern-day cults. For example, the apostle Luke was a successful doctor and Matthew was a tax collector for the king. Or Paul the Apostle was in the heirarchy of traditional Jewish Ceremonial law - a "Pharisee."

These types of people in Roman culture would have been regarded as upper class and they would not have given up their lives of authority and power over simple parlor tricks. Jesus convinced these well-educated and wise men that he was the real deal... There is also the whole over-arching scope of prophecy over the course of more than 5000 years that makes it difficult to believe that it was the work of simple charlatans.
Source(s):
The Holy Bible

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wow this is a very good question. Now I believe that yes you may be right, or there's a possibility to it. I'm not religious or anything but...

I don't think that anyone would believe anyone including the government if the people were to be told that Jesus or anything in the bible was a fake. No one would believe this because depending on how great their faith in Jesus/God they would not care, they will think that that is a lie because they have grown up with the religion. Now, if they had just been introduced to the religion or have always had doubts about it then yes they will somewhat believe the government more than the words of the religion. This is just how people are. It's pretty much a psychological thing.

People don't want to believe in what may or may not be true. But it's the same way around.

I'm going to say, what if Jesus or the god that christianity paints for us isn't real because none of us has had proof that they have seen any of the things in the bible. It could and probably was looked at as a cult back then. You have one guy that just randomly comes into our world and thinks that he's a prophet or the "mesiah". We think it's stupid and that he's lying just to get money and just to be praised. We don't have the whole story, sure we have the bible but those are just words, it's not a video where we can actually see what actually happened and plus the bible has been changed so many times and we all know that, we just don't want to believe it. So what makes these believers believe in something that can very well be a fake? It's because it brings comfort and control to this world of ours. If the religion is fake, it was only brought into our world for just that, control and because people need something to believe in. For all we know, David Koresh or any other people that think and say that they are the prophet or sent from god, could actually be what they say they are. Now, I'm not saying that they are, but that they could have been but we just didn't believe like those in the past that didn't believe in what Jesus said he was. Everything could be vise versa.

I believe that yes, the figures such as Jesus and Moses were considered to be cults in the past. Moses, he got the people out of Egypt because he was able to persuade the people that he had the power of God to help him get them out of there. But what happened once they were able to follow him out of Egypt? Didn't they just keep walking in the desert to find Eden or something like that? They were somewhat punished because they were celebrating in the desert at some point and built a bull in gold like a god and moses got mad because according to the bible we are not suppose to worship any other idles? Other people like David Koresh would surely get mad at their people if they did not want to believe in what might have been wrong. And I'm sure that a lot of people have died for "Jesus" just because he was able to persuade hundreds of people to thinking that he was the son of god. Just because it was thousands years ago it doesn't mean that they didn't have the thoughts that we have now.

But anywho, sorry for making this so long. But I really think that it won't make such a huge effect on our community if we were told that the whole bible was fake and it was just a cult. People will choose to believe in what they want to believe. People are already being told that God or Jesus isn't real so people that are religious are already use to to people putting down what they believe in so why should they believe in the government telling them the same. There will just be more strikes, debates, etc.
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Well, when you look at a lot of cult leaders, they say to give them all your property and money. Jesus told people to give their money to the poor. He wasn't in it for self-aggrandizement. And what he told people to do wasn't kookie either: he told people to love God with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength, and to treat everyone as they would like to be treated themselves, saying that all of the Law (meaning the written down part, not the layers of tradition) and the Prophets could be summed up by that.

He didn't tell people to sell flowers at the airport, or to drink Koolaid so they could go to a spaceship in the sky, or that sleeping with him would make them rich or holy or somehow blessed. That's the kind of thing cult leaders do.
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