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That Jesus has been so widely approved and admired, even by those who have not become adherents of the new religion, is a measure of the success that the authors of the gospels have enjoyed. In writing as they did, they intended for people to turn to Jesus, to admire him, and to believe that he was sent from God and that, by following him, they should have eternal life. Of course, in their view, admiration of Jesus and belief in him went together. They would not have appreciated having his teaching – -- in the Sermon on the Mount, say, or in the parable of the Good Samaritan – -- separated from their own belief and witness that God sent him to save the world. But the way in which they composed their gospels allows readers to pick and choose, and many readers have done exactly that, admiring Jesus even while disagreeing with Christian theology. Even in these cases, at least some of the evangelists' aims have been fulfilled.

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The years became decades, and some Christians decided that, after all, they might need connected accounts of Jesus, especially since some of the original disciples had been martyred, while others may have departed on missions to distant lands. Perhaps before our gospels themselves were written, there were something like proto-gospels – -- works that told a connected story, but not the whole story. Finally, the gospels themselves were composed – -- probably between 70 and 90 CE.

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