A new book by Bart Ehrman, “Forgery and Counter-forgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics” demonstrates that many of the Epistles were forgeries, designed to reinforce a particular point of view in the new religion that had broken away from Judaism and which was anxious to build up credibility and a (fictitious past). Some of the writing was part of a fierce debate as to whether Jesus was or was not going to return very soon. So far he has not deigned to do so.

Meanwhile Candida Moss, in “The Myth of Persecution” takes an axe to early Christian martyrology, suggesting that it was made up in the fourth and fifth centuries, creating an attitude of inevitable conflict with non-Christians, and justifying the persecution of dissidents and members of other faiths.

The steady drip of expert research is demolishing part of the edifice of belief that has justified church intolerance through the centuries. Epicureanism, on the other hand, has no deus ex machina “certainties” and is a rational variant of humanism, without priests and control-freak leaders, that suits those who think for themselves. Counter-tribal, I call it, a creed for those who tend toward introversion and scepticism about the supernatural. Neither Christianity nor Epicureanism is either right or wrong; it’s about what suits you personally. But you need to know the provinance of the beliefs you are believing in!