I read quite a few books, trying to determine if the Bible could actually be the Word of God or if it was just another historical document — a religious document. I ran into this clear-cut, very plausible explanation of how the Christian church evolved under the Roman Empire — what the social conditions were that led to the rise of an institution like that. And that was what I was looking for. It even had a little bit of analysis of scripture, pointing out some of the process of change, the revisions in the gospels, like the Sermon on the Mount.
