Many believe that the New Testament is inspired of God. Abundant evidence indicates that the New Testament is influenced by a goal of a unified religion in the Roman Empire. "Inspired" can mean many things. "Inspired" to convert pagans. "Inspired" to serve the Roman Empire. Some can claim that any of these purposes are the will of God, and thus the Bible is "inspired" of God.
The early Jewish movement became a unification movement with Paul as the face of the enterprise. Paul was one of the highly Greek-educated Jewish citizens of Rome. The main goals appear to be the end of animal sacrifices in both Jewish and polytheistic practice and unified religion. To accomplish this, Jesus is used as a substitute for the sacrifices. (They sacrifices to idols were eaten, so Christians eat the bread as "body". Unleavened bread for Jewish unity and eat the "body" for polytheist unity). Also, circumcision was an obstacle to unity, so Paul worked to convince Jewish people that circumcision was no longer important in religion.
In the Roman Empire, there were many gods and and sons of gods, both among the Greco-Roman pagan religions as well as the emperors who were ascribed "divinity" and "divi filius" ("son of a god"). For the needs of unified religion in the Roman Empire ("all things to all people"), Jesus was used as a human-like ‘god’ figure to help a huge population of Greco-Roman pagans convert to Jewish monotheism. The pagans believed in human-like gods. By using a human-like form (Jesus) as an image of the true God, the pagans could transfer their thinking from the pagan gods to the true God. It's a parable. This should not be surprising. In the Roman Church we see a pattern of substitution of a pagan artifact of worship for a Christian one. It's a simple substitution process. We see this in holidays, prayer, statues, and many other aspects. So the substitution of a human-like image of God, in place of human-like pagan god figure, for adaptation to monotheism, is a normal part of the pattern.
In order to relate Jesus to the Jewish people, Jesus is also related to the messiah concept.
The religion was later enforced as a Roman state religion. Former Greco-Roman houses of worship were destroyed or converted by force. Books and writings were destroyed. The baptism of infants eased maintenance of the population in this new religion. Heretics were punished. The Roman Church even spoke about "Church militant" as if this is some sort of good thing.
The resulting religion itself was problematic. The adaptations for pagans including the "trinity" attempt at a theological explanation went too far and Christianity lost the Jewish people. They have been called "blind" etc. and have experienced the consequences of not accepting the new Roman religion. Many Jewish rabbis today who are experts in Christian scriptures discuss some of the problems. Roman Christianity is an improper form of "monotheism" to say it gently. Some could say that it's disrespectful to God. The failure of Roman Christianity is clear in the name itself. "Christ" means messiah, yet the Jewish people for whom the messiah was intended, didn't even accept the religion. Then many excuses are made, including Scriptures added to the New Testament. Religions do what they so often do, ignore the real truth, make an excuse and keep going. Doesn't Catholicism teach about invincible ignorance and the obdurateness? So I encourage priests, pastors, and all to be honest about this situation. The Roman Empire is gone. Thankfully, with freedom of religion now, we can move forward.
