Description
There are dearly held opinions on what happened to the first followers of
Jesus once he left. Nonetheless, an independent examination in this area is long overdue; those who do examine it nearly always come from one self-serving vantage point or another: either they are believers whose standing and/or income rest upon their doctrinal rightness, or else they are opponents of Christianity, most frequently academics whose careers rest upon their standing among other academics.
More importantly, getting this information right (or as close to right as we can get), allows us to see Jesus as he really was, rather than seeing only the doctrinal versions that circulate so widely. These people are almost entirely unknown or incorrectly known, but they were, regardless of their faults, essential, not just to Christianity but to the human race as a whole.