Jean Hardouin (officially lived 1646-1729), a Breton Jesuit, alleged Greek Biblical texts contains errors of translation from Latin, rather than from Aramaic, which shows that the Jewish characters of the Gospels must have spoken Latin, which is impossible within the mainstream historic narrative. Hardouin maintained that other Catholic orders forged all the Biblical texts and records of the saints.
Hardouin in his Prolegomena advocated a return to the oral tradition of Christianity, as if the Church’s reliance on written texts was a recent innovation. It seems the oral tradition was still within living memory of Hardouin. Little wonder he was so willing to disprove the Bible and written records of the Church. But we must also keep in mind that over 600 Christian books, not including the 200 Gnostic books, existed when the Church selected the 80 biblical books.
There was a poster here in the past who maintained that there was never a Reformation, but a Separation. There was a generic, polytheistic Christianity that stretched from present day Ireland to Japan (originally named Chrise). Depending on the locality, local gods supplemented the gods of Christianity. For example, the Irish worshipped the goddess Sheilah alongside Christ. In what’s now Greece, Western European crusaders built the Parthenon, which was originally a Christian church dedicated to the mother of Christ. However, the worship of Christ coexisted with what are now called Greek mythological gods.
The Catholic Church emphasizes Artemis, or Mary.
According to New Chronological-type historians (Christoph Pfister), all current religions derive from this polytheistic Christianity. Back then, one could group Christianity into the English Churches, the French Churches, the Greek Churches, and the African Churches. The main French church started when bishops at Avignon, France, at the start of the 18th century, tried to move to Rome and start a monopoly Christianity with the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Pfister points out that no evidence suggests the Popes being established in Rome until the 1750s.
Catholic missionaries were possibly behind the creation of Chinese religions of Confucianism and Daoism, as well as Islam and the Native American religions. Judaism came out of Protestantism in the Rhineland. Slavic Orthodox missionaries and the British were behind Hinduism. The British (Herbert Spencer) were also behind Shinto.
All of this occurred in a four or five hundred year period.
I believe everyone is religious. Even followers of Science, Communism and Ayn Rand are religious. And all religions are true at least in the sense that the metaphysical templates or Platonic-type forms have always existed and that human beings can only, through anamnesis, retrieve what's already there. There's no true learning, creativity or invention, only remembering.
Whether something really happened according to the actual current historic timeline does not invalidate a religious text or oral tradition. Perhaps it happened millions of years ago, or shall in the distant future. I'd be the last person to say that the Book of Mormon isn't true. Or any other text, for that matter. The original Christianity certainly jump-started everything.
As the saying goes, minds are like parachutes.