As Saul of Tarsus worked his way out of The Levant, it may be interesting to consider in computer simulations what evidence we have from modern studies of rumour that the Jews of Asia Minor confounded Yeshua with Philo of Alexandria and whether Gentiles receptive to this “Paul” were not under the impression that there had been some new philosopher among the Jews of The Levant but that this figure was either John of Jerusalem or Philo of Alexandria.

Such studies may shed light on how figures such as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Mao took on the aura of a Karl Marx and how it was that Ho Chi Minh came to adopt Marx and not Thomas Jefferson.

Future scholars may view the Khmer Rouge fanatics from Paris as a variant of religious missionaries and proselytizers in parallel with some of the curious figures present in colonial North America where waves of fanaticism persist to this day.

For example, if computer simulations can reveal that the mistaking of Jeshua for a mendiant healer was most likely based on rumours travelling ahead of him from town to town, these studies might establish a relationship of experimental religion with experimental history.