detailed essay discusses the silence of key historical figures like Josephus regarding Jesus and early Christianity, raising questions about why no contemporary accounts exist outside Christian writers. Baring-Gould posits that this silence may stem from the historical context of the early Church, which he suggests resembled the Essenes in practices and beliefs. He indicates that Jewish historians might have avoided mentioning Christianity due to its perceived association with a sect that had diverged from traditional Judaism, emphasizing the misunderstandings and tensions between Jewish and Gentile interpretations of faith during the foundational years of Christianity. (This is an automatically generated summary.)