I'd love to see if any of the Roman histories shed any light on this. Instead, I choose to believe that many parts of the account are historical fiction, with details added that the individual authors believe will strengthen their stories, or which will help them make a point to the people they are writing to. This is also part of the support for my argument that we can look to other religions for truth also. If parts of the Bible are fiction, then parts of other religious writings must be truth. There is no black and white in religious literature.
Every religion has books and writings that contain the truth.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, there are christian preachers and organizations who preach things that are against other religions. Several years ago, there was an article in our local newspaper about Passover being the annual celebration of Jesus's resurrection. The radio-ministry leader wrote back and claimed that anyone who did not agree with him was going to hell. Of all my friends and acquaintances, only one took his side of the argument, and that person's wife told me privately that she agreed with me. One of my favorite jokes ends with the punchline that we will all realize how wrong we were as individuals and how much our fellow believers were right when we are finally perfect.