Yes, and that is probably true for a lot of other things that we assume as cornerstones of Western culture (e.g. Homer).

Many people would be surprised at the realisation that Christianity is a eastern religion (having originated in what we call “the Middle East”).

No, they would not. Everyone knows it's an eastern religion originating from the Middle East. Next you'll be saying Christians have not been told Jesus was not white! Like, that's also something that all Christians know.

If anything, that sort of thing has been taken too far in the other direction. It's anachronistic to cast the first century in twenty-first century racial terms in the first place. Of course nobody at the time would have called themselves "white", because that category didn't exist, and for much of the past few centuries, different varieties of racists wouldn't have counted first century Jews as "white" for various reasons.

Nevertheless, the Middle East has been populated (long before any European colonialism) by many ethnic groups that, if seen on the street in 2023 New York City, would be identified as "white". "White" people were not exclusive to northern Europe. Some even have light blond/red hair, or blue or green eyes. Did Jesus? Nobody knows, and those aren't the most common hair or eye colors there. And most people who spent 10x more outside than we do at that latitude probably had a deep tan. (Some, at least according to Xenophon, couldn't tan.)

So, it's likely that if we teleported a random first-century Jewish man into NYC, he would be considered white-passing. Looking at very insular groups, like the Samaritans, from the same area who never left probably gives us a good idea. But this is theologically totally irrelevant. I'd just say we shouldn't push "Jesus was a brown guy" any more definitively than we would push "Jesus was a white guy."

> the New Testament books called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not written by those people (if they even existed)

That's what a lot of scholars believe now, but this belief (and the converse!) is not based on extraordinarily strong evidence. A lot of historiography is fad-driven, and the NT authorship and dating issue is no different. For example, one of the most common and strongest arguments mustered for the late dating of the gospels is that they refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in prophetic terms. Thus, the argument goes, they must all postdate the 70AD destruction of Jerusalem at the very least.

But even from a purely secular perspective, this is not exactly an ironclad argument. Jerusalem had been destroyed before and sacked repeatedly, and that theme made a strong mark in Jewish literature and imagination. Jerusalem was at the time once again ruled by a foreign power. Revolts and messianic movements had already happened. Predicting the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans would not require an extraordinary prophetic miracle.

But for a lot of historiography, this is the only type of argument you can make. Reams and reams of paper are written about things like this, where there's really very little objective evidence.

> the texts do not even make any claims about their own authorship.

John does in fact make a claim about its authorship in John 21:4 and by the indirect way it always refers to John. Luke-Acts cannot be strictly identified as Luke through the text, but the author does claim to be one of Paul's companions and an eyewitness to those events.

But moreover, the tradition of ascribing the gospels to those individuals was carried through from very early on in the history of the church. It is entirely possible that this ascription was wrong, or mistaken, based on the evidence we have. But it's far too strong a statement to declare they were definitively not written by those individuals.