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If you believe that Jesus existed, you would have to say that he could not of picked 12 worse marketers of his supposed ministry if he tried. These 2 dimensional dummies were just made up as his fall guys and made very little impact in the society that they were supposed to evangelise. After Jesus's death, over 80 cults sprang up in the area over the next couple of centuries. Some of the more prominent were Simonians, Montanists, Marcionites (Marcion was also a docetist, he wrote the first type of Bible), Ebionites, and Phibionites.
How could people so easily be converted away from Christianity when the "truth" was firmly known and confirmed by all the miracles, resurrection and ascension?
Regarding the disciples, Paul never calls them by that name, and is silent on Jesus's ministry and life before the trial. He only knows of him via an apparition, even after speaking with a couple of the the disciples whom he calls apostles. Hardly anything is known about their lives, where they were born and what became of them after the resurrection. Only two of them have their deaths recorded in the Bible: James, whom Herod killed “with the sword” (Acts 12:2) and Judas Iscariot, who either hanged himself or fell and burst open - which ever contradictory account you believe in.
The first sermon Peter preached resulted in 5000 new Christians. Christianity spread quickly throughout the known world of that time. Paul was at the stoning of Stephen a Jewish believer, this was most likely God's beginning work on Paul's spirit. So you see the chosen disciples had a huge effect on the spread of Christianity. The real truth of this matter doesn't begin with what the disciples were doing, the truth is what God was doing through them and they knew this to be the truth, it is conveyed in the NT.
