Was Jesus a fabrication of the Romans?

[Beta Ray Bill]

I was just at
http://www.examiner.com/article/was-jesu...the-masses

it is a story that Joseph Atwill claims that the Roman Empire created the fictional story of Jesus Christ in order to provide the Jews (and I guess potentially the Gentiles) a messiah and give a more loving version of their god, so they would be more pacified and controllable.

"When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

This is an intriguing theory, but I have a couple problems with it:
1) Were the Jews really that much of a threat? I'm no history expert, but I've never heard of overehelming Jewish missionary work. And they were crushed quite easily when they got annoying.
2) Why are there over 40 Gospels? Wouldn't it have been more useful to the Romans to write one version and stick to that?
3) what about Paul's writings? He was the first writer, but he told almost nothing of the life of Jesus. What purpose would his writings serve (especially since some of them were written in prison)?

This sounds like another Zeitgeist to me. Sounds good, but it just isn't plausible.