A Dutch historian wrote a book that analyzed Paul's actions as if he was a Roman double agent who had to stop religious uprising against the Roman empire. If you read the bible in that way it gets hard to ignore it. The romans were treated as an instrument of god, whose taxation should be payed without disagreement.

It's my personal favorite interpretation of the christian faith ever. How a disinforming operation became bigger than the institution it was meant to protect and eventually overtook it.