Did the creators of Christianity take advantage of peoples inability to read, or verify historical facts?

Since most knowledge, news, events, history, etc was transmitted by word of mouth, and since most people outside of clergy and some nobility were illiterate, The authors of the Bible could have written anything they wanted, and knowing the human tendency for greed, and hunger for power and control, it's even probable they did. Typical laypeople would have no way of verifying stories about a messiah who died 300 years earlier. All they could do is believe what they were told, just as people today do.