> We definitely know, however, that the Christian Jewish sect was wealthy enough and numerous enough to entice the governor of Syria to arrest Paul (who was eventually executed for disturbing the peace of the empire).
We don't definitely know that. We know that Acts says that. And there is very good reason to believe that Acts is ahistorical propaganda. Especially when it comes to trying to rework the Paul character who had played such a large role in books in Marcionic Christianity. (https://www.amazon.com/Marcion-Luke-Acts-Defining-Joseph-Tyson/dp/1570036500/)
Well, Acts was written in part to counter Marcionism (there's a great book on it, short and to the point: Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle).
There was a school of thought called radical criticism before Adolf Harnack in Germany that thought that Marcionite community invented Paul, but it is a minority view. General consensus is that Paul wrote the letters, but Marcion is the first historically recorded person that collected letters of Paul into a single corpus.
Marcionite gospel wasn't addressed to Theoholis, it didn't have the first 2 chapters of Luke. It started at Chapter 3, skips John's baptism and Jesus geneology and his rejection at Nazareth and goes straight to Capernaum.
Regarding Acts, I recommend two readings
Marcion-Luke Acts - Defining Struggles by Joseph Tyson (https://www.amazon.com/Marcion-Luke-Acts-Defining-Joseph-Tyson/dp/1570036500/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2S88TQT3A2HRD&keywords=marcion+luke+acts+defining&qid=1640667894&s=books&sprefix=marcion+luke+acts+defining%2Cstripbooks%2C120&sr=1-1
)
Acts and the Christian Beginning (https://www.amazon.com/Acts-Christian-Beginnings-Seminar-Report/dp/1598151355)
<em>"The Acts Seminar concluded that Acts was written around 115 CE"</em>
Acts Seminar placed it in the 2nd century. The Seminar itself doesn't claim it was a response to Marcion, but some members do.
Tyson, years ago, made a case that Luke-Acts was a response to Marcion, though he does claim that there very well could have been an early version of the gospel used by both Marcion and the author of Luke-Acts.
Vinzent also makes the conclusion that Luke-Acts is a response to Marcion, though he does not find any need for an early version.
Klinghardt draws essentially the same conclusion as Vinzent (he came to essentially the same conclusion independent of Vinzent as well).
I could go on and on, but none of these sources are new. It really isn't difficult to find these if you do even the most basic research.
GLuke seems to be a complex composition resulting from the interplay of (largely) Marcionite and proto-Orthodox thologies, neither of which we fully understand today - Marcionism very little. One thing we can be fairly sure of is that Marcionites did not believe in physical resurrection; the Emmaus 'ghost'-story with Jesus vanishing as soon as he's recognized (without the possible interpolation of Jesus eating to "prove" he's not a ghost) would support this.
Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle is an extensive study of the whole issue; Neil Godfrey has a review of the relevant section here.
Questions like "is faith in Jesus enough" are more suited to /r/theology, though.