Any Evidence For A Historical Jesus?

[EGross]

"Jesus" was allegedly a Galilean, too. And Galilee was a part of the country which was forcibly converted to Judaism by Alexander Jannai at the very end of the 2d century BC. Less than 40 years later, Pompey the Great liberated the area so who knows how deeply any Jewish customs would have sunk in in such a short period of time?

When Antipas rebuilt Sepphoris it included baths and a forum and Greco-Roman temples. Hardly a "Jewish" town. Not to mention they told Josephus to go fuck himself when he and his rebel army showed up at the gates. They then admitted a Roman garrison. Such historical realities cannot be dismissed because xtians find them inconvenient.

A couple of interesting points about Gallilee. The Talmud (Mesechet Eruvin, IIRC) seems to mock that town more than any other, because they spoke so badly that if you tried to learn from someone there, you just wouldn't understand, or you would misunderstand. You can see a short English translation of those few pages of discussion here (I did a google search rather than bothering to translate it. It's a lazy day!). It is also possible that this is a bit polemical, even though it doesn't say so.

There is also a famous story of a man from Galilee who asks Bruriah (the smartest woman of her day) how to get someplace, and she called him a "Foolish Gallilean!" for (1) saying 1 word to many to a married woman, and (2) she recognized him by his poor speech habits). This is also in the same chapter of Mesechet Eruvin. This also may relate to the Yeshu haNotzri story where he gets excommunicated for having an eye for the ladies (Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a - one version has "Yeshu" in it and the other just has "student", and it is only in the uncensored versions, which I prefer)!

Polemic, or not? You decide!

Just tossing some extra meat to the mix!