For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[EGross]

Ooooh, Unicorns! I thought that Noah just forgot to bring them!

As far as a "historical Jesus", that doesn't seem to be there, although the period was bretty messianic. In the year 30, Shammai dies, but the zeolats that had infiltrated his group were still in countrol. Rabban Gamliel the Elder from the house of Hillel would replace him, but the nastiness of the zealots would overpower any authority he had. The Saducees has tried taking over the temple since 6CE (about) and was successful at around 26CE by bribing the Roman governor and bought the priesthood (which discards any claims Paul had about being a Pharisee and working with the priesthood - they hated each other and would not have worked together. Things are a real mass at this point, and people are looking for a way out of the mess - zealots are killing anyone who appears to be pro-Rome, Pilate keeps trying to sakck the temple, the Jews are pissed, and eventually Rome will call back Pilate to get the creep out of Jerusalem.

As I said, when times get rough, people look for some sort of savior, and any guy with a half-assed claim might be given some acceptance. The best known at the time is Theudus (about 44CE) who was rallying the people to follow him (see Josephus).

The Christian writers mess up that bit of history and in trying to get Gamliel 1st to be nice to the Christians (something he would not have done based on his sayings, and based on who was really running the show - cutthroats and arsonists, literally!) and then having Gamliel 1st mention him. Certainly Gamliel II would not have been in the picture during Paul's supposed period, since he was in hiding until Vespasian was dead (who wanted his head). But the Christian texts are very hard to get history right concerning this period because they need to join a Jesus and a Paul mythology and then try to apply it to make it a nice period piece. So if you can ignore the Christian history, there was a great struggle happening.