What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[DeistPaladin]

I have a hard time imagining that Damneus had two sons - one of them heretical enough to stone and the other orthodox enough to be high priest. Doesn't that sound unlikely?

I'm no expert on ancient Hebrew history but everything I know about it suggests it was a theologically volatile time. History doctoral students I've spoken with joked that there was a messiah-of-the-week. The penalty for being discovered to be a false prophet was most dire. It would not be a surprise if the same son could be the anointed one (christos or messiah) one day and stoned to death the next, never mind a brother high priest and a brother who was stoned to death as a false messiah.

But fine, fine, fine, let's assume the "brother of Jesus" was neither an interpolation nor a reference to "Jesus Bar Damneus". All that granted, this oblique reference tells us what exactly?

The majority of scholars do seem convinced there was some kind of religious leader named "Yeshua" (which was a common name) who taught some stuff, we don't know what, who was thought to be the messiah by his followers (there was one on every street corner), who ran afoul of the Romans for some reason but we don't know exactly why (the Romans killed a lot of Jewish leaders) and mumble mumble "revolutionary" something something... Mix it all together and out comes THE HISTORICAL JESUS! (Ta da)

To quote Thomas Paine: "It may be so, and what then?"

Every "historist" (faction that believes in a historical Jesus) I've asked to please clarify for me what, if anything, can we know about him and what do we base this on, can't do any better than some-guy-named-Yeshua.

This is why I've renounced being a Jesus Myther and now call myself a Jesus Mooter. I'm exhausted riding the same merry go round and dancing the "scholars say" shuffle. I now think it's a waste of time, time better spent debunking the Bible and supernatural claims.

Even granting The Historical Jesus existed:

1. We know nothing of what he really taught.
   
2. We know nothing of his real life.
   
3. We will never be able to parse the truth from the folklore and myths.
   
4. Granting some-mortal-guy-named-Yeshua does nothing to validate Christian claims any more than discovering a historical Clark Kent would a belief in a real Superman.
   

So you see what I mean by "moot"?

So what were the two Jewish sects like that produced John the Baptist and the Early Christians?

There were many Jewish sects at that time. Judaism was in a theological crisis. Their god Yahweh seemed to have abandoned them to the Romans. Yahweh had promised the "seed of David" would rule upon the throne forever and ever. "So how come we gotta pay taxes to Rome and are living under Roman law?"

The ancient Jews couldn't reconcile the religion which said they were the chosen people to the reality that they were a colony of another empire.

On cue, as happens when religion is in crisis, many doom criers emerged proclaiming that the end was neigh. There were many claimants to "the messiah" as the Jews were desperately looking for any sign of deliverance. John the Baptist was one such leader. He had a substantial following.

Read the Gospels in the order in which they were written: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Notice how JtB sinks lower and lower on his knees, becoming more submissive with each Gospel account. The story got better with the telling.

Mark: JtB puts himself down as being unworthy to tie Jesus' sandals. He baptises Jesus and must be put away in prison before Jesus can start his ministry.

Matthew: Matthew seems uneasy with JtB's role as a baptist for Jesus. JtB says "you come to ME?"

Luke: Doesn't go into detail comparatively.

John: JtB never baptizes Jesus at all. Neither does he need to get out of the way. Jesus took up a rival baptizing ministry and outdid John at his own game.

But if JtB really got on his knees before Jesus or told his followers he was only the warm up act to a coming messiah, his followers clearly didn't get the memo. They regarded him as the messiah. They still do to this day.