In the case of Hercules, the absence of any notion of a historical Hercules in even Hercules cult followers is sufficient to rule out a historic Hercules. Of course there is always the possibility of hard evidence surfacing. The city of Troy was considered mythical
until it was found. But that does not mean that gods and goddesses quarreled with each other over the progress of a war.
Credible Historical Context
The Gospels describe an environment that existed in Jerusalem and its vicinity somewhere around 30 CE. Pilate is prefect of Judaea. The Second Temple still stands and the Sadducees are in charge. Many Jews make the Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The House of Shammai, with its emphasis on strict observance of rules, is the dominant Pharisee sect.
When the Gospels were written sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem, this world no longer existed. Pilate is gone for decades, the Temple is destroyed, there are no more pilgrimages, the Sadducees and Shammai Pharisees are virtually extinct wiped out at Jerusalem. The Pharisees in the Gospel writing age are of the House of Hillel, having refused to fight the Romans and leaving Jerusalem before the end.
This aspect of the Gospels this accurately detailed portrayal of an earlier time suggests a tradition handed down from that time.
Credible Original Message of Jesus in the Context of the Times
The original concept of death we see in the Jewish scriptures was that it was permanent, the end. But as the people of Israel continued to suffer indignity after indignity at the hands of oppressors, external and internal, the question arose: How can God be just if the righteous suffer while the unrighteous prosper? The concept of a future resurrection and judgment appeared, wherein all who ever lived would be raised from the dead to be rewarded or punished according to how they had lived their lives. The idea of a judgment after death was certainly not new in the word but it was new to Judaism. But a general future resurrection was I believe unique. Paganism had other non-worldly realms in which spirits dwelt for better or worse but to Jews life necessarily meant a body. The only clear reference to an expected future resurrection in canonical Jewish scriptures (Ezekiel 35) has it as definitely physical in nature.
According to the tradition of apocalypticism (in Ehrmans phrase) God would send a judge to mete out the rewards and punishments. Or maybe being brought back to life in a more perfect world was the reward and the punishment was to stay dead. Opinions varied. There were also varying notions about this person God would send. On the one hand he was a human being descended from David. But Daniel depicts a supernatural (if human-like) being descending from heaven.
At the putative time of Jesus there was much discontent with Roman rule. The Zealots were not going to wait for any Messiah. They were going to throw out the Romans themselves, possibly justifying themselves worthy of Gods assistance. Others chose a less active stance, hoping for God to send someone to save Israel from oppression. Messianic fervor was in the air, in one form or another.
A young man of around thirty years in the time of Pilate (as Luke has it anyway) would have been growing up when Hillel was head of the Sanhedrin. Hillel was more interested in the spirit of the Law than in fine attention to all the plethora of rules and regulations. His successor Shammai was the opposite, concentrating on strict literal adherence to the letter of the Law.
The message that we see the Jesus of the Gospels preaching is that of a return to true righteousness to thereby create the messianic age by justifying Israel in the sight of God as worthy of a Messiah. His quarrel with the Shammai Pharisees is that they were concerned with man-made rituals whereas they should have been concerned with obeying the Laws that God gave directly. And not just the letter of the Law but its spirit. This message is exactly that of the prophets of old such as Isaiah and especially Amos.
We can imagine a young man,
influenced by Hillel in his youth,
who has studied the Law and the Prophets and the apocalyptic writings of the age,
upset by the misplaced literalness and resulting hypocrisy of the Pharisees
and the ostentatiousness (and money-grubbing) of the Sadducees,
who is inspired to offer a more spiritual answer to the pressing problem of evil, an answer different and more traditional than the violence of the Zealots, an answer that would in turn inspire the oppressed classes. An entirely believable scenario.
too long, continued in next post