I am curious as to if and what historians can say about a Jesus of history vs the Jesus of legend and myth that we are all familiar with. Apparently it's not so cut and dry since anyone that ever wrote about Jesus never met the guy. I've tried discussing this topic on other forums but it's just too emotionally charged for some, I hope that's not the case here.
There is quite the bit of gray area in recreating a historical Jesus/Yehoshua. This person is completely diferent then the biblical Jesus. Right off the bat if he was here and you yelled out Jesus, he probably wouldnt know who you were talking too and probably never heard that name called to him.
There are a few things most scholars will agree upon but it is a very short list.
E.P. Sanders gives a much better overview on PDF if you can find it.
But here is my version.
Birth and teenage years unknown, pre 30 years of age for that matter is a guess. A poor oppresed man who lived a life beow poverty, who may have worked in the rebuilding of Sepphoris, doing add jobs. Tekton from this time was not carpenter but hand worker, known to live a poor renting life. His parents displaced peasant who rented a very small fieldstone rock house in Nazareth, windowless, lit with a single oil lamp. Diet would have been olives and bread soaked in vinegar and or olive oil. Lentels. Some fish but very little meat. A few mixed vegetables which may have been grown in Nazareth, a few rock cut channels few a few gardens from a spring near the towns edge. These gardens had rock walls to keeop animals out and to make the soil on te hillside level, and to hold the seaping water in the soil. More thne likely this graden had a full time person watching over it.
He was baptized by John The Baptist in the river Jordan, where he may have been influenced by his teachings.
He would have had a very small amount of disciples, probably his inner circle of 3 or 4 which would have been poor oppressed fishermen, who at that time were overworked, underpaid and overtaxed. They were known to be like Yehoshua, living a life below that of a common peasant. They may have went into these small villages prior to his arrival and stated a wise man is coming and set the village up for the coming of a healer/teacher. All in hopes for a meal. He was said to have healed and taught for free.
He traveled around Galilee preaching only in small Jewish villages avoiding the large Hellenistic cities.
He traveled to the temple for passover where he caused some unknown trouble that had to do with money. The temple was very corrupt as well as the Jewish government. If one was going to try and make a statement, passover was the time to do it. It is said there were close to 400,000 people in attendance, and this was a very crowded passover. This trouble had him placed on a cross where he died.