The Beginnings of Christianity: Part Two - Historical Jesus and the Maccabean Revolt

Historical Jesus research became popular after German scholars and theologians in the 19th century revealed that most of teachings of western Christianity dated from the 7th to 9th centuries. The desire to discover connections to the Jesus of the first century began and has continued unabated to this day.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence remaining from the first century and most attempts have been incomplete and disappointing.
For our purposes, we will attempt to put the historical Jesus in an historical, not theological perspective.
To do that, we have to go back in time to Alexander the Great. The empire that Alexander left to his successors in the 4th century BC included Judea. His successors included the Ptolemies and the Seuclids. The Ptolemies, based in Egypt, ruled Judea until the end of  the 2nd century BC when the Seuclids, based in what is now Syria, Iraq and Iran, gained control.
The Ptolemies had left the Jewish people in Judea practice their religion, but the Seuclids eventually forced their version of Hellenism upon Judea, putting a statue of Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem. This lead to a revolt of Jewish priests intent upon restoring purity to the temple.
These families of priests, known as the Maccabees, eventually defeated the Seuclids and rededicated (purified) the temple in 165 BC. This event is celebrated to this day as the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
It is important to understand for a study of historical Jesus that the Jewish people were not unified in opposition to the Seuclids.
Many Jews favored the Hellenistic culture that Alexander the Great introduced into the region. In many ways, this Hellenistic culture was more advanced than the semi-nomadic culture that existed prior to Alexander. This divide among Jews between an ancient, tribal culture and a more modern, urban culture often centered upon religious rites and traditions.
This conflict continued when the Romans ended a century of Judean independence in the first century BC. The Romans placed the Idumean royal family of Herods on the throne of Judea to rule in their stead. Idumeans lived south of Judea and were the descendants of Esau. For this reason, the Idumeans were not considered of royal Jewish blood. To bolster his claims as Judean king, Herod the Great (king when Jesus was born) married into the Maccabean (also known as Hasmonean) royal family.
According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the politics in Judea at this centered on whether a group was pro-Roman (and the Hellenistic culture the Romans adopted from the Greeks) or anti-Roman desiring the freedom and independence of Judea.

[The Monty Python movie Life of Brian brilliantly captures the myriad Jewish splinter groups and how they spent more time fighting each other than they did the Romans.]
In Gospel accounts, Herod orders all first born Jewish males killed and Jesus' family flees to Egypt. Historically, there is no record of this. But Herod did systematically attempt to kill all possible heirs to his throne. This included all of his children from the Hasmonean princess he married and as many from the Jewish royal family as he could find.
It is highly likely that Jesus was of royal Jewish blood. Herod had no interest in Jewish peasants. He was interested in competitors to his rule. The fact that two Gospels (Matthew and Luke) have extensive genealogies linking Jesus to David (kingly) and Aaron (priestly) lineages strongly backs up this position.
At the time of Jesus' crucifixion, the conflict between the Roman and anti-Roman factions in Jerusalem had nearly reached a boiling point.
Why was Jesus crucified? Were Jesus and his disciples pro-Roman or anti-Roman? Who took over the movement after Jesus was killed? Was Jesus a Hellenistic Jew?
The answers to these questions and more in Part Three.