According to Greg Doudna, the real inspiration for the Jesus movement was Jesus ben Sapphat, who was active in the 60s. I would be interested to know the reasoning behind Greg's proposal. Firstly, why was he looking for the "real" Jesus and where did he expect to find him? The search for the "real" Jesus is usually based on the assumption that the Gospels have at least some historical basis - that a man called Jesus actually lived at the time when the Gospels say he did. If that assumption is abandoned, it is difficult to see what could guide the search for the real Jesus. How would you know when the real Jesus lived? Potentially, there could be an answer to that question if we knew for certain that Paul was active after AD 70. But we don't know that, and Greg's attempts to demonstrate this must be regarded as speculative at best. We might still have something to go on if we could find a Jesus who corresponds closely to what Paul says about Jesus. Does that apply to Jesus ben Sapphat? Let's start by asking whether this Jesus died by crucifixion (and not just whether this *might* have happened). As far as I can tell, there is no clear indication that he did.
It appears that there is nothing to guide Greg's search for the "real" Jesus. So here is the problem. It is easy to claim that you have found the "answer" to a problem when your search for the answer was completely unconstrained. In those circumstances you can seize on pretty much anything and then engage in speculation to "demonstrate" that your answer is correct.
According to Greg Doudna, the real inspiration for the Jesus movement was Jesus ben Sapphat, who was active in the 60s. I would be interested to know the reasoning behind Greg's proposal. Firstly, why was he looking for the "real" Jesus and where did he expect to find him? The search for the "real" Jesus is usually based on the assumption that the Gospels have at least some historical basis - that a man called Jesus actually lived at the time when the Gospels say he did. If that assumption is abandoned, it is difficult to see what could guide the search for the real Jesus. How would you know when the real Jesus lived? Potentially, there could be an answer to that question if we knew for certain that Paul was active after AD 70. But we don't know that, and Greg's attempts to demonstrate this must be regarded as speculative at best. We might still have something to go on if we could find a Jesus who corresponds closely to what Paul says about Jesus. Does that apply to Jesus ben Sapphat? Let's start by asking whether this Jesus died by crucifixion (and not just whether this *might* have happened). As far as I can tell, there is no clear indication that he did.
It appears that there is nothing to guide Greg's search for the "real" Jesus. So here is the problem. It is easy to claim that you have found the "answer" to a problem when your search for the answer was completely unconstrained. In those circumstances you can seize on pretty much anything and then engage in speculation to "demonstrate" that your answer is correct.