Let's boil this down
So I'm going to do a boil down that may irritate both sides here, on who is the historical Jesus, aside from a somewhat thinly sourced individual mentioned in Josephus. The quick points are numbered, the tl;dr is in italic.
1) A charismatic figure of an extant religion. The historical Jesus was highly likely to have been a apocalyptic prophet of a certain branch of Judaism. It is not a particularly crazy reading of the synoptic gospels to say this.
[But a word here on what Judaism means in the first century Mediterranean. There is the Temple Judaism, the Judaism of the Pharisees that develops into the Rabbinic mode (quite unfairly maligned in the Gospel of John), and the Judaism of the Roman Mediterranean , which is a bit of a mystery cult of the kind the Romans liked. That may sound weird, but run it through: non-Roman religion, which was very hip at the time, that is easier to jibe with the Greek philosophy that's hip at the time. If that sounds strange to say, well, read the latter books of the Old Testament - its closer to the Greek philosophers than many people, secular or religious, often like to admit. As to what happened to this version of Judaism light, the people who in the Bible's Greek are neither pagans, nor full up Temple Jews, well, they seem to have gloomed on to any particular charismatic Jewish figure they could find. There were others, before Jesus of Nazareth ran the table. This is a miserably simple synopsis of a small part of a fascinating part of human social history.]
2) A religion that spoke in contrast to the rampant, systemic inequality of the Roman system. "You are all one in Christ Jesus," regardless of what you think of the source of the phrase, is pretty damned attractive in a society like Rome's, which is even more of a line up to be pooped on by your betters than many others. This is a pretty revolutionary message, than and now - just look at the Christian churches, whose histories are a two thousand year old tale of hierarchy getting ladled on to that message, parts of the faith rebelling in the name of the original message, and then usually making the same mistakes. Repeat.
3) A specific set of events that keep the message pinging after the messenger gets whacked. Whoever or whatever the historical Jesus was, he was charismatic to get his followers attached. So attached that when he was executed, they spun the message to make it seem valid in spite of a pretty obvious failures of prophecy. The prophet here had to make a real impression; the who or how or why is less important.
So you're female Jesus likely won't be Jewish. But she could come out of an Isis cult, or the various Magna Maters, or any of the other popular cults of first century Mediterranean. She just needs the message and the moxie, and to come out of a non-state cult.
Before we say ASB, well, it's no more ASB than the extended small city wank that is the history of Rome or its continued influence, or the extended semitic culture wank that is Christianity. It's thinly sourced, and it would have a definite Rule-of-Cool - so its writer can get ready for their Turtledove.
So I'm going to do a boil down that may irritate both sides here, on who is the historical Jesus, aside from a somewhat thinly sourced individual mentioned in Josephus. The quick points are numbered, the tl;dr is in italic.
1) A charismatic figure of an extant religion. The historical Jesus was highly likely to have been a apocalyptic prophet of a certain branch of Judaism. It is not a particularly crazy reading of the synoptic gospels to say this.
[But a word here on what Judaism means in the first century Mediterranean. There is the Temple Judaism, the Judaism of the Pharisees that develops into the Rabbinic mode (quite unfairly maligned in the Gospel of John), and the Judaism of the Roman Mediterranean , which is a bit of a mystery cult of the kind the Romans liked. That may sound weird, but run it through: non-Roman religion, which was very hip at the time, that is easier to jibe with the Greek philosophy that's hip at the time. If that sounds strange to say, well, read the latter books of the Old Testament - its closer to the Greek philosophers than many people, secular or religious, often like to admit. As to what happened to this version of Judaism light, the people who in the Bible's Greek are neither pagans, nor full up Temple Jews, well, they seem to have gloomed on to any particular charismatic Jewish figure they could find. There were others, before Jesus of Nazareth ran the table. This is a miserably simple synopsis of a small part of a fascinating part of human social history.]
2) A religion that spoke in contrast to the rampant, systemic inequality of the Roman system. "You are all one in Christ Jesus," regardless of what you think of the source of the phrase, is pretty damned attractive in a society like Rome's, which is even more of a line up to be pooped on by your betters than many others. This is a pretty revolutionary message, than and now - just look at the Christian churches, whose histories are a two thousand year old tale of hierarchy getting ladled on to that message, parts of the faith rebelling in the name of the original message, and then usually making the same mistakes. Repeat.
3) A specific set of events that keep the message pinging after the messenger gets whacked. Whoever or whatever the historical Jesus was, he was charismatic to get his followers attached. So attached that when he was executed, they spun the message to make it seem valid in spite of a pretty obvious failures of prophecy. The prophet here had to make a real impression; the who or how or why is less important.
So you're female Jesus likely won't be Jewish. But she could come out of an Isis cult, or the various Magna Maters, or any of the other popular cults of first century Mediterranean. She just needs the message and the moxie, and to come out of a non-state cult.
Before we say ASB, well, it's no more ASB than the extended small city wank that is the history of Rome or its continued influence, or the extended semitic culture wank that is Christianity. It's thinly sourced, and it would have a definite Rule-of-Cool - so its writer can get ready for their Turtledove.