In Acts I think that the various defamatory accusations against Paul (linking him to Nazarenes)
Acts 24:5
For we have found this man Paul a source of mischief and a disturber of the peace among all the Jews throughout the Empire, and a ringleader in the heresy of the Nazarenes.
...derived from the stories of previous persecutions of the Christian Nazarenes.
(If I remember well, Richard Carrier said the same thing in OHJ).
So also the legend of the martyrdom of James and John (and Paul?) had to be before the Earliest Gospel.
Jesus's crucifixion was euhemerized on the earth to replace the previous stories of the persecution of the Christians.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
I actually don't understand what you're saying. Is that Jesus's earthly death was in fact inspired by the martyrdoms of various Christian leaders? If so that doesn't follow at all. The Nazarenes didn't come about until ca. 125 ad, Paul, James and John were still alive. Jesus had been dead for about seven years by that point.
But regardless how you feel about that, the Earliest Gospel was extant while they were alive. How else, then, could Paul accuse some of following a different Gospel?
I mean, when I talk about the ''Earliest Gospel'', the Earliest Written Gospel, not the oral messages of apostles as Paul and the Pillars before him (lived when there was no written Gospel at all).
Is that Jesus's earthly death was in fact inspired by the martyrdoms of various Christian leaders?
Jesus's death was placed on the earth to replace the legends of the martyrdoms of various Christian leaders (legends already linked to the destruction of Jerusalem: see James, for example).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
But regardless how you feel about that, the Earliest Gospel was extant while they were alive. How else, then, could Paul accuse some of following a different Gospel?
The ''different Gospel'' was an oral Gospel, just as the Gospel preached by Paul. There was no written Gospel. And Paul wrote only epistles, not gospels.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
I think that even the persecutions of the Zealots (really: zero links with Christ or Christians) were christianized post factum as ''Christian'' persecutions already before the euhemerization of Christ. So it may be explained the christianization of the riotous Chrestiani killed by Nero in 66 CE. So it may be explained the strange fact of Theudas preceding Judas the Galilean in Acts.
