Netanel,

Thanks. It was "scholarly" curiosity on my part and nothing more. My understanding is that missionaries like to claim (1) that a significant number or proportion of 1st-century Jews joined a Jsus movement and (2) that a significant number of outwardly orthodox Jews are secretly coming to believe in Jsus as messiah or savior or whatever.

At a personal level, I dislike that both claims lack figures/data to back them up - never mind that the claims themselves are odious to my sensibilities! But, again, at a scholarly level, I'm interested to get a clearer picture of the 1st-century dynamics shaping the divergence of Jsus movements from what I suppose we would call mainstream Judaism.

Off topic: did the Jews call themselves Jews?