I’m starting to think he wasn’t all that great. He would have been someone who started a little apocalyptic religious following around himself, and those kind of people don’t tend to have the best interests of their followers at heart.

He probably did see himself as starting something that would kick the Romans out of Judea and install himself as king. Judas got cold feet about it and warned the authorities. The Romans crucified him for exactly what the gospel accounts say, except they had a lot more evidence than the writers were letting on.