What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[watchamadoodle]

So your question is how do we know the gospels and the books you mentioned are reliable, and not made up?

Even if I believed the NT to be mostly factual, the beliefs of early Christians and their history as described in the NT are incomplete and somewhat contradictory. The in NT is even less helpful if I accept that the canon was cherry-picked, edited, etc.

Mainly, I'm trying to imagine the beliefs and behaviors of Jesus and the early Christians. Would I admire these people if I could see them and listen to them in person, or would I think they were weird cult followers? There are a few sayings from Jesus that I like (the Beautitudes for example), but did Jesus actually say anything very useful or profound, or was it the childhood indoctrination?

Just on the surface, there are 25,000 different manuscripts of the bible dating back to the end of the second to the beginning of the third century.

I agree that the NT has more manuscripts than anything else from that period, but I think the number you quoted is wrong. Referring to the wikipedia article below, there are actually only 38 manuscripts from the 2nd and 3rd century by my count (see the table listing manuscripts for each century). It's a minor point though, and I agree with your larger point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript

Why didn't you like Paul or what He taught?

Paul often sounded overbearing, arrogant, greedy, etc. He reminded me of most of the preachers I would see on Christian TV. Most of Paul's letters seem to be rants about problems that have been lost to history. Paul's more theological letters such as Romans were not interesting to me. The letters of James, 1 John, and 1 Peter seemed more inspiring and wise to me.

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From wikipedia: "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

Regardless of whether James was a sibling, cousin, or fraternal brother, this seems to suggest a real person named Jesus who was called Christ (Anointed/Messiah/...) by some. The stoning of James happened when Josephus was an adult, and he was an important Jew. The Christians were unpopular enough that James was stoned. This was only a few decades after the crucifixion. It seems to me that if there was some question about the existence of Jesus, then Josephus would have mentioned that in his quote.

Representing the contrary view, Richard Carrier argues that the words "the one called Christ" likely resulted from the accidental insertion of a marginal note added by some unknown reader.[31] He proposes that the original text referred to a brother James of the high priest Jesus ben Damneus mentioned in the same narrative, given the straight forward nature of the text without that insertion. James (the brother of Jesus) is executed by Ananus. The Jews get angry at this. Complaints and demands are made. The King removes Ananus from being High Priest. Jesus, the son of Damneus, is made high priest.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

As I recall, the counter argument is that Josephus would have said "James, the son of Damneus" instead of "James, the brother of Jesus". That argument is based on the writing style of Josephus I believe. (Sorry I don't remember where I read that argument.)

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@DeistPaladin, I'm sure you're familiar with the quote from Josephus about the stoning of James. How do you reconcile that quote with the idea that Jesus was not a historical figure?

Go back and that passage carefully. Josephus never actually says that the sentence was carried out. What he says is that leading citizens ran to the king:

but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified;

Jerusalem was a small place. How long do you think it would have taken them to get there?

@Minimalist, I'm guessing the Agrippa in the quote refers to Herod Agrippa II ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Agrippa_II ). He appears to have been the Jewish ruler at that time. He ruled several important cities according to wikipedia. Also rulers often lived away from the mobs that could lynch them. So I'm assuming Agrippa wasn't in Jerusalem?