What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Drich]

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.

What is your idea of complete? What more do you think you need for salvation?

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?

You understand the term indoctrinated right?

If yes then any 'indoctrination' would be from a jewish pov, as Christianity was not a thing. so where would they get this indoctrination from?

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.

Here's a question, what if you think Paul's version of Christianity is not valid, because what you think Christianity should be is that far off the mark?

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(easy targets since the Temple had been destroyed and Jerusalem burned to the ground by the time of the Gospels' writings)

I take it you don't believe Mark's Gospel was composed in the mid-sixties. But isn't it odd the author would put these words about the temple into Jesus' mouth...

"Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

...when in fact this still stands?

Wester wall does not =\= temple.

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Up setting the jews in that he was on thin ice with Rome. 'Upset jews' meant revolt, and revolt meant a heavy handed response from ceasar directed at him. I wasn't looking to do a history lesson. 'Up set jews' was more than explaination enough for anyone who knows of piloets situation.

Apart from the above making little sense, why would a governor, whose only genuine historic references are about taking money, make his situation more difficult by upsetting the local population?

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

Seems even wiki has a better grasp of Pilate than you do.