What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[DeistPaladin]

Any thoughts on the Testimonium Flavianum?

It's a joke. And a really bad one.

Some do argue for its "partial authenticity". Do they have earlier extant copies prior to the Eseubian forgery?

Not exactly.

Do they have any citations from earlier Christians who quoted the earlier version?

Not exactly.

Does the paragraph fit in with the previous or following paragraphs of Josephus' work?

Not exactly.

Did they just make up a new version that seemed to them to be plausible?

Well, yeah.

So what do they have to justify keeping any part of the TF at all?

It uses words that Josephus might have used and stuff. Ta Da.

Does that convince me?

Not exactly.

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Occam's Razor is a good tool to rule out multiple Jesuses, unless you can make a case that one Jesus is not enough to explain the awkwardness that is seen in the Gospels.

My point flew over your head.

The description of The Historical Jesus is so general and so vague that he could be anybody.

Historians can get back to me when they have something specific. For example, "apocalyptic preacher" is vague, especially in the context of 1st century Judea. There were lots of them at that time in Judea. WHAT SPECIFICALLY did he preach? How would the world end? How could a person be saved? What was salvation based on? Were people supposed to put brown paper bags over their heads and lie on the floor?

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If being a "Jesus Mooter" is defined by not being certain and accepting that things can only be argued to be more or less likely and not "proven", then pretty much every historian of the ancient world is an "ancient history mooter".

A Jesus Mooter is a skeptic of religion who notes that any historical Jesus does nothing to validate Christian supernatural claims any more than any other founder of any other religion does. Other Christian apologetic arguments such as "would they have died for a lie?" and "the Trilemma" are vapid and easily dispatched but that's another thread for another time.

A Jesus Mooter is also one who notes how, accepting the existence of The Historical Jesus, we'll never know the true story as it is hopelessly buried under folklore and mythology. It's like 2,000 years from now looking for The Historical Elvis but none of his music survived, none of his bio survived, none of his interviews survived and all we have are some fanciful tabloid articles about Elvis sightings.

Since Jesus is a dead guy, he makes no difference to religious claims. Since history can't know anything about him apart from the skimpy details offered, there's nothing here of interest.

It's all moot.

Tell me what evidence could we expect to find for someone like Jesus that fits the bill of your "of substance". Give me some examples of this evidence that we could expect to find for a peasant preacher that would satisfy you.

So he was a religious leader? What did he preach? "Apocalyptic" isn't especially distinctive for 1st century Judea.

Many different Christianities existed in the first few centuries. Which one got it right, if any? Do we have anything on the ministry he led? If we had some actual knowledge about The Historical Jesus, we might be able to venture at least a guess.

He was crucified by Pilate? As were a lot of Jews. Or so Josephus says in his reflections on Pilate. Pilate was a brutal Roman governor, even by Roman standards. Maybe some additional details might help make his execution story distinct. What was he crucified for? Did he lead a rebellion that failed? Or did Pilate find something in his ministry that was a threat to Roman authority? What exactly?

What you offer is barely more than "some guy named Yeshua".

EDIT to correct embarrassing typo of "Elvish sightings" to "Elvis sightings". Perhaps there have been tabloid articles on "Elvish sightings", which would be no less silly, but that would be a different topic.