What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[TimOneill]

The likelihood of what, exactly?

This issue.

Sorry, - and I'm not trying to be difficult here - but what is "this issue"?

No precise degree of likelihoods and reliability can be had on issues of ancient history. That is not a controversial claim. That's why I claimed hair splitting is all this. So all the chest beating you and others are doing is silly.

Who said anything about "precise degrees of likelihood"?

So many bloated claims about high degrees reliability and probability of ancient sources are being made that it is like a bad parody of what historians do.

Sorry, but making assessments of what is likely to have happened in the face of biased, fragmentary and uncertain evidence is precisely what historians of the ancient world do. Anyone who wants precision should probably avoid the field altogether.

These are ancient sources we are talking about low passion of belief is the way to go. You're being emotional.

I am? How? I think I'm very calm and carefully considered. Show me where I have been in any way emotional.

What does "all this" mean in that sentence? If we're asking about the likelihood that Jesus was God in human form who walked on water and rose from the dead I'd say the likelihood was low to zero. If we're asking about the likelihood that the stories of this magic Jesus have their origin with a first century Jewish apocalyptic preacher from Galilee who got crucified by Pilate I would say that is by far the most likely explanation of those stories and the other evidence we have.

Which would lower the degree of reliability of the texts a bit.

I'm not sure I understand this. Are you saying, by bolding the part about the magic stuff, that this lowers the reliability of the texts? Sure it does. But we find what we consider magic in all kinds of ancient sources, including quite sober ones. If we threw all ancient source material that had (to us) supernatural elements in them out the window we'd have barely any sources left.

This is why the high degree of hyperscepticism which I often come across in these discussions only works if your only aim is to hit Christianity on the head with a big emotional stick. If you want to treat this question calmly and use the sources the way all ancient sources are used, this degree of hyperscepticism is unwarranted.