What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[abaris]

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think it's conclusive and nothing requires Mark's prediction to be unusual if everyone under the sun could see the Jews starting a war they couldn't win. We all know how Jewish prophets love to spell their own cities' utter and divine destruction when the people reject them. I think Josephus even includes an antidote about a different weeping Jesus who calls upon Jerusalem to repent or be destroyed before the sacking of the city, so these apocalyptic type moralists were probably not all that uncommon.

Why's that even up for debate? As far as I remember fro the top of my head without looking up the exact date, Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70. Following the christian timeline, that's 40 years after Jesus' death. So it was already history, pretty recent history, when the first gospels were written. So the authors more than likely knew about it and have woven another touchy tale of prophecy around the real happenings.