What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[DeistPaladin]

Everybody agrees that TF is at least partially forged,

There are those who argue for it's "partial authenticity". What they do is take out all the glaring evangelical parts, which wouldn't have been written by a Jew who remained so until the day he died. It's a classic case of Agent Maxwell Smart's tactic, "Would you believe...?"

There is no evidence for partial authenticity. They only construct a more plausible insertion and slap the label on it "it coulda happened therefore we say it did".

(1) James the brother of Jesus

...is a reference to Jesus Bar Damneus (Jesus son of Damneus). Q.E.D.

(2) John the Baptist

...is a curious character. Supposedly, his whole ministry was a warm-up act for Jesus. He even supposedly told his followers this on no uncertain terms. Yet, strangely, Josephus tells us that JtB had a successful ministry with no reference to it just being a warm-up act for someone else. His followers considered JtB to be the messiah and still do to this day. How odd he told them to follow Jesus and they just didn't get the memo.

...or maybe the whole thing about him kneeling before Jesus is just a propaganda piece the Christians made up about their arch rival at the time. Kind of like what the Muslims would later do with Jesus.