What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[DeistPaladin]

Yes, I'm well aware of those passages. Those epistles are pseudepigraphical and most scholars date them to the early second century.

On a related note, is there a way that scholars determine what is pseudo-epigraphical and what isn't with any degree of certainty? I mean this as a sincere question.

Docetism and Gnostism overlap, but are not the same thing.

I was under the impression that Doceticism was one of the brands of Gnosticism, like Christianity is to Theism. One is a subset of the other.

There is nothing to indicate this in any of the Pauline material or in any of the earliest gospels.

Paul doesn't get very specific on the life of Jesus and what we do have, I'm rather confused by and let me explain why.

Paul was originally the poster prophet for Marcionite Christianity. Ehrman's book on Lost Christianities mentions that Marcion's scriptures used Paul's letters. Marcionite Christianity, I probably don't need to explain to you but for the benefit of others, preached that the OT god Yahweh was a lesser god to Jesus. He wanted to ditch the OT completely and all things Jewish to create a whole new religion, centered around the superior god Jesus who offered us salvation. Jesus would never have been a baby, so ditch the whole Mary and Joseph drama along with any linage to King David. Jesus came down to earth as all gods do, appearing fully formed as an adult.

Yet when Paul does mention Jesus, he writes of the "seed of David", came to us "by woman", that "the head of Christ is (Yahweh)", and that he sits "at the right hand of (Yahweh)". etc.

So I'm confused. Did Marcion not read the letters of Paul? Or did he promote the letters of Paul hoping no one else would read them? Or do we have the letters of Paul as they existed at that time?