What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[DeistPaladin]

Yes, that was what I was referring to. The different ways in which all the gospels deal with the awkwardness of the Baptist baptising his supposed superior is something that indicates this whole Jesus/Baptist story has a historical core.

Or perhaps the Christians were trying to do to the followers of JtB what later Muslims would do to Jesus: assimilate and subjugate. The religious icon of one becomes a "forerunner" of the other. Just because JtB does in the Gospels what he is known for doesn't mean we assume there must be a historical core, any more that we assume that Star Wars was real because the retcon of Luke being Laia's brother created some awkward incestuous kisses in retrospect. Sometimes "embarrassing errors" are just errors in either story telling or urban legend development.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this argument doesn't give me pause to consider that maybe there is a real story buried somewhere under all this mythology. Indeed, that and various other awkward glitches in the story are probably the most convincing arguments I've heard yet for historicity. However, there's a difference between "giving me pause to consider" and proving a case.

To underscore the difference between the two, let me use another example. There have been a number of times in history where the US and Russia nearly nuked each other, destroying human civilization as we know it. Yet, somehow we made it through the last 70 years in one piece. The most recent brush with nuclear armageddon was in January of 1995, even after the former Soviet Union had ceased to exist. This number of "near misses" is enough to give me pause to consider that maybe there is a friendly God watching over us. Does this mean I'm convinced? That I'm now a believer? Of course not! Perhaps we were lucky? Maybe cooler heads prevailed? There are plenty of other explanations available that don't invoke the supernatural. To assume that it must be some favored explanation because you "can't imagine how else to explain it" smacks of the Argument from Incredulity fallacy.

Now speaking of the true story buried somewhere under all this folklore and mythology, I'd like to ask you a question I've asked every other historist I've run into:

What, if anything, can we actually know about The Historical Jesus and what is that knowledge based on?

I've yet to hear an answer any more specific than "some religious leader who was crucified by the Romans".