What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Pizza]

If there errors , it's because I'm trying to fix dinner, deal with my whining pet cat, and type at the same time.

"What does "be agnostic about them" mean here? Because if it means "don't try to assess anything based on them at all" then we would have to "be agnostic" about most ancient sources. And the whole enterprise of ancient historical study would be totally untenable. Does that strike you as reasonable?"
No, however, historians need to be very careful and critical of their sources. Do you know how much blatantly political and moral propaganda is in many ancient sources? Just look at all nonsense claims people make about Obama today, good or bad! All we can say honestly say half the time is this is what someone at the time claimed. We shouldn't have a strong commitment to them being right. We shouldn't be too surprised if we found evidence against them.

I'm saying that the figure we find in the NT is most likely based on an apocalyptic preacher called Yeshua from Nazareth in Galilee who was baptised by John, crucified in Jerusalem by Pilate and whose followers formed a Jewish sect headed by his brother James. The later stories arose out of traditions from this sect as they reconciled his sudden death with their belief that he was Yahweh's anointed one.

I don't think that is "in some unspecified way". I think that's pretty specific.

For someone who claims he's not making very precise claims, you sure act like it. Most likely compared to what? That the story was made up whole cloth? Not an impressive claim. It's like the claim "Socrates was kind of like what Plato said he was like," it is a weak claim no one denied.