What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[robvalue]

Yeah...

The "wouldn't make sense otherwise" argument is a bit of a stretch to me. I certainly would never accept that such arguments establishes anything to such a stage where I would call it beyond reasonable historical doubt. At best I'd say it's a reasonable estimate.

The problem is, you're relying on the motives of the authors, and they could have any number of bizarre reasons for writing things the way they did. To assume they use the same thought processes as us is a mistake I think, and who knows what kind of pressures, agendas or just plain weird notions would cause them to write stuff.

Of course, this is just my opinion. I don't feel the need to "be convinced" by something just because other historians do, if I'm evaluating the same evidence that they are and reading their arguments. In fact, I literally can't choose to be convinced. Either I am or I am not.

I understand the desire to come up with best guesses and piece together vague ideas, but I am wary that you're doing a "jesus of the gaps" argument where a "don't know" is more honest. If the evidence isn't there, it isn't there. But I suppose that as long as you justify your "conclusions" with the fact that they are a reasoned estimate and are not claiming "this is what probably happened" then that's fair enough. Just I don't really care about an estimate because it doesn't convince me.