Thanks for reading, Edward. That bit is my recollection of C.S. Lewis, and he addresses many of your observations in Mere Christianity, if you're interested. I haven't read Lewis's book in a while. I'm not an expert in NT documents or history, but I'm a classicist and know the literature of that period pretty well.

I agree with you that Jesus' primary subject is not himself in the texts of the Gospels. (Those are, in terms of subjects discussed, the Kingdom of God and money, I believe.) But it seems clear that the Gospel writers believed that Jesus thought he was, and in fact was, in a special relationship with God (e.g. the story of the transfiguration occurs in Mark 9, regarded as the earliest Gospel).

Paul's letters are the earliest documents contained in the NT, and I agree that Paul's version of Jesus is very different from the Jesus represented in the Gospels. Except for a few lines of the so-called last supper in I Cor. 11, I don't think Paul ever quotes Jesus, and it isn't clear that he knew Jesus' teachings.

But as you know, I think, the book of Acts represents Paul in contact with Jesus' original disciples, who themselves were the primary vehicles for the spread of the message. I recall Lewis saying that we can imagine those disciples deceived, if we like, but it's impossible to imagine them as deceivers. That is, they seem to have believed in the Jesus that they proclaimed as risen and ascended, and they seem to have formed communities based on the teachings of love and forgiveness that the Gospels place in the mouth of Jesus. Though we have no external confirmation of the events of the Gospels that are contemporary with them, we can see even in classical writers that there was a Christian community in Rome that Nero blamed for the "great fire" in 64 CE, as Tacitus reports (Annals 15.33-47), and Pliny found a Christian community in Bithynia that dated back to the 80s CE (Epis. 10.96-97) in which two slave women served as "deacons." The validation of women and slaves, the desire to live ethically, and the strong sense of community, may arise from false premises and mistaken beliefs, I suppose, but to my mind it argues against insincerity, invention, and deception, as well as even honest error.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with arguments about Jesus as Barabbas or the Talmud/Toledoth Yeshu, but I'll check those out.

Take care.