(I composed this before reading the replies from 07/23/11 19:11:16 on.  May as well post it, since I did the work.)

To obtain a portrait of the historical Jesus, one could do as follows:

(1) Focus on the Synoptics alone.  Ignore all the rest of the GT, and forget what the church teaches.

(2) In the Synoptics, focus only on the sayings attributed to Jesus himself.  Ignore all else, such as all that is said about him.

Points at this point:
  • This guy hardly, if ever, claimed to be Son of God or Messiah.
  • There is no suggestion of a "Second Coming."
  • He did not exhort folk to "believe in me," nor is anything (e.g. eternal life) contingent upon such belief.
(3) A further reduction is possible if one admits that not all the words attributed to Jesus are necessarily his own; but instead, rather, some may have been "provided" by the early church or Gospel writers.  In that case, you can look at some of the things he most probably did say, such as the parables of the mustard seed, the yeast, the lamp, and the pearl.  This is how this guy talks:  succinct, pithy, telegraphic.  Metaphorical; not allegorical.  This standard implies that the long allegories probably did not come from the historical Jesus himself.

One is left with an inidivual void of divine or messianic pretentions, yet singular enough to provide basis for the legends and myths that later grew up around him.
  

P.

“What I admire is honesty and truth, no matter who, or what, the sources are.”
— Uri Yosef