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Notes -
Sure, I think careful scholars are cognizant of that sort of thing.
Early writings on Christ are interesting because we both have early writings from Christians (who mostly didn't profit much by believing in Christ as per their own writings) and writings from neutral or hostile third parties.
I haven't read as much of the early writings from and on Christians as I would like, but from what I can tell the pro- and anti- Christian writings often read exactly as you would expect, e.g. the Christians are writing about church discipline, doctrine, and defending their beliefs as intellectually legitimate and their opponents are calling them gullible retards from first principles.
I get the impression that the main difference between second century theological debates about Christianity and Reddit today is that a lot of Christian arguments have remained the same (sans the ones aimed at the pagan gods), whereas "Christ was not the Son of God, merely a magician" or "Christ was not the Son of God since God would never come to Earth as a peasant" have fallen out of favor. "Christianity will destroy our way of life because they are opposed to infanticide and licentiousness" still has some traction though.
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