Reddit mentions of Jesus

The gospels are the primary source for hearing about Jesus's life. The only contemporary corroborating sources are the Apostle Paul's letters (written ~20 years before the gospels) and Josephus's Antiquities (written around the same time as the gospel of John and about 20 years after the synoptic gospels, which only mentions that he existed. There's a lot more in Josephus about Jesus's brother James and John the Baptist). You can call them a "radicalization" but there's not really an objective source to compare them against, so we can't really tell if they're radicalized or not. People have tried to "de-radicalize" the gospels, but again, there is no source material outside of the Bible that describes his life, so it's all just conjecture. However, if you want a really good and highly respected attempt at that, you should check out Jesus by David Flusser. Flusser is a liberal Christian (which is different than politically liberal) and was the foremost Jesus scholar, Christian or not, in the 20th century. He's quite objective, easy to understand, and absolutely brilliant. It's very much worth the read!