I agree with the spirit of your comments. My focus is upon the faith of the earliest believers in a revelatory Christ. Attempting to model their complex transformation into a powerful institution. I think it reasonable to begin where the faith broke from its roots, Judaism. I think you do as well. Am I arguing there was no 'break''? of course not. At some early phase a new 'revelation' identified one sect from another. This process repeated many times. Such is why in a short span of time we find seemingly radically different schools of thought under the umbrella of Christianity. Johannine Christians, perhaps a century or more later, IMO represent a response to some of these developments. It's my opinion it preserves, in a post-Gospel way, some of the earlier flavor. Briefly said, the break from Hellenized Judaism was real but yet it was no more radical than Docetism from its precedents, or that of the scores of other 'heterodoxies' the later Catholic church denounced in its efforts to homogenize Christianity into a powerful institution.
While many find the notion radical or fringe, considering the possibility that Christianity followed a path similar to most faiths, beginning as a concept rather than an historical event, is quite rational. Having spent years in a Hindu culture, I observed just how seamlessly the mind can transform spiritual/metaphor into live action characters. The less initiated can be excused for literalizing stories of Ganesh, Lord Vishnu and countless other emanations of Brahman. Millenia of dramatization through story telling have given these 'concepts' a temporality/corporeality not intended by their Vedic faith's founders. Many reformed Jews would understand the same took place in their faith. Yahweh walking around in his park or riding a chariot and such.
Ultimately every faith is unique and at the same time indebted to its precedents.