The reports say that he never worshiped an idol even before his prophethood, because he felt it was wrong. He always believed that only One God was worthy of worship (monotheistic), but there is nothing to indicate that he had been a Christian or a Jew beforehand, and I've never heard the thought of that ever being the case amongst any Muslims. His tribe was a polytheistic tribe that acknowledged God as the Creator, but worshiped idols as intermediaries, which he never felt was right. He was known for being a good and honest businessman, and also for his trustworthiness and truthfulness in general. The tradition is that the people of Makkah used to call him 'Al-Amin', which means the 'trustworthy', and people would always keep their things with him when they went on trips and stuff. He is also reported to have declined attending the very common parties involving heavy drinking and women that his friends and family would often indulge in. The reason he used to go walking off into the mountains is said to be that he wanted to contemplate and think about God and how things were supposed to be.
None of Muhammad's family were Christian or Jewish to my knowledge and when Gabriel came to him for the first time with the command to 'Read/recite', he understood it as 'read' and replied, 'but I don't know how to read'. (Makkah was a very illiterate society.. it's said in some historical narrations that only 17 men knew how to read and write in Makkah before Islam.) So, that part dismisses the idea that he may have studied Judaism or Christianity ON HIS OWN. People actually still accused him of studying Christianity or Judaism though, even during his life, and the Qur'aan denies those allegations, so we, as Muslims, definitely don't believe that he got his information from previous Scripture or by learning from Jews/Christians.
One hadith tells of him hearing that a Jew said something regarding faith, and he said, I don't know if that point is true or not, and then LATER said that he had received revelation from God that such-and-such fact was indeed true and that the Jew had been right on that particular point. This, of course, was later in his life, when he moved to Madinah where there were many Jews.
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