What's not to love?

[Minimalist]

So, in this one area, it would behoove all atheists to accept the "historical" Jesus.

Even Ehrman cannot explain what he means by "historical jesus." Fundies mean a come-back-from-the-dead, walking-on-water, loaves-and-fishes, magician and certainly Ehrman does not buy that particular bit of bullshit.

I, for one, do not accept the historical jesus concept since it is essentially meaningless. Was there someone named Yeshua bar-Yosef in first century Palestine? Sure. They were such common names that there had to be a hundred of them.

But xtians do not worship the name. They worship the magic tricks. They certainly do not abide by the so-called "teachings."

What we have is complete silence in the early first century; from Philo, from Pliny the Elder, from Seneca, from the Dead Sea Scrolls. No one heard the slightest rumor of an outlandish tale of someone being executed by a Roman Magistrate and coming back from the dead. I have yet to read Ehrman's latest book ( and I read everything he writes, eventually) but he discusses the HJ concept in Jesus Interrupted and it was the weakest part of the book.