Do you think jesus christ existed

[Aractus]

I'm atheist and i like the character Jesus Christ but i'm not too sure he existed.

Okay, let's start with the Ehrman arguing against some ignorant atheist (Reginald Finley) who thinks Jesus didn't exist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE

Ehrman does have some wild and crazy ideas that fall well outside of modern scholarly thought (even within his sceptics/atheists group), however he is on the money when he says: 1. there's no serious historian who doubts that Jesus was an historical figure and 2. that many of Paul's writings (over half) are reliably attributed to him even by sceptics. He asks Finley how he knows that Cicero wrote his letters (and stumps him). 3. It's the wrong assumption to make that Paul would invent Jesus or invent stories (he writes mainly about contemporary events and theology issues). He mentions "off the cuff"/"disinterested" comments - ie comments made that the author may assume the audience can fill in the gaps, etc, these are indeed important to Historians and Paul is not the only one who makes them FYI. He also mentions that we're sure Paul knew Jesus' relatives and disciples and this is also true. 4. If you doubt the existence of Jesus why not deny the Holocaust or deny the existence of any historical figures. 5. We have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from his time period.

In the longer version of the interview, the Finley eventually asks if Ehram knows Robert M. Price. Ehram responds by saying he knows all the top Biblical scholars in the world today, that Price isn't one of them, and among all the top scholars none of them doubt that Paul wrote Galations and none of them doubt that Jesus existed as an historical figure. He then asks Finley to name a scholar who doubts that Paul knew James saying he isn't aware of anyone (among serious scholars) who doubts it. Finley asks "how do I know what the original text says, has anybody tried to keep the original text and where can I get it?" And, finally, Ehram says "well that's what all the translations tries to do" and then he makes an off the cuff remark about how the translators do practise textual criticism and are all aware of the issues involved.