But, having said that, the real question is what does his apologetics have to do with the truth of his thesis? His thesis is that Jesus is based on an obscure doomsday cult leading prophet type from the first century who failed and his later followers deified him and apologized for his failed doomsday. It stems from taking pieces from Mark and others and trying graft together a picture of a doomsday cult leader.
To see how this holds in debate, I have a link to a formal debate between one of Ehrmans fans (Apostate Abe) against opposition to the claim:
http://www.debate.org/debates/The-histo ... -leader/2/
And this where Ehrman's overall thesis leads in the end. This debate in favor of the positive claim that a real historical Jesus was a failed doomsday cult leader ended in loss. We actually have a lengthy thread going about Ehrman's new ebook to prove an historical Jesus (entered by Apostate Abe), an effort that has since been put off now for at least another year from what I was told in the exchange:== Conclusion ==
I have proven in this debate that the gospel authors were willing to lie, borrow, and cheat to gain followers for Christianity. My opponent never disproves the Jewish claims about Jesus being a combination of false messiahs. Even if you believe the gospels, I have provided copious textual evidence that John the Baptist, not Jesus, was the apocalyptic ascetic (and two-thirds of Jesus scholars agree with my interpretation). And during this time period, asceticism and apocalypticism were completely intertwined (as seen by the Essenes). If Jesus was not an ascetic, he was not apocalyptic, and I've clearly won that he was not ascetic. For all these reasons, I urge a Con vote.
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums ... =15&t=3923
It isn't exactly Ehrman's historian-ship apologetics that are the downfall of his thesis so much as the fact that the gospel Jesus is by far an amalgamation of various prophet types, including a potential ascetic / apocalyptic John the baptist book of sayings tossed in among other things. There's always many different sides to this supposed one man Jesus, often times too conflicting to reconcile. And, a composite of say 20 different people and countless mythological archetypes strips bare to being no one particular person or archetype, therefore, the Jesus myth is a myth any which way we approach the issue.....