I'm not a "fan" of Bart D. Ehrman's works. As I've proved in detail in this post, I think Ehrman has an axe to grind against the evidence for Jesus' resurrection. As a former Christian believer and a current agnostic, Ehrman is extremely hostil to Christianity and, as consequence, when debating the evidence for the resurrection, he's prepared to DENY his own published academic works (which supports the facts that are relevant to assess the historicity of the resurrection) in order to win the debate. This is a misleading approach which I think is improper for a serious scholar.
You can watch this misleading and sophistical approach by Ehrman in his debate against William Lane Craig regarding the historicity of Jesus' resurrection:
Another problem which is evident of Ehrman's work about the historical Jesus is his misuses of the criteria of authenticity (a common, but very subtle, approach of some liberal scholars). Craig explains this with especific examples from Ehrman's work in this lecture:
However, leaving aside the above critical considerations, I think Ehrman's recent book defending the historicity of Jesus' existence is a good book. He criticizes a position known as "mythicism", i.e. the view defended by some ideological atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, naturalists and materialists according to which Jesus of Nazareth never existed. (Yeah, these are the same guys who have created "organized skepticism" and are intentionally misleading both professional scientists and the general public about the evidence from parapsychology).
An example of these Jesus denialists is naturalist writer Richard Carrier. In this article in infidels.org website, Carrier wrote "Jesus might have existed after all. But until a better historicist theory is advanced, I have to conclude it is at least somewhat more probable that Jesus didn't exist than that he did. I say this even despite myself, as I have long been an opponent of ahistoricity
Since some atheists suffer of what I've called Jime's Iron Law, Carrier has became a kind of "atheist superstar" among the popular sub-culture of online atheists and skeptics. Even though Carrier's arguments in general tend to be unshophisticated, childish and extremely biased (see this example), his influence among young online atheists is important. Therefore, a proper reply to his historical fallacies and bad scholarship is needed. Ehrman's book provide some refutations of positions like Carrier's.
In the scholarly world, the "Jesus denialism" or mythicist position is widely rejected by historians and scholars, including atheists, agnostics and other anti-Christians scholars, like Ehrman. The historical evidence for the existence of Jesus is very strong, even better than the existence of many other ancient persons (whose existence nobody denies).
It is clear that the motivation for positions like Carrier's is, essentially a product of extreme atheist hostility against and emotional repulsion of Christianity plus Jime's Iron Law. However, truth-seekers and rational persons of any theological persuasion have to address the arguments of these people, not simply to unmask their purely ideological and emotional motivations (after all, a person with an ideology X could still be right).
Previously, Ehrman has confronted denialists and mythicists in debates:
But his book is an extended attack of the mythicist position and a defense of Jesus' historicity.
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