As vilified as Ehrman has been, I find that he seems to bend over backwards to accommodate the conservative viewpoint in almost all of his critical work. I tend to just imagine that he probably has a lot of friends who remain Christians reviewing his work and he has a significant investment in his status as a scholar in those circles and as a protege of Metzger.
So I am not too surprised that he would toe the line on evidences for Jesus. He is simply not as radical as he gets portrayed.
BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born --a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator? --Thomas Paine
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