[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Cheese

...The reason people like Hitchens had an easy time ripping apart those who speak of Jesus and the various other groups, is because there does not seem to be anything/one else relevant to tear apart?

No. The reason Hitchens had an easy time tearing apart apologists about the Bible is that apologists by and large are not trained in biblical studies. Most of them have philosophical training of some measure, but in my experience, philosophers quite often make for poor historians and literary critics...

Or am I misunderstanding your question?

Originally Posted by Cheese

...Further, IF the scholars know and or are ~100% sure that Jesus lived, why didn't they stand up and take him on? Why didn't they come to the side of those who chose to put themselves in Hitchen's scope?
I dont think Christopher would have turned any discussion down, and didnt that Im aware of unless they were complete ######bags.

I don't think Hitchens was ducking anyone, but by the same token, I don't have an answer as to why he never debated any biblical scholars. Perhaps this also has something to do with the fact that I suspect most biblical scholars share Hitchens' incredulity about religion and the Bible on some level? Perhaps it has something to do with concerns about their own public perception? Perhaps most simply could not be bothered? The debate format is hardly the best venue for disseminating information. I think most scholars would agree with me that our promotional energies are better spent in the classroom, especially at the undergraduate level.

Originally Posted by Cheese

Those with the knowledge should freely share in a way that the public can understand it "plainly and clearly". To this point in time I am not aware of anything or anyone that has done so. Hitchens was able to make things very very clear even when he was utilizing his dictionary like vocabulary.

If only it were all so simple.

For the record, Hitchens was too often guilty of constructing straw-men from his repertoire of half-truths and quasi-intellectual sound-bites that he gleaned from an amateurish passing interest in such matters. He sure sounded good. That doesn't mean he knew what he was talking about.

There is a reason why Hitchens had a devoted following numbering in the millions, while the most popular biblical scholars in the public eye tend to entertain only thousands. Communicating academic information at a popular level is most often a very difficult task, and quite frankly, most biblical scholars—like most professional academics—tend to struggle with attempting to filter the complexities of their own studies and to distill it at a popular level. Grasping the various nuances in ancient literature is hard work indeed! Ehrman is the best there is at the moment, and he is no Hitchens!

So, having said all that, yes, I think I agree with you in principle. Biblical scholars absolutely need to do a better job at communicating with the public. This is not a new issue. In fact, the SBL has embarked on a project to precisely that end. But bear in mind: if it takes a National Endowment for the Humanities and several years of planning, this ought to say something of how difficult it really is to achieve this goal.