It's not just that the Bible is full of wonderful stories,

Such as genocide, slavery, racism, homophobia, incest, murder, misogyny etc?
Wonderful stories such as these, right?
You must have been read some very interesting bedtime stories as a kid.

Ehrman neglects to mention that (although) we have multiple sources for the life of Jesus

Really? And these are?

God would be identified as the underlying consciousness/intelligence
of everything;

The Word (which was ‘with God’) would be the identifying nature/spirit, the manifestation communicated; and

Christ would be the communicator, the “Word made flesh,” the Son who, since the beginning, ‘puts the rubber on the road/world. (God "created all things by Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 3:9))

And so we have the Trinity, at the same time a singularity.

My comments, and these goes to both books, are: 1) they assume that Jesus’s ministry was apocalyptic, when Crossan and others make a good case that Jesus’s ministry was sapiential – that is, present here now and attainable through adhering to the law, and 2) that the Pauline epistles are the earliest source writings – when the Epistle of James the Just arguably pre-dates them.

For further discussion of these comments, and a thorough review of both books, please check out my Reader’s Guide to Bart Ehrman's How Jesus Became God.

This is the latest in a series which includes my best-selling Reader’s Guide to Reza Aslan’s Zealot , and my Reader’s Guide to Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus .

I understand. The rubic cube of complexity in religious and non religious truth is amazing.

Understanding why a theist would blow themselves up to kill non-believers is perfectly understandable. Being unable to take an objective view of one's own position on religion is far more complex and interesting to me.

For me some viewpoints I understand and others I will never understand. Some people follow their hunches and think like the mob believing a series of coincidences point to something more even if they don't have "proof" of concept. While other people need proof of a concept under the scientific terms only they determine as acceptable before believing a given truth. So I understand an Atheist viewpoint and I understand my viewpoint as a Catholic, but I don't understand why somebody would blow themselves up based on any religion. While these people believe the "ends justify the means" reasonable people will never understand. So good luck with that!

Again, I agree. That's one of the reasons I'm here: to try to understand the viewpoints if people whose thought-processes are utterly alien to me.

I agree with you. No one should insist their behavior conform to others beliefs.But understanding what others believe is important because sometimes they fly planes into buildings and plan to kill innocent people one of which my be you! And understanding why someone thinks the way they think is key to getting along with them.

I agree. I don't really care what theists believe; so long as they don't insist that my behavior conform to their beliefs.