Dr. Robert M. Price vs Bart Erhman's tautological argument for the history of Jesus

 The Great Debate on the historicity of Jesus

Bart Erhman's argument is that 1) because thousands of people were crucified therefore it's not surprising no one heard of Jesus 2) Because the Gospel Mark was written in 70 AD and the letters of Paul in 50 AD therefore Jesus as Savior was based on the historical Jesus previously unknown. 3) Therefore all the "archons" and gnostic aspects of Hellenistic Judaism of the 2nd Temple enochian writing can be ignored

Robert Price counters that 1) assuming Jesus was real with no evidence makes no sense unless Jesus was considered too significant to be ignored 2) The significance of Jesus was precisely the same as the gnostic context of archons/eons/angels of Hellenistic Zoroastrian Judaism 3) The Gospels were later works of fiction based on that earlier syncretic context of the Essenes, etc. 

Erhman counters that Gnostics are actually just a 2nd century construct, not an earlier work - as is the "popular" view now. Price disagrees. Erhman is arguing that absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence but this same claim can be made for Bigfoot and ET aliens in UFOs abducting people, etc. Price argues in contrast that there is a great deal of detailed evidence for a largest intercultural context of the creation of Christianity.