Bart Ehrman

In one of its last print issues, Newsweek mocks Bill O’Reilly in an article titled “The War On Christmas Is Over: Christmas Won.” Christian groups are pleased that retailers have mostly gone back to using “Christmas” instead of the more neutral “Holiday” patter. Religion reporter David Sessions asked: “How did this cultural flash point slide into oblivion, with Bill O’Reilly virtually the last person continuing to fight?”

Here’s where the magazine is doubling down on stupid. This brief article appears in the December 17 issue – which features a cover story by agnostic leftist scholar Bart Ehrman titled "The Myths of Jesus." He's clearly fighting the Christmas story as un-historical.

If it’s an important Christian occasion, you can predict National Public Radio will seek out an atheist expert. In 2008, NPR marked Good Friday by interviewing John Dominic Crossan, who believed the body of Jesus was not resurrected, but was perhaps eaten by wild dogs.

On Palm Sunday, NPR found it was the perfect day for atheist scholar Bart Ehrman, who has a new book out titled "Did Jesus Exist?" NPR weekend All Things Considered anchor Guy Raz was a big fan: “There are probably few people in the world who know more about the life of Jesus than Bart Ehrman. He's a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where his lectures are among the most popular on campus.” Raz was such a fan he even told Ehrman later that he had bought his lectures on tape:

On Washington Post's On Faith blog, Daily Beast contributor Lisa Miller teased a piece about Occupy Wall Street with a worthy question: "What would Jesus think about Occupy Wall Street?" Her answer was simple, and predictably liberal: "The Jesus of history would love them all."

In a piece titled "Jesus at Occupy Wall Street: 'I feel like I've been here before,'" Miller portrayed the protestors as wretched outcasts, whom God would embrace because of their misery: "Born with little means into a first century world, the historical Jesus might feel right at home with the very aspects of the occupation that so many 21st century observers consider gross: the tents, the damp sleeping bags, the communal kitchen. Jesus would have sympathy, I think, with the campers' efforts to keep a small space sanitary in the absence of modern plumbing."