Steven Mading, (in regards to your first post)

You make a very good point. I agree with basically everything you said. This is why I think a good understanding of the "historical Jesus" is so devastating to apologists. What historians have to say completely undermines modern Christian thought (such as Jesus thinking the end of the world would come within a few years of his life). Hence the HUGE freak out every time Bart Ehrman publishes a book. He doesn't say anything even mildly controversial, yet the fundamentalist go insane.

Though, I wouldn't blame the scholars for the mis-communication any more than I blame biologists for using the word "theory", and having lay people get confused. It's super easy to get a book from the library and read it, and see what exactly the experts are talking about.