to eclipse deliberately any reference to a historical Jesus
….and what the Christians were reporting after the 70 about the Gospel Jesus: the exact contrary of a deliberate eclipse of a historical Jesus.
I think that this is the reason why Ehrman has to do precisely two things:
1) to deny that there was a deliberate attempt, by Paul & co, to eclipse Jesus. Ehrman's argument is that all knew, therefore no need of allusions that Jesus existed.
2) to despise even more the mythicists than one would do, one who thinks that Paul eclipsed deliberately the historical Jesus. To be short, it is a FACT that Ehrman despises the mythicists more than how much a Bermejo-Rubio would despise the mythicists.
So there is a rational reason behind the Ehrman's contempt against the mythicists: if the reason of the silence of Paul is so banal (mere common knowledge about who was really Jesus) , then who uses that silence against the historical Jesus becomes virtually a crazy in the eyes of Ehrman.
Therefore Ehrman, accordingly to his premise (banal reason behind the Paul's silence), has to confute in the more banal way the mythicists: they are banally crazy people. There is a methodological coherence, here.
What Ehrman is really doing is a deliberate eclipse of what is more surprising: the difference between a Paul who is so silent about the HJ ''because all knew'' and a lot of rumors raised by the Christian propaganda about the HJ, after the 70. What is embarrassing is the abyss between a so common knowledge (not requiring a so massive historicist propaganda) and a so massive historicist propaganda to supply what can only be fatally a lack of common knowledge.
Therefore a more serious (and honest) historicist has to assume that Paul and company eclipsed deliberately the historical Jesus. He has to recognize honestly that there was effectively a drastic break of this previous deliberate silence, after the 70, by the massive Gospel propaganda.
Reflections of this rupture (between new propagandists versus old esoterists) are found in the same Gospels:
From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.
(Matthew 11:12)
The "violence" that is alluded here, is the violence of the propagandists (remember that, being the ''Kingdom of God'' what was preached publicly by the Gospel Jesus, the violence is made basically against the "Kingdom of heaven''). Someway, the fact that the legend of John the Baptist was famous became, in the eyes of the author of Matthew 11:12, the first sign of the coming violent historicist propaganda. The competition with the Baptist legend was one of the causes of the coming Christian propaganda.