I don't know what paradox you have been discussing with eight_bits, but what is highlighted in Avalos’s book, is why this is by no means the usual field of objective neutral academic study where one might reasonably make an appeal to academic authority (as we might very reasonably do in science, for example).
And yet, almost the entire HJ defence in these thread boils down to precisely that appeal to authority. Where it has been repeatedly said here things like "if you disagree, then publish your papers showing all these "historians" are wrong" , and "this is an ad hominem & disgusting slur against a whole class of expert "historians" ", or "get educated", or "tell the worlds historians that" etc etc. Well the point is - that very dismissive appeal to authority is seriously misplaced in this particular subject of bible studies.
But I believe you were saying that we should value the field of bible studies and what bible scholars say, not because of whatever importance it has to the lives of millions of people today in the continued influence of Christian biblical preaching and bible belief, but instead for it's own intrinsic value as a field of academic research, yes? Well I am pointing out to you that according to Avalos (and Carrier, and others), this is actually not a field worthy of that sort of respect as research for it's own sake, i.e. not as you might validly claim in science where few if any people immediately appreciate why it is a good thing that we fund real experts to study something like String Theory or Space Research, even though 99.999% of the population may fail to see any obvious benefits except knowledge for it's own sake. Because what it being said about bible studies and related fields, is that unlike other academic subjects, this particular field is not neutral or objective, and has a long history of actually being closely connected with support for religious belief in the Christian Church and within Christian theology ... according to Avalos, that historic connection remains much closer than those outside the field might ever suspect of a university field.
Similarly, Richard Carrier has of course written a book (though not one I would recommend) explaining at length why the methods used by bible scholars are flawed or even fallacious, and why their conclusions are nowhere near as strongly justified as they claim (Proving History, Richard Carrier, Prometheus Books, 2012).
And if you think about it, this is really the crux of the issue in all sceptic books on the historicity of Jesus. That is - almost by definition, sceptic authors such as Wells, Price, Doherty, Ellegard, and all earlier writers, are seriously distrusting of the so-called "scholarship" being used by those within bible-studies who claim their evidence (actually, only just the bible) and their methods (such as "argument from embarrassment", "argument from silence", "least distinctiveness", "higher criticism", "multiple attestation" etc.) are sound and reliable.
IOW - the appeal to authority here is frankly very shaky indeed, if not entirely misplaced. If you disbelieve a scientist when he tells you that (say) evolution is true, then he will give you an absolute mountain of undeniable experimental and theoretical/calculated evidence to support his conclusions. But if you ask Bart Ehrman or any bible scholar to give their evidence for Jesus, then all they can offer is to say such things as they believe the bible when it says Paul met James. And that is just nowhere near good enough. And nor is that anywhere a good enough justification for saying we should value bible-studies research of this sort for it’s own internal merits and not care so much about the impact it’s possibly fallacious claims and it’s historic association with the church, religion and theology, has quite directly on the lives of everyone on the planet today.
