For context: Carrier is one of two (2) PhD scholars with relevant credentials who believe in full-throated Jesus mythicism. The other is Robert Price, who Bart once debated here.
Jesus mythicism is kind of a fringe theory, even among atheist Bible scholars. Yes, consensus =/= evidence and authority does not a sound argument make.
That being said, a trend I see a lot (especially in the earlier days of r/atheism) is atheists who are new to historical studies latch onto Carrier without looking at the whole picture, and then write off the rest of critical Bible scholarship as a sham propped up by Christians.
I think anytime you’re getting into a new field in history / science / economics / etc., it’s best to learn the fundamentals & understand what the mainstream is and why before entertaining the more fringe ideas.
Have you read “On the Historicity of Jesus” ?
Just a reminder that both of these dudes are atheists
Yes they are. They are also both mythicists. (Carrier and GE, not Ehrman who sis atheist but not mythicist)
Lets be honest, Yoseph and Yeshua were both really super common names in that time and place.
Simple statistics alone say there was probably some guy in Nazereth who was a Yeshua Bar Yoseph.
Actually, statistically, there’d likely be more than one from the general area of nazareth. which incidentally is probably reason we know that yoseph was a carpenter. (“Yeshau bar yoseph.” …“Which one?”… “The carpenter’s boy.”)
As for the things he supposedly did and said… I imagine he’d be quite surprised.
Think of the most common names- those friends where there were like four or five of them. Daniels. Michaels, etc. Super common, right? now chances are a few of them probably had parents with the same name. just the way it works.
