I’ve been following this since the days of really bad non peer reviewed fake experts, using old archeology to claim proof of the non existence of anyone real who might have inspired the gospels.
Carrier was not the first to get serious about it, but he’s emerged as a leader. In this response to Ehrman he points to the growing list of scholars who agree. It’s still in the dozens, but it is no longer fringe. More important, the responses to those scholars have not been great.
Carrier is good. I will still go with Ehrman if I had to choose between the two. The reason is because of the vastness of the subject matter. Bart has got staying in between the cover of the bibles down to an art. My feeling on the subject is that biblical education like the Catechetical School of Alexandris came about in the 2nd century. Then you have the Greco-Roman philosophy mixed into the data. Constantine focused on taking this data that had three hundred years of being passed around and creating the religion we know today as Pauline Christianity. Did Jesus (Pantera) exist? Yes, I think so. Is there a lot of mythicism built into the Pauline Jesus. Yes, I think so.
In five years, AI will settle the question. So, why bother with going in circles today about the data?
