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)
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” ?
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.
