Fellow Atheists (or anyone that likes to read about the history of the Bible): What do you think of Richard Carrier?

I recommend him, although I had much the same opinion as you at first. Check out these guys in fact:

Richard Carrier

David Fitzgerald

Robert M. Price

This is a good one from Fitzgerald:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uxvH02nGCY

All three are mythicisits but readily acknowledge that there's a LOT of bad mythicist material out there. Examples of bad mythicist material: "Zeitgeist" and "Religulous" (the part having to do with the Jesus myth story), and Joseph Atwill (Atwill is a rich guy who's pressing the idea that the Romans invented Jesus: Carrier has suggested that he might be mentally ill... seriously!... Lol).

I've never read this Canadian author, but he inspired Carrier and Fitzgerald: Earl Doherty. I think he wrote a book called "The Jesus Puzzle."

I'd also recommend Hector Avalos (he has youtube videos as well as a book). Avalos is "agnostic" with regards the historicity of Jesus. Shoot, I was going to give you a link, but I can no longer locate Avalos' "agnostic" video (it was nice because he evaluated both the mythicist and historicist positions and then gave reasons why he remains agnostic on the subject). However, there are plenty of other great Avalos videos, so I recommend them (unfortunately he has a low raspy voice which is painful to listen to, but the material is very good). Update: I search Y/A for my previous answers with a link to the "agnostic" video, and I appears to have been made "private" for some reason. Shoot.

Then I'd recommend Zeba Crook: he and Carrier have a debate on the historicity of Jesus which is very good. Both are atheists and Bible scholars. You can find it on youtube: Crook vs Carrier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgmHqjblsPw

I'm a Bart Ehrman fan. If you listen to Carrier he often praises Ehrman actually, and David Fitzgerald is a HUGE Erhman fan.

I got into the subject in about 2003. It had never occured to me to question the historicity of Jesus until I found a book in my bookshelf that I'd apparently purchased at a thrift store or a yard sale. It was called "Man and His Gods" by Homer Smith, published in 1952, with a forward by Albert Einstein. That book covered more than Christianity (it went back to the beginnings of Western religion), but the part concerning Early Christianity is essentially an early version of the Carrier / Fitzgeral / Price / Doherty argument. It was mind blowing to me... I didn't realize that Paul was the first NT author and I didn't realize that he never discussed an Earthly Jesus. Smith speculated that the first gospel (Mark) may have actually been an adaptation of a play. The new mythicists haven't supported that idea AFAIK. Smith's book is available free online. Here it is:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/homer1a.htm

If you listen to recent material by Ehrman he too seems to think that Paul is discussing a Jesus who's an "angel." I was surprised! I just heard him say that in a new video on his youtube page (his most recent one). It's worth a listen. (I suspect that Ehrman may be inching closer and closer to the mythicist position, but I don't know for sure).

After that I got interested in the subject and started reading Bart Ehrman books and quickly became a fan of him. I was a little surprised when Ehrman came out against mythcism (having read Smith) and promised to write a book on the subject... which I purchased right away. I didn't care at all if Jesus was real or not, but I was disappointed by Ehrman's book because I felt that it really hadn't addressed Smith's best arguments. I felt that Ehrman's book basically boiled down to one good argument, which seemed very thin to me:

1. Paul wrote of meeting "Jesus' brother" (James) in his epistles (the authentic epistles).

But despite it seeming like a weak argument to me, I was willing to accept that just because I had high regard for Ehrman. However, having seen a lot of the mythicist arguments now, I'm more and more inclinded to think that Ehrman's historicist position is even weaker than before. Carrier proposes an alternate explanation for calling James Jesus "brother."

But I know what you mean: Carrier can come off sounding a bit arrogant at first, so try giving Fitzgeral a listen: he and Carrier and very much on the same page, but Fitzgerald brings up arguments that are a little different than what you hear from Carrier.

Also another one you might find interesting is John Dominic Crossan. He too has youtube lectures. I don't even know if he's a mythicist, but he does argue that the gospels themselves are parables, and Carrier references him during his talk on the chiastic structure of the gospels (see my sources).

Carrier, depsite his disagreements with people like Crossan and Ehrman, does recommend their material when he thinks it's good, so I'll give him that.

Fitzgeral is coming out with a new book called "Jesus: mything in action" which discusses the SECULAR objections to mythicist arguments.

Anyway, I hope some of that helped. It's one of my favorite topics, so I hope I helped. Good luck!

He makes some quite solid points and his work with Bayes' theorem is fantastic. There is a bit of a war going on in Biblical scholarship. The vast majority of Biblical scholars are evangelical Christians who are inherently biased against any notion that the Bible is nonsense. Dr Ehrman also makes some excellent points, but he seems to be willing to assert the actual existence of someone named Jesus without any justification beyond thinking that a totally made-up character couldn't have such a wide following.

I don't claim to know whether or not there was a real person on which Jesus of Nazareth was based, but it is irrelevant because both Carrier and Erhman will agree that there is no good reason to trust any of significant the story details and that most of it is post hoc narratives made up so settle theological disputes.

You would do yourself a great service by studying both positions and challenging your own assumptions.

You would be hard pressed to find a person who has done more studying of the bible and its history. Just because he is way smarter than you doesn't mean he is being arrogant. Try listening with an open mind. Stop filtering what you hear through the filter of your religion.

You sound threatened that anyone has a strong POV. Get the hell over it. His work is interesting and evidenced, whether you agree with it or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2smz_1L2_0