re: #112 freetoken

No time to listen, is there a transcript?

As for the book:

1. I actually liked it.
2. I’m glad I was inoculated against some shoddiness by Carrier’s criticisms, even though Carrier has been quite shoddy himself. I specifically liked the exposition of evidence part, the part ‘debunking’ mythicist seems rather weak, and I don’t think I can fairly evaluate his criticism since I would have to bury myself in mythicist lit first.
3. A lot of it is speculative (e.g. his sure reliance on Q, M, L, which are still hypothetical, even if strong hypotheses…), he likes to repeat that Jesus existence is “certain”, as if this assertion alone shows “certainty” (in other places he correctly frames discussion in terms of probability). That said, his “big picture” is pretty convincing. I could formulate it as “existence of the historical Jesus explains evidence better than competing hypotheses”. There can be varying opinions on how much better, of course.