This is kind of interesting. Carrier, apparently irritated with Ehrman’s refusal to debate him (because of Carrier’s childish behavior), has participated in a mock-debate with Ehrman, where a sound clip is played of Ehrman from the Ehrman/Price debate, and Carrier responds to Ehrman in place of Price. I was particularly interested in Round One where Carrier argued for the relationship of Mark’s Gospel with the idea of The Noble Lie in Plato’s Republic. The mock-debate is here: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Robert Price was clearly not up to the debate. Shame really because there might have been a substantial discussion if instead of his hysterical ad hominems Carrier responded to Prof Ehrman’s book with a measured critique. Now Carrier is reduced to a mock debate in what seems to be a desperate attempt to keep a conversation going that no one outside the YouTube cares about anymore.
Carrier may be a PhD, but he has the attitude of a young child. That is why Ehrman won’t debate him. Carrier spent half of his blog responses to Ehrman insulting the man. Threw ad hominems as far as the eye could see, and what is more, he was wrong about half of all his criticisms.
I’d add that, unlike Price, Carrier can’t formulate decent arguments. For example, he has a whole book about using Bayesian Theorem in trying to figure out if Jesus is historical, and he concludes that the likelihood of Jesus existing is basically none. The total irony is that Richard Swinburne uses the same theorem to show that Jesus was resurrected with high probability.
Price can actually make up some stuff, and formulate some convoluted celestial myth to try and explain his views (though they can’t really be attested), but Carrier relies on the long abandoned “Dying and Rising” archetype, which was abandoned because we figured out that most of those gods aren’t dying or rising1, dismisses historical criteria for considering authentic passages of Josephus (only the Testamentum Flavianum is considered forged, Book 20 is considered legit, the James brother of Jesus ref), dismisses the Synoptic Gospels as “all just copies of Mark”, and more.
The reasons Bart Ehrman won’t debate is because Carrier is immature (or at least acts like it), isn’t actually a New Testament historian, has no valid arguments (just watch him and William L. Craig… it is hilariously bad on both ends of the debate), and is not worth his time.
To quote Bart, he isn’t “interested in having discourse [with Carrier]” after Carrier treated him that way. He promotes a fringe theory without backing, and insults anyone who disagrees with him. Not worth two cents.
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1. He still uses Osiris as an example of a dying and rising god, even though Osiris doesn’t rise from the dead. He stays dead. Hence why he is portrayed with green skin, and is the ruler of… the dead. He is a dead god of a dead afterlife. He also uses Adonis, even though there is no record of his resurrection prior to Christianity. He uses Zalmoxis who is never said to be dead. He uses Inanna as an example of crucifixion, even though it is her corpse that is hung on a hook… not crucified.
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