Brian's closer

Listen: I was about to respond to a couple of things at his personal slumdance blog, but after this closer, I don't need to.

Brian, if you're reading this, here's all I ask: You have obviously interviewed Richard Carrier. If you have not read his written work on this subject (particularly, his essay in The Empty Tomb), read it, and then read the sources in translation he says influenced the NT. While your point may be that "similarity" between Jesus and Romulus, or Jesus and Mithra, or Jesus and Attis is just enough to cause "suspicion", that is not Carrier's position.

However, to think honestly about what Carrier has proposed requires comparing the source texts. If the earlier source represents what Carrier says it does to the later source, the connection should be transparent -- because where that connection truly does exist in other cases (for example, Mark to Luke; Exodus to Matthew; Exodus to Hebrews; Daniel to Revelation; Homer to Dryden; etc.) you can place the texts side by side, read them together and the light bulb goes off.

After that, you can blame me all you want. If your testing reveals the kind of relationship Carrier asserts, publish it and put an end to the lie of Christian faith in the Bible, and blame Frank Turk for putting you on this job. If it doesn't, be equally brave and publish it, and admit that this piece of "probabilistic" evidence is nothing of the sort -- and without it, the myth of the myth of Jesus cannot stand.