Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book contains over 600 pages of text and notes (the notes are at the bottom of the pages) and those pages are very content dense so it reads like a much longer book. In fact it is so content dense at times it was almost a painful read. This is Richard Carrier at his best when he is making scholarly and logically rigorous arguments, as opposed to his blog where gets defensive with rants and spends too much time on his progressive politics. I wish he would focus more on this kind of writing. Whether you agree with him or not, you have to give him credit for the tremendous effort this book must have taken. It is heavily footnoted and sources are very well documented. Unfortunately the choice to present a comprehensive case that must be *considered as a whole* will lead to a problem that Carrier notes in the book itself. Critics will be taking shots at various targets, and there are a massive number of them in this book, without considering the case as a whole. They will not offer better arguments, they will just hack away at individual trees, while at the same time failing to notice that an impenetrable forest remains standing. There are some terrific parts to this book and for the most part it is excellent. I've always considered the silence of Paul a powerful argument against a historical Jesus and in the first 20 or so pages of his Epistles chapter, Carrier presents a beautiful and devastatingly powerful argument based upon the silence of Paul. I think it is almost unanswerable. I wish I could take several paragraphs out of that chapter and frame them and hang them on the office walls of various advocates of a historical Jesus to remind them of how incredibly weak their excuses really are. Unfortunately those 20 pages came after a painful slog through the chapter on the Gospels where I wanted to scream "Enough already, I get it!". At least 25 years ago I was surprised at how convincing a case G. A. Wells made for the non-historical Jesus in a book of his I read. Up until then I really never considered that Jesus may not have existed. I've followed the debate ever since. I've read quite a number of books on the subject and I have thoroughly enjoyed many of them. I didn't really enjoy various parts of this book and that disappointed me. However, that doesn't take away from it's achievement nor does it change he fact that I believe Carrier has put together a very powerful case. I don't think this will appeal to a wider audience of too many lay people. My recommendation to lay readers is to start elsewhere. This book is too comprehensive and detailed to be appealing to anybody who isn't really serious about this topic. For me I was glad to finish it. I feel like I need a break now. As long as you understand what you are getting into I can highly recommend this book. Even if like me you do not enjoy the reading at all times, you will undoubtedly benefit from having read it and given it careful consideration. I don't agree with everything in this book. I think at times Carrier forces his arguments. I personally don't find the lengthy analysis of the sources and construction of Mark or similar arguments I read elsewhere convincing. Carrier may be right but I think both he and others like Randle Helms of Gospel Fictions are too confident and speculative in their examples in my opinion. But in any case it doesn't affect the final result. Either way the case for a mythical Jesus as presented in this book must be addressed in a comprehensive way. As Carrier repeatedly points out a bunch of unlikely excuses added together equals a highly improbable result. Yet undoubtedly that is exactly what we will hear from the critics. You really should read Carrier's Proving History before reading this book. Also I highly recommend Sense and Goodness Without God.