Some time ago on TheologyWeb, I posted a satirical thread titled, "A Day in the Life of Johnny Skeptic". In it I posited that Richard Carrier would have the following response to this project:

CARRIER: “I’m sorry, but this has been a very humiliating experience, and I want every cent. Take it or leave it.”

I had no idea that this would turn out to be prophetic.

Apparently not even Johnny Skeptic can pay Richard Carrier enough to withstand further humiliation. Carrier has declined a full reply to our rebuttal of his original work; instead, he has opted for the game of the defeated and chosen to interact with only MINIMAL aspects of it. Naturally Carrier hedges for the crowd by claiming that he is only responding to those items criticizing him which are "worth responding to" and implies that he is the victim of "unjustified misunderstanding," and that I have failed to read his material "with any care." But after years of witnessing Carrier's patent obfuscations and dishonesty, this is obviously little more than more of the same: Indications are that Carrier is in fact a "quack" when it comes to his claims of expertise in Greek, and I have shown repeatedly that he speaks out of his expertise often. His foolishness is so great that he manages to recommend the work of Chris Hallquist (see thread here) as well as a raft of other incompetents (see answers here. To put it succinctly, it is indeed clear that Carrier's work is, as he says, "too juvenile to be worth reading" -- but if you have money, he says, get a hold of him and he'll be glad to write a response!

We will answer what little he does provide within the texts of the original essays, noting here only where they belong, though some points it is not clear what a reply is being made to, so I put those here. I have also noted that at least one of the original Carrier chapters has some new material, which he does not clearly indicate as new. I will ignore these updates unless someone requests that I deal with them, as this represents a highly hypocritical lack of courtesy by Carrier (being that his SecWeb cohots in the past have charged me with changing essays without notice, yet never justified this claim).

Inanna, Attis Cult, Invisible Elite Converts, Wisdom of Solomon, Which Kerygma, John's Resurrection, Palatine Grafitto, Crucifixon and Class Warfare: Ch. 1

Roman Prejudice, Respecting Tradesmen, Limited Good, Virgin Christology, Galilee and Nazareth, Ch. 2

Anastasis, Zoroastrian Resurrection, Ch. 3

Demons and Elite Corruption, Ch. 6

Hope and Hebrews, Ch. 8

Hope and Hebrews, Ch. 8

The Word Pistis, Biblical Epistemology, Christian Research Ch. 17

Sections where it is not clear what essay is being responded to:

Everyone a Deviant: Carrier attempts a reductio ad absurdum to my point that deviants would be brought back into line, and claims I am "abusing" my sources, even though he quotes neither myself nor a source to show this. Appeal to Malina showing "how and why deviant groups could and often did break with the community solely for reasons of discontent" is not sufficient as an answer but is more of Carrier refusing to provide detailed and critical evaluations of specific situations, as required.

Laughably, Carrier claims that the evidence "destroys" my case for "every Jew was a deviant--to some other Jew" and he then proceeds to offer a laundry list of 20 Jewish sects. However, like most soundbites, this is a mere distraction, for what Carrier needs to show, but will not, is that each or any of these sects exceeded a limit of tolerable diversity; that is, particularly, that differences superseded similarities, in sufficient quality or quantity, and that they did so to the extent that it justified no longer being united against a common foe, and that no pressure was exerted at all for change. And it is clear that at least one of his examples, that of the Samaritans, is counter-productive, because Jews completely avoided Samaritans! A mere laundry list is simply asinine to present.

Zalmoxis: Not a response to me or any argument I have made, which means it is not even clear why it is included -- though given Carrier's above-noted quackery, that he "translated directly from the Greek" should be a warning to all concerned.