My apologies for the long delay in completing the series. Much has happened since my last post that is not pertinent to the topic at hand. This final part will be short and sweet. By way of review, we have examined Dr. Richard Carrier's claims that Christianity evolved from polytheism (PART 1), of similarities between Christianity and other pagan beliefs (PART 2), that Jesus was originally thought to be only a cosmic figure, a space man of sorts (PART 3), and finally we examined his claims that Paul never referred to an earthly Jesus (PART 4). Lastly, I want to point you in the direction of some of the positive evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus.
Much has been written on this subject, and I am not going to rehash it all here. My friend and colleague Eric Chabot has put together an excellent page of links, categorized by topic, so that you can explore what some of the leading scholars have to say about the subject of Jesus' existence and explore in more detail the excellent evidence we have for the existence of Jesus. Compared to other ancient figures, especially those who were obscure carpenters from obscure towns, we have a plethora of evidence to support the existence of Jesus from reliable biblical, secular, and critical sources.
As I have mentioned before, Dr. Carrier's views, and the views of other mythicists like him, regarding Jesus fall on the very fringe of scholarship. For the reasons we've explored in addition to the evidence linked to above, we have little reason to be impressed by the mythicists' arguments and little reason to doubt the existence of Jesus. As New Testament scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman, who is an agnostic and no friend of Christianity, notes:
One may well choose to resonate with the concerns of our modern and post-modern cultural despisers of established religion (or not). But surely the best way to promote any such agenda is not to deny what virtually every sane historian on the planet -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, agnostic, atheist, what have you -- has come to conclude based on a range of compelling historical evidence.
Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed.
Of course, I would argue that we have good reasons to believe the Bible is historically reliable and that not only did Jesus exist, but He also claimed to be God and proved to be God via His resurrection (which we also have good evidence for). If that is indeed the case, then Jesus is not just any historical figure. He is God in human flesh and the one worthy of our worship our devotion.