A few months ago, I had started what's probably the most detailed response to Carrier yet; but I had a hard drive crash, and sooo I basically have nothing now.

To simplify: the fatal weakness of Carrier's thesis comes down to one thing: the implausibility of a supra-earthly crucified figure. We have plenty of evidence for actual crucified people -- so what exactly is wrong with taking this as a starting point? Sure, other mythologies might work with a sacrificial figure who met with an untimely and violent death (whether by spear, arrow, impalement, etc.). But... again, we know that people actually were killed in all these ways. So there's no inherent advantage that a "mythical" crucifixion has over an actual one. (That is: if we were to follow Carrier's lead here, it seems like we might end up doubting the historicity of every historical figure who met with a violent death and who people revered.)

In support of the death-in-the-sublunar-realm idea, Carrier will attempt to appeal to Plutarch on Osiris for this; but this is a very imprecise parallel that Carrier appears to have misunderstood in significant ways.

He'll also appeal to the Ascension of Isaiah for supposed Christian support for this. But the date of this text is highly uncertain (in addition to other source critical issues), as is the issue of its dependence or independence on/from other early Christian texts. The immediate impression one gets is that it's totally secondary; but Carrier can't really afford to take this position, because his main thesis would then be quite weakened (in some significant ways). (Also, IIRC, he appeared to not be fully fluent with current scholarship on this text. Which isn't that surprising, because a lot of it has been in Italian.)

(I should mention that I haven't fully worked my way through On the Historicity of Jesus yet, though.)

One other thing: from a section of OHJ I was reading recently, Carrier makes much of Jesus' name itself, in support of a purely mythical origin for him:

Jesus is an English derivation from the Greek spelling of the Hebrew name Joshua (Yeshua), which means 'Yahweh saves'. Christ is from the Greek christos, meaning 'anointed', which in Hebrew is māšîaḥ, 'messiah'.

That should make us suspicious from the start. Isn't his name abnormally convenient? The 'Christ' part was assigned by those who believed he was the messiah, and thus not accidental. But what are the odds that his birth name would be 'Savior', and then he would be hailed as the Savior?

Yet, in the same way that we know that people were actually killed by crucifixion, etc., we do have some data about the frequency of historical figures roughly contemporary with Jesus who were also named Yeshua: according to Tal Ilan's Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), it was the sixth most popular male name among common names of Palestinian Jews from the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE.

/u/koine_lingua has covered the question pretty well, but I want to add a bit on a somewhat tangential note. If the mods choose to strike me down, then so be it.

In one sense, it's totally natural that Bart Ehrman would become the scholar most associated in the public mind with Historical Jesus research, as he's written several books on the subject specifically for a lay audience.

However, the more I read of Carrier, Price, Doherty, etc., the more I notice that they single Ehrman out for specific criticism. This is a rhetorical ploy being used, and unfortunately, it's incredibly dishonest. By picking a single person as a representative, and arguing with only that person's points, they create the illusion of a less lopsided academic debate, in which a few experts supporting historicity argue against a few experts supporting mythicism. In fact, occasionally this ploy is so successful that people outside the discipline associate a mainstream academic view with a single person, and mistakenly dismiss that one person, thinking the mainstream is the fringe. Look at how creationists constantly talk about Darwinism rather than natural selection.

I'm not saying that Ehrman is right because he's an expert, and Carrier, Doherty etc., are wrong because they aren't. However, it is worth emphasizing that Ehrman is not just representing his own views, he is representing the mainstream view of an entire field. There are hundreds of academics in broad agreement in this field. With mythicists, it's hard to come up with more than a handful.

Again, none of this is an argument; saying more experts agree with Ehrman isn't a good reason to just ignore Carrier's arguments. But I think the rhetoric Carrier uses to address Ehrman's arguments is dishonest, and that should give you pause.

I think ultimately, you have the right idea; keep reading, and keep an open mind. But look at the way people make their arguments, as well as what the arguments are.

The short answer to your initial question is that Ehrman's take on the question and the methods and analysis he uses is accepted by the mainstream scholars in all relevant fields. Carrier is a minor and very marginal figure, but the few scholars who have taken account of his arguments find them unimpressive and no-one takes his Bayes stuff seriously, at least not as a historiographical approach the way Carrier tries to use it.

So maybe if you explained specifically what you found so convincing about his arguments and why you believe "the historical scholarship seems to fit much better with a minimal mythicist point of view than a minimal historicist (one)" we could examine things in more detail. But the answer to your initial question is Ehrman's approach and analysis is accepted and Carrier's is not.

Here is a review of the Carrier book by Raphael Lataster to be published in the Journal of Religious History, around December 2014.

He seems to appreciate the aspects of the book I appreciated and am interested in criticism of:

He effectively begins this book (Chapters 2 and 3) by meticulously explaining the hypotheses of ‘minimal historicity’ and ‘minimal mythicism’. The latter position, highly influenced by the work of Earl Doherty, states that Jesus was initially believed to be a celestial figure, who came to be historicised over time. Chapters 4 and 5 see Carrier masterfully outline crucial ‘elements’ of background knowledge supporting this position that are so forceful that the sceptically-inclined may already incline to be convinced.

The point being that the Bayes stuff is superfluous to the definitions of minimal historicity and minimal mythicism and the establishment of the key elements.