Bart Erhman is an Atheist and a New Testament scholar. He has his own rhetorical tricks that he rolls out for public presentations and publications that he leaves in the bag when engaging professional scholars in his field who know better than to fall for his tricks but here below Erhman response to Carrier's false claims and rhetorical tricks.
"The Tacitus Question
While I’m on the Tacitus reference. At one point in my book I indicate that “I don’t know of any trained classicists or scholars of ancient Rome who think” that the reference to Jesus in Tacitus is a forgery (p. 55). Carrier says this is “crap,” “sloppy work,” and “irresponsible,” and indicates that if I had simply checked into the matter, I would see that I’m completely wrong. As evidence he cites Herbert W. Benario, “Recent Work on Tacitus (1964-68) The Classical World 63.8 (April 1970) pp. 253-66, where several scholars allegedly indicate that the passage is forged.
In my defense, I need to stress that my comment had to do with what scholars today are saying about the Tacitus quotation. What I say in the book is that I don’t know of any scholars who think that it is an interpolation, and I don’t. I don’t know if Carrier knows of any or not; the ones he is referring to were writing fifty years ago, and so far as I know, they have no followers among trained experts today. In that connection it is surprising that Carrier does not mention Benario’s more recent discussions, published as “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1969-1973,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1974-1983,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1984-1993,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1994-2003.” Or rather it is not surprising, since the issue appears to have died on the vine (one exception: a brief article in 1974 by L. Rougé). I might also mention that there is indeed a history of the question that goes before the mid-20th century. I first became aware of it from one of the early mythicists, Arthur Drews, whose work, The Christ Myth (1909) raises the possibility. But Drews did not invent the idea; it goes back at least to the end of the 19th century in the work of P. Hochard in 1890, De l’authenticité des Annales et des Histoires de Tacite. I’m not sure if Carrier is familiar with this scholarship or not. But my point is that I was not trying to make a statement about the history of Tacitus scholarship; I was stating what scholars today think."
This approach by Carrier is known as cherry-picking. In order to support his point Carrier, ignores the last 45 years of scholarship, and goes back to a mid-1960s reference of Tacitus's work being a forgery. That same scholar then reverse his opinion numerous time supporting Erman's statement, and demonnstrating that Carrier was either incompetent as a scholar or more likely (if Carrier is the scholar he claims to be) was knowingly misrepresenting the scholarship hoping no one would check the details.
For context and full details about Carrier's unigue approach to history see:
Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier
My personal opinion, shared by Erhman and many professional historians is that
Carrier is the "Donald Trump" of Historical Jesus Scholarship, but I will let the gentle reader engage the original content and decide for themselves if Carrier has a scholarly inference or is just hand-waving.