Doltologist: I will take a look at Carrier's arguments so as to be open minded.
However, the scholarly consensus is that there was a man named Jesus that existed in the first century. If he didn't exist, why do the contemporary critics of the first and second century not deny that Jesus existed? All their criticisms of Jesus were to discredit him as the Messiah, not to deny he existed in the first place.
It seems that if a figure head of a Messiah cult never existed to begin with, that would be an argument that critics would put forth during the rise of the religion. However, this isn't the case.
A handful of scholars and critics does not make an assertion true. That's like saying the handful of so-called scientists that deny Anthropogenic Climate Change deserve to be believed more than the overwhelming consensus.