Introduction
As part of Richard Carrier's campaign to persuade us that Jesus was mythical, he needs to divest Jesus of all Earthly association. A Jesus with a mother, brothers and sisters, or a hometown in Galilee is a historical Jesus - not a myth. As a result, Carrier against those known associations, sometimes offering specious arguments in doing so. In the case of Jesus' association with Nazareth, he does this by suggesting without basis that Mark's identification of Jesus as being from Nazareth is an interpolation in "Proving History". To motivate that speculation, he attempts to show that Mark treated Capernaum as Jesus' hometown - exaggerating some evidence, and ignoring the inconsistency his suggestion introduces to Mark in doing so. In "Proving History", of course, his intention is argue for his method in historical analysis, so he is content to argue that based on Mark (and absent the verse he suggests may be an interpolation), we would consider Capernaum to be Jesus' home town. Carrier goes further in "On the Historicity of Jesus", arguing on specious linguistic grounds because the early Christians were called Nazorians; which name suggested a fictitious connection to Nazareth when the gospels were composed.
