Hi Joshua,
I only just found out about this thread. By the way, the name is “Alter,” not “Atler.”
I’ve been reading and studying arguments for the Resurrection for many many years. I’ve been debating skeptics for many many tears. Alter’s arguments were quite new to me, because he was arguing from a Jewish perspective. And quite a lot of what he had to say about the Passion of Jesus was stuff I hadn’t read before.
Naturally, I looked for reviews of Alter’s book, but few people had deigned to read it. When I contacted the McGrews about it, the reaction I got was that it wasn’t even worth reading. That annoyed me, because I knew that Alter had made what at least looked like a damned good case. Not to review it in detail seemed snobbish to me. Mike Alter told me he’d asked many people to review his book, but very few had, owing to its length and the fact that it was self-published.
So over a period of a few months, I sat down, reviewed and rewrote the book’s key arguments, until I had condensed it down to something manageable in size. Then I checked out various claims on the Internet, as well as I could. Alter got a few things wrong, but surprisingly, he got a lot right.
Over that time, I came to see how hollow, lazy and sloppy many arguments for the Resurrection really are. And I say that as someone who regularly takes on skeptics at Debunking Christianity, which I notice no-one around here bothers to do.
Alter is not a historian. He’s a teacher. Nevertheless, he has made a major effort to read what the historians have to say, on the topic of Jesus’ passion, burial and resurrection. And personally, he has been gracious in his dealings with me.
I continue to be amazed that no-one is buying and reading his book. And I should warn you that his second one is a lot better than the first. Got to head off to work, so I’ll stop there.