We might also think about the debaters' weaker points. In the comments, Hurtado says:
I’m told that CArrier was allowed to select those who reviewed the work. So he would naturally have chosen people already supportive of his view. Who they were? Only the publisher and CArrier know.
It is routine for authors to suggest referees for their work. Many editors solicit such nominations from authors, and nothing prevents an author from simply volunteering some names. Accepting or declining such suggestions is the editors' prerogative, as is supplementing or replacing the list of referees with the editors' own picks. The anonymity of the actual referees is also routine (not universal, but a very usual thing).
A better response, in my view, was all but invited by the question that had been posed to Hurtado,
I’m curios about Carrier’s “refereed” book. Is this the same as peer review? Do we know who refereed it for him – experts in the field? I know peer review is more data fact checking and correcting/checking for strawmen and not affirming a thesis as true, but if he is so wildly off (which I agree he is) then how did his book make it through to such an academic publisher?
Academic book publishers typically practice a form of peer review. Peer review is, in the first instance, a warrant of potential interestingness and of the absence of shallow technical flaws. Individual reviewers, even among those of equal expertise, vary greatly in the depth of their comments and how they view their roles as "gate keepers."
Surviving peer review simply isn't a waranty of quality or reliability. Peer review is a filter. Material rejected in one place remains eligible for submission elsewhere. Editorial focus varies among publishers; material rejected in one place
should remain eligible for submission elsewhere.
That Carrier found an ordinary academic publisher is a fact. The emphasis he and others place on this homely datum probably reflects his base constituency's oft-expressed reverence for "peer review." The peer review that "counts," however, occurs after publication, when the work does or doesn't influence practitioners in the field.