It's a separate one, out of respect for Richard Carrier's wishes; though I have read much of ED's case, I have yet to get his book. So here are my comments:

On pagan views of the historicity of their stories, I think that it might be reasonable to distinguish between lowbrow popular religion and highbrow religion and philosophy. On the lowbrow side was the familiar mythology and the various popular and official cults and oracles, while on the highbrow side was the various schools of philosophers and the like.

The lowbrow side tended toward literal historicity, as Ed Tyler's examples show; a good example of this is in the book "The First Fossil Hunters", where big fossil beasts were explained as early heroes or as monsters defeated by the Gods in a big battle.

As to Ed Tyler's examples, I think that his sources were reporting on popular beliefs without necessarily agreeing with them; this is clearly the case with Lucian, who was a skeptic (his account of Alexander of Abonutichus is a classic).

On the highbrow side, there were a variety of opinions; Some interpreted popular religion and mythology allegorically, while others considered it to be based on fantasy, such as Xenophanes and the Epicureans. Interestingly, one common view was that popular religion was useful for making people virtuous -- even if it was pure fantasy.

The heavenly-realm interpretation presented by Earl Doherty is a good example of such allegorical interpretation. Other such allegorical interpretations include Euhemerism, the belief that the Gods were early human heroes whom subsequent storytellers had exaggerated into superbeings, and also the belief that they were forces of nature (works with some of them, but not very well with others); such interpretations, it must be said, come close to the fantasy interpretation.

So I do think that Earl Doherty's interpretation is supportable, if only in a limited way; Paul would have been influenced by one of several schools of thought on the nature of the Gods. He clearly was not influenced by popular religion, which he undoubtedly considered grossly idolatrous, and it is doubtful that he would have had much love for Epicureanism.

I don't have much to say on Brian L's comments, however.

But Michael Turton has a very good point about Paul having no interest in the earthly career of his Lord and Savior. One might expect him to want to visit the place where Jesus Christ had died for his sins, but he did not. This is especially significant when one compares how his successors would treat the places where Jesus Christ had supposedly lived and died.