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Carrier lost by his own admission, on his home territory.
I've given a lot of thought to how I'd combat what he says, and what I think it comes down to is that standard, "simple" atheism that says "where is your evidence" isn't going to work; I would explicitly lead with the fact that religious language is completely incoherent and does not constitute an assertion about the world at all, and so there cannot be such a thing as evidence for it. And I would anticipate the way he's going to mock it by going there first: "I'm one of those closed-minded scientists who says he'll ignore the evidence for Jesus". At least when I play the debate out in my head, this is always where we end up, and if we start there I can deny him some cheap point scoring.
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But then the reasons you name are not true sources of its special status, and you may as well be silent.
I disagree. If a non-believer argues that he considers the Book of Job to be a sacred text and therefore of a different quality than, say, The Merchant of Venice he does this most certainly on the grounds mentioned by mtavern. The mere fact that a certain thing is considered as sacred or is admired by a lot of people changes our perception of that thing and insofar adds a new quality to it. It does that even if a certain person doesn't admire it or believe in it. The fact that you (probably) don't admire Britney Spears does not change the fact that you regard her as a "celebrity" which is nothing else than the consequence of other people admiring her.