Are we going to have to offer a reward to anyone who can turn up a Jesus-like miracle-worker competitor with Christ?
Getting away from ever layered quotes… Whatever Q is as a primary source is unknowable. We certainly don’t know if anything was written down in the 40’s or 50’s, though it is possible.
It's probably the earliest of the New Testament content, or at least simultaneous with the earliest Paul epistles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
The Q document must have been composed prior to the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke. Some scholars even suggest Q may have predated Mark. A date for the final Q document is often placed in the 40s or 50s of the first century, with some arguing its so-called sapiential layer (1Q, containing six wisdom speeches) being written as early as the 30s.
We don’t know when the miracle stories first appeared, as Mark being the oldest source, is generally thought to have been penned 30 years after the events. Paul, whose writings are considered the oldest, doesn’t go into the miracle stories for some odd reason.
Paul does virtually no narrative or biographical matter on Jesus. Most of the Christian writers neglected the miracles of Jesus even though they knew of them. This is a pattern outside the gospel accounts. Nevertheless, the writers knew of the miracle events and gave rare mention to them. The sayings are always given far more prominence, from the 1st century up to the present. Paul follows that pattern. It doesn't mean he was unaware of the miracle accounts.
Atheos addressed your drivel about 30 years being such a short period for stories of “miracles” to occur, with Joseph Smith’s miraculous healings of people.
The low number of sources for those makes them doubtful, plus it's not clear what the date is for those accounts. But even if those stories are true, it doesn't contradict anything about the miracles of Jesus being true. It's possible that Joseph Smith might have had some limited power to heal, but the more likely explanation would be the usual mythologizing that occurs with a preacher who is recognized as a public figure, plus his devotees imagine it was divine intervention when they recovered as they would have anyway.
But if there's good evidence that he performed healings, there's nothing wrong with that. There's no imperative to prove that no one ever performed any healings other than Jesus. There's a good case to be made that Rasputin the mad monk had the power to heal a child, without any medical training, and this is attested by the historical record and multiple witnnesses, not just a story from one of his devotees.
And why in the world would it matter, if any of these healed people had seen a doctor or not? Do you demand the same of the ones Jesus healed?
http://talkfreethought.org/showthre...ect-Christianity&p=95433&viewfull=1#post95433
Doctor? I think you're confusing this with the case of Rasputin the mad monk. There were doctors who witnessed his healing of the sick child, which happened several times. This is good evidence, because these doctors had tried to heal the child and could not, but they observed his recovery in response to Rasputin. They obviously had no interest in promoting Rasputin's claim to be a healer.
That was the point about the doctors. Their role as witnesses increases greatly the chance that these were genuine cases of a miracle healing. This kind of witness is more reliable for evidence than the testimony of devotees claiming to have been healed by their guru.
As to Joseph Smith, if he healed someone that is just fine. If there's good evidence for it, then I don't dispute it. There are others than Jesus who had some limited power to heal. Most healing stories are probably just wishful thinking, but where there really is evidence, as we have in the case of the Jesus healings, then I assume it probably happened.
We need multiple sources, preferably more than two. If the healer was a recognized public figure, like a guru with a long teaching career, then it's easy to see how the stories could be a product of mythologizing. For J. Smith this is less likely, but again, I'm not sure about the dates of those accounts of his healing acts. It makes a difference if they date from 1860 or from 1835. The later they are, the more likely they are a product of mythologizing.
One of the things I’ve noticed in your attempted apologetics, is you seem to like to say to the effect “see these 15 random pieces of my 1,000 piece puzzle are uber unique and that is what makes it special”. The problem is that the other <fill in the blank god-religion> has a different set of 15 random pieces, which could also be relatively unique. Having some uniqueness, does not make it more real.
They are not "random pieces" -- for example, having multiple sources. Most of the miracle stories we have are from one source only. It makes a difference that in the case of Jesus there are at least four sources. This is not a "random piece."
Also, that the accounts are dated within 50 years or even 30 years later makes them more credible. Stories about Hercules or Perseus or Asclepius etc. are cases where the date of the accounts is several centuries (even 1000 years) after the existence of the healing god or miracle hero figure (assuming that person actually existed earlier in history).
Also, that the pubic career of Jesus was less than 3 years makes it much more difficult, or virtually impossible, that the miracle stories could be a product of mythologizing.
So I'm asking for examples of other miracle workers for whom we have multiple sources which are close to the events reported. And a case that cannot so easily be explained as due to mythologizing, such as with a guru who had a long career teaching for decades.
These factors are not any randomness, or just "uniqueness" in the same sense that every individual object in the universe has its own uniqueness. It matters that we have a case where the normal mythologizing process does not apply. Where mythologizing cannot be the explanation, then the example is more likely a case of the reported events actually having happened.
We can dismiss much of the accounts, as to the details, but the miracle stories of Jesus cannot be dismissed this way. It is too difficult to explain how the Jesus miracle stories could have emerged if the events did not really happen, whereas most miracle stories can easily be explained without assuming the events really happened.
Jesus purportedly does a few parlor tricks which claims to heal people, and those need to be believed, because nobody could make up that shit in a span of decades. You do realize that to this day, we still have charlatan preachers claiming to heal people, like Benny Hinn? Even in the 21st century, there are people gullible enough to slurp such shit up.
Yes, but most people don't believe it, and we all know the "misses" outnumber the "hits." And the 1st-century people also did not believe it and knew there were more "misses" that were not reported. Most miracle stories are not credible.
But if it's so easy to make up the shit and people slurp it up so easily, then why is this one case, Jesus the Galilean healer, the only case, prior to the invention of printing, where we have written accounts of miracle stories, from multiple sources, appearing in less than 50 years later than the reported events happened?
Why don't we have many more such cases? Why are all the miracle stories from one source only, or from sources several centuries later? Why no others that have multiple separate sources?
OK, I'm lying, we do have one case where there's two separate sources: Vespasian who might have performed a couple healings. There are 2 sources for this. This would seem to be the ONLY exception to the multiple sources rule. For all other reported miracle stories we have only one source anywhere near the time of the reported events, within 100-200 years.
The Vespasian case is best explained as that of a famous public figure being mythologized. But considering that it's more than one source and the reports date from only about 50 years after the event, it's not unreasonable to leave open the possibility that he actually performed a genuine healing or two. The chance of it being true is increased a little by the extra source.
If such miracle stories could easily be invented and foisted upon a gullible public, we should have dozens of Jesus-like saviors or heroes through this historical period which are documented with more than one source. We should have many other Jesus-type cases or Benny Hinns for which there are multiple sources near to the reported events.
We have none of this in the 1 or 2 centuries prior to Jesus. But then it begins with the Jesus miracles, 20 or 30 or 40 years after him, then there is a pause, and then there's an explosion of such stories after 100 AD. How do you explain this?
There has to be an object to begin with who attracts this mythologizing process. Where did this object come from? He can't just pop up out of nowhere.
I have no problem with there being an initial object that got the “mythologizing process” going. My problem is that you want the mythos to only begin after your sacred miracles are accepted as facts, as you find this the easiest thing to believe.
This is the best explanation in the case of Jesus. How else did the mythologizing process begin? What was the initial Jesus object to whom the fiction stories could be attached? Why to him? Why not to any of several other attractive figures, like John the Baptist, e.g.? What was that initial Jesus object they got attached to? He was not a famous figure in 30 AD (unless the miracle accounts of him are true).
I see no reason for the mythos to start much earlier, . . .
We agree there was later mythologizing, like after 100 AD or so. But you have to believe it
began much earlier than this if you discount those stories as fiction. Paul attests to the resurrection narrative, and the gospel accounts of the healings are too early. At least those in the Q document must be admitted as quite early. And the Mark accounts also are early. So you must believe the mythologizing began no later than the 50s AD. The resurrection story has to be part of the mythologizing process.
So what was the mythic hero figure in 50 or 40 AD to which the mythologizing took place? Why did they make Jesus into this god figure for attaching miracle stories to? You cannot find any mythic hero in the historical record who became transformed into a god in such a short time. The best explanation is that the mythic hero in this case is supplied by the fact that he already was recognized as a powerful miracle-worker at that early point. That must be what really got him started.
never mind that you agree that these new Christ worshipers had no problem piling on more mythos about their sacred deity.
It's to be expected that some of them would. But the early accounts which are genuine are what provide the initial figure to be mythologized, and without which there's nothing there to add the additional "mythos" to.
I also don’t see a need to pin down the development of this Christ-mythos to be singularly restricted to the stories about just one man. A blending of tales is also certainly possible.
Yes, but this one figure alone is the only one named. There should be dozens of other named and equally-popular or convincing miracle-worker hero figures for whom we would have multiple sources, if the whole story of the miracles is fiction. What constrained all the stories to be attached to this one only? (It's true that 2 or 3 additional named figures emerge in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, some back-dated like Simon Magus, but all invented much later -- none for whom there are any sources prior to about 150 AD.)
Joseph Smith is such an interesting example, partly because it happened not during some ancient fuzzy period and place from which we have so few records. It happened in spite of the large supply of 19th century media sources. It happened in spite of great hostility by the communities his new cult tried to establish themselves in. It happened in spite of a long history of Christian theological development. It happened in spite of many people no longer seeing daemons and gods under every rock. And still this goofy new theology took root, and eventually grew strong. Take this saga back 1800 years in time, squeeze it between the Egyptian pantheon, the Greco-Roman pantheon, and the pantheons of the east. Add in foreign-Roman occupation, a latter rebellion that pissed off the Romans so much that they destroyed the Jewish Temple and much of Jerusalem along with driving the Jewish diaspora. And one has a rich and bubbly cauldron, and a virtual blank slate, for creating gods.
Yes, you make my point. We should have many new Jesus-like "gods" emerging here in this bubbly cauldron, and yet there's
only one that has made any showing. Only one for whom we have multiple sources, and sources within 50 years after the events.
There are others? Who? Why doesn't anyone name them? The best example seems to be Apollonius of Tyana, and yet we have
only one source for him, and this is dated 150 years later. Why is it that in this rich bubbly cauldron, ripe for lots of new gods to be created to fill it and meet the raging demand, there is only one mythic hero figure who comes forth to satisfy the need?
If you say all the competitors were eradicated in a sinister plot to seize power, corner the market, etc., why is there no evidence of any such plot? or of any such competitors being exterminated? If there were any imaginable competitors to Jesus, or anyone being suppressed, the only evidence of such a thing would be 200-300 years later when there were some heresies being suppressed. But nothing in the 1st century.
Who were these plotters, these exterminators? What was their program? Are they still manipulating us to this day? This theory of a massive insidious conspiracy to wipe out all the competitors is less plausible than the likelihood that Jesus was a one-of-a-kind who did have unique power such as the miracle accounts describe.