Can't you come up with just ONE miracle mythic hero who is analogous to Jesus Christ? for whom there is comparable evidence?
A kid chopping down a tree is not a miracle story. This is no analogy to Jesus.
A story appeared and was taken at face value. It appeared in many history textbooks.
When the historians decided to search for actual historical basis to the story, they came up empty.
They found that the author of that story attributed it to someone anonymous who told him about it.
They also found that this biographer copied a number of anecdotes from much older English books and attributed them to George Washington. For no better reason we can see than to make George seem more impressive.
This is an exact analogy to the Jesus myth.
No it's not. The only reason to disbelieve the cherry tree story, from what you're saying here, is that we have only one source for it, or rather, one source to which all the others are traceable, and also that this one source copied earlier stories into his Washington book.
But neither of these applies in the case of "the Jesus myth." We have 4 (5) sources for the Jesus events, and they are not traceable back to a common earlier source, and also there is no example of the gospel writers copying anecdotes about an earlier hero figure and applying it to Jesus.
The copying of an earlier story and attributing it to Washington, which is strong evidence that the Washington version is fiction, means that a comparison of the two versions would show unmistakably that the 2nd version too closely resembles the original version to be just a coincidence.
E.g., the story of Sinbad the Sailor and the cyclops is too similar to that of the sailor Odysseus of Homer for the resemblance to be coincidence. So the Sinbad story must be a version of the Odysseus story, or must be dependent on the earlier story for its origin.
You can't just claim casually that a later story is a copy of an earlier one. You have to demonstrate the similarities. We can see the similarities by comparing the text of the two stories. The following text pieces show the similarities between the Odysseus and the Sinbad stories, so the dependency of the later story on the earlier one is obvious:
Sinbad Arabian Nights version:
http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Dixon/dixon01_11.htm
. . . the gate of the apartment opened with a great noise, and there came out the horrible figure of a black man, as high as a tall palm tree. He had but one eye, and that in the middle of his forehead, where it looked as red as a burning coal. . . . At the sight of so frightful a giant we lost all our senses, and lay like men dead.
At last we came to ourselves, and saw him sitting in the porch, looking at us. When he had considered us well, he advanced towards us, . . . and the captain being the fattest, he held him with one hand, as I might a sparrow, and thrusting a spit through him, kindled a great fire, roasted, and ate him in his apartment for his supper. This being done, he returned to his porch, where he lay and fell asleep, snoring louder than thunder. He slept thus till morning. For our parts, it was not possible for us to enjoy any rest; so that we passed the night in the most cruel fear that can be imagined. . . .
The giant failed not to come back, and supped once more upon one of our companions; after which he slept, and snored till day, and then went out and left us as formerly. . . .
. . . We were forced to see another of our comrades roasted. But at last we revenged ourselves on the brutish giant thus. After he had made an end of his cursed supper, he lay down on his back, and fell asleep. . . . nine of the boldest among us, and myself, took each of us a spit, and putting the points of them into the fire till they were burning hot, we thrust them into his eye all at once, and blinded him. The pain occasioned him to make a frightful cry, . . . he groped for the gate, and went out, howling dreadfully.
Homer - Odysseus version:
http://www.mythweb.com/odyssey/book09.html
When the Cyclops -- Polyphemus was his name -- came home that afternoon, he blotted out the light in the doorway. He was as tall and rugged as an alp. One huge eye glared out of the center of his forehead.
He didn't see us at first, but went about his business. . . . It was when he stoked his fire for the meal that he saw us.
'Who are you?' asked a voice like thunder. . . .
With that he snatched up two of my men and bashed their brains out on the floor. Then he ate them raw, picking them apart and poking them in his mouth, bones and guts and all. . . .
We passed a miserable night and then watched the Cyclops make breakfast of two more of our companions. . . .
It was up to me to make a plan. I found a tree trunk that the Cyclops intended for a walking stick. We cut off a six-foot section, skinned it, put a sharp point on one end and hardened it in the fire.
. . . Heating the end of the pole until it was glowing red, we ran it toward the Cyclops like a battering ram, aiming it for his eye and driving it deep. The thing sizzled like hot metal dropped in water while I twisted it like an auger. Polyphemus came awake with a roar, tore the spike from his eye and began groping for us in his blindness. His screams of frustration and rage brought the neighboring Cyclopes to the mouth of the cave.
It's obvious that these are differing versions of the same story, so the later one is a copy and must be fiction, even if there could be some truth to the earlier story.
If the cherry tree story or other anecdote about Washington is such a copy of an earlier story, then this tells us that the Washington story is fiction. If we didn't know it was such a copy from something earlier, then how would we be so sure that it's not a true story? This is mostly how we can be sure it's fiction, especially since there's nothing supernatural about cutting down a cherry tree.
But there is no analogy here to the "Jesus myth," because you cannot demonstrate an example of any of the Jesus events being a copy from some earlier story, such as a pagan myth, etc.
If you think there is any such copying by the gospel writers from some pre-Christian story, you should be able to present the text of each and let us see the similarities, just as I have presented above the two cyclops stories, the Sinbad and Odysseus versions, so you can read them and see the similarities.
Another reason there is no analogy between the cherry tree story and the miracle stories of Jesus is that
a miracle story is much more difficult to believe and so is less likely to spread.
So for a real analogy to the "Jesus myth" you have to find an example of a miracle myth, because people hearing of a cherry tree being cut down have no reason to disbelieve it, which means such a tale as this could much more easily be believed and transmitted on by those who hear of it, whereas a story of a leper or blind man being healed is much less credible, so people are much less likely to believe it and will not pass the story on, or will only poke fun at the story.
So, given the exact same circumstances for the cherry tree tale and for a miracle healing story such as in the gospel accounts, we have to be more surprised at the spread of the healing story than at the spread of the cherry tree story. The latter can be explained much easier than the spreading of the miracle healing story.
Your adding this requirement for miracles does not mean the story is MORE credible because impossible shit happened.
OK, you can claim the miracle element makes the story less credible. However, this is the ONLY reason you can give for claiming it's less credible. If you compare the two stories in all other respects, the Jesus miracle story is MORE credible.
I.e., once again, you are basing your entire case on the single fundamental dogmatic premise that miracle events absolutely cannot happen. This is your only argument. There is nothing else about the Jesus miracle stories that you can cite as evidence that they are not credible. Every effort you make, such as this comparison to the cherry tree story, demonstrates once again that the Jesus miracle stories are more credible in every way. You have NO argument other than the simplistic dogmatic premise that there can be no such thing as any miracle event.
Which is OK, however, you have to first impose this dogmatic premise onto everyone in order to make your case. For those who doubt this basic dogma, leaving open the possibility that a miracle might happen in some cases, you are making no case against the Jesus miracle claims in the gospel accounts.
How the story got started and spread is an important question, not just the final question of whether the story is true. Where did the story come from? Why is it written down? Why did people believe it? Answering these questions could help explain how a story could get started in the first place even if it's not true. This is trying to get beyond the simplistic outburst, "Aw, people make up shit!" etc.
So, beyond the question whether the story is true, we can ask why the story exists, or rather, why it spread and became believed so easily. Suppose neither story is true -- we need to ask how it got started and spread, and why many people believed it. So, WHY did they believe it and pass it on to others as a true story if it really was not true?
For the cherry tree story we can answer that question much more easily. The people simply believed it because it was not so unusual. There's nothing so difficult or unordinary about chopping down a cherry tree.
But for the miracle healing it's different, because most people don't believe such stories, unless there's something extra or special that convinces them, like if they witnessed it directly, or if maybe they got the story from a direct witness or from the victim who was healed. There's reason to be skeptical about it, whereas for the cherry tree story there is no reason to be skeptical.
This would be moving the goalpost on your part.
No, nothing is moved. The problem is to explain how the story becomes accepted and passed around. This same problem applies to either kind of story. The explanation is easy in the case of the cherry tree, but difficult in the case of a miracle claim. So for explaining how a false story gets circulated, you cannot compare a normal event, like chopping down a cherry tree, to a miracle event.
And aside from that, the miracle stories of Jesus could not have originated this way. Washington was a famous public figure when this story was invented. It would not have been invented and attached to him if he had not been a famous public figure with a long career behind him and a widespread reputation.
A meaningless quibble. Special casing again.
It's the same question again: How does the story get started, and why does it spread?
All legendary heroes were famous people. Name one who was not. They were real persons who had some kind of distinction, such as a heroic accomplishment, some admirable deed, maybe an amazing talent or strength -- and from this point when he was a celebrity, the hero eventually became credited with extra deeds going beyond the norm and was finally turned into something superhuman, usually long after his death. Although in some cases after a long distinguished career, the hero starts to become mythologized even while still alive.
George Washington was such a person, a famous celebrity hero, and he began to be mythologized even while still alive, after a long colorful career. This fact, that he was famous and widely recognized as a hero, explains why he became mythologized. He would not have been mythologized if he had NOT been a recognized hero figure, i.e., if the actual historical person had not been a recognized hero.
Thus, it is easy to explain how Washington became mythologized.
BUT in the case of Jesus, this explanation cannot work, because Jesus was not a famous hero celebrity during his life. Rather, it was only after his death that he became famous. So it's more difficult to explain how he became mythologized than it is to explain how George Washington became mythologized.
(Actually, if Jesus really did perform the miracle healing acts, and if his reputation for this had spread around the region of Galilee and Judea and Syria etc., then this could explain how the miracle stories emerged. But we're asking hypothetically how the stories emerged even if the events really did not happen.)
It doesn't make the Jesus myth any more credible, . . .
What it does is make it more difficult to explain how the "myth" got started and spread. If he had been a famous prophet/rabbi with a long career, like Hillel, then it would explain how the "myth" got started and spread. Just like we can explain how the myth of Santa Claus got started and spread, by starting with a real historical person who became widely popular during his life because of his unusually generous deeds.
You can't name a mythologized person who did not have such popularity or fame during his lifetime, because this is what causes the mythologizing to get started.
. . . nor that it's impossible to have been cribbed from other god accounts.
But to be "cribbed from other god accounts" into a new god-myth, one still has to be a famous person.
The one who gets mythologized into a miracle god-like figure had to be someone special. Even if symbols are drawn from earlier "god accounts" or myths, which the Jesus events are not, the one mythologized still had to be someone who stood out and was recognized for some great deeds.
The case of Jesus breaks this rule. Are there any other cases which break it?
To give a proper analogy to Jesus, you need to find a mythic hero who was NOT famous during his lifetime, not powerful, not a widely-reputed public figure. George Washington obviously does not meet this criterion and so is not an analogy to Jesus the reputed miracle-worker.
To find an analogy to him, you have to find an example of a mythologized miracle hero who had no long career or widespread reputation when the mythologizing began.
Why can't you find such a case?
I don't know that i can't.
I do know that if i did, you'd just change the requirements once more, or find some other way to disparage, dismiss or otherwise reject the account.
OK, but then you cannot claim to have explained the Jesus miracle accounts by drawing an analogy to Washington and the cherry tree or other examples of some famous celebrity who got mythologized. We all know miracle stories get made up, but in all cases we know of, the miracle hero was a famous celebrity in his lifetime, or in cases we don't know the origin of, it's always a story which evolved over many centuries. So the Jesus case cannot be explained by such analogy. Your examples are not analogous to the Jesus case. Thus they do not explain how the miracle stories of the gospel accounts came about.
But we can explain other cases of miracle stories, i.e., how the stories emerged as a result of mythologizing. Or at least all cases from 1000 years ago or earlier. And probably in modern times also, though the existence of widespread publishing has made it much easier for miracle faith-healers to be publicized in recent centuries.
But i'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong, here.
We are each trying to prove the other wrong. And to make your case, you need to find an example of a hero myth/legend in which the hero reputedly performed miracles, as a real historical person, but was not a famous celebrity in his lifetime.
I'm just pointing out that people who are conversant with history and religions other than yours have no reason to accept your claims.
You can probably say that to anyone who claims anything. A claim can be true whether someone else accepts it or not.
A short time span from the actual event to the later report does make it more credible.
So, you just keep repeating this baseless claim. That'll eventually make it credible?
But you do admit that for the Jesus miracle events we have sources which are closer in time to when the reputed events happened than is the case for other reputed miracle events, like that of Apollonius of Tyana, or for Simon Magus, or for Hercules or Buddha or Krishna, and so on?
And it's only in modern times, with the vast publishing industry, that we might find examples of reputed miracle-workers for whom the sources are close to the reputed events. Right?
Hypothetical Premise: If the report of an event is closer in time to when the event reportedly happened, the report is more credible, i.e., the reported event is more likely true, than if the report is farther away in time from when the event reportedly happened. All else being equal.
No one is required to agree with this premise. But this premise is correct, and many or most reasonable persons agree with this premise, and logic or reason does not undermine this premise but supports it.
So there's nothing unreasonable in saying that the Jesus miracle events are more credible than the Apollonius of Tyana miracle stories, based on this premise.
So it's reasonable to say the Jesus miracle reports are more credible because there are 4 (5) sources instead of only one, and they are closer in time to when the events reportedly happened than the Apollonius of Tyana source is to its reported events.
In addition to not even being a miracle story at all, which totally disqualifies it, this is a case where there is ONLY ONE SOURCE for the story. Have you forgotten that we need multiple sources for the miracle-worker and not only one?
Have you forgotten that there was no sign it was ONLY ONE SOURCE until historians actually tried to find the source?
OK, you're right -- your point is that originally there were multiple sources for the cherry tree story, and so multiple sources don't make the story more credible, i.e., because it's only an
illusion that there are multiple sources.
But you're supposing that the gospel account stories are likewise all derived from one source, and so are really not separate sources but only one.
And yet there's good reason to believe that they are NOT derived from one single source like the different cherry tree accounts were all derived from an ultimate single source.
There are conflicting versions of the miracle stories in the gospels which suggest divergent sources for these accounts and not one fictional source. All the gospel accounts point to the same ultimate event(s) which happened sometime around 30 AD, and not to one single written source from later years. If instead they all originated from one literary source which emerged around 50 or 60 or 70 AD, then we would not have the discrepancies of the miracle stories we find in the gospel accounts.
The different versions of the cherry tree story do not have such discrepancies.
The discrepancies of the gospel accounts are best explained as originating from differing eye witnesses to the original events, and these were transmitted orally for some period, perhaps years, undergoing some change before finally being written down, and then these written accounts were circulated and the stories after that experienced much less change.
This is the best explanation for what we have. Obviously there is not absolute certainty. This is just the best guess.
This is not analogous to the cherry tree story, which circulated in several versions which had virtually no discrepancies with each other on the details of the story.
It was all over history classes in the schools of the land. When they asked for history, it failed.
We're asking for historical evidence of the miracles. You've got no witnesses.
You mean EYE witnesses? For virtually ALL historical events we have no eyewitnesses. For the Jesus events we have more evidence, INdirect witnesses, testimony, than we have for MOST historical events from that far back.
You've got no disinterested commentary.
We have virtually NO disinterested commentary for historical events more than 1000 years ago. You continue to impose standards onto the gospel accounts that are not imposed onto any other source.
However, I have to qualify this: In virtually all the miracle stories of Jesus, in the gospel accounts, the ones healed are people who are NOT disciples of Jesus, and it is clear in many cases that the rumors that start spreading are initiated by observers or witnesses who were not his close disciples.
The ones who start the rumors are sometimes the victims who were healed, or someone with them, like a family member, and virtually never one of the disciples.
But on the other hand, for virtually all other faith-healing stories, such as pagan healings at temples of Asclepius or other gods, or for Joseph Smith, or for stories of saints in the Middle Ages, and for modern faith-healers, the reported healings are of devotees/disciples of the charismatic healer, who clearly were the opposite of "disinterested" observers because they were persons under the influence of the healer's charisma.
Your only 'evidence' is anonymous accounts of dubious provenance.
You've never given any reason why "anonymous" accounts are not reliable. And in cases of miracle events reported in documents which are not "anonymous" but for which we have a named author, you still reject the reported events just the same as if it came from an "anonymous" source.
So you simply reject all miracle claims whether the source is "anonymous" or not. And you accept claims in "anonymous" sources as long as they are not about miracle events. So it is pointless for you to keep repeating that the sources are "anonymous" as though this had any relevance to the credibility. It has none.
. . . of dubious provenance. So...no evidence.
Again, there is more evidence for the Jesus events, including the miracle acts, than for many or most historical events from that period which we routinely accept as true.
No, the time duration from the actual alleged events and the reports of them IS important.
Only according to you.
No, it's important to everyone investigating historical events.
Like to
Atheos who says: "He acts like people living 40 years and 1500 miles removed from the events in question had some compelling reason to accept this fish story . . ." It's obvious that
Atheos thinks the 40 years is too far past the reported events for the record of it to be trusted.
The only case where the importance of this time duration is denied is that of the Jesus-debunker mythicist crusader when presented with the fact that in the case of Jesus the time between the written documents/evidence and the reputed events is relatively short. In this one case only, where the time lapse between the events and the later written reports is shown to be a relatively SHORT period, suddenly they change the rules and say that the time duration between the event and the report of it does not matter.
But when they start out making their case in the first place, like
Atheos (and all the others), they always insist that the stories in the gospel accounts must not be true because the date of these accounts is so many decades later than the original events, and thus they are not reliable sources for what happened.
And you make so many mistakes when you assert stuff, there's no reason to accept this as a valid point.
So, if I say 2 + 2 = 4, there's no reason to accept this as valid, because I make so many mistakes when I assert stuff?
And what about your false assertions that gnostic gospels were burned by Christians. Does this repeated false assertion of yours make everything you say invalid? Like if you say 2 + 2 = 4?
So, if it's so easy to create a Jesus-like miracle-worker, why do we have only one?
Because all the other Christ candidate stories were stamped out.
Like this false assertion by you, for which there is absolutely no evidence. Will you finally check up on this instead of just repeating it mindlessly? And when you find there is no evidence whatever for it, will you finally stop making this assertion? Or will we have to keep disbelieving you when you say 2 + 2 = 4, applying your rule that making false assertions then falsifies everything you say?
The evidence is that whatever happened in the case of Jesus, it has never happened in any other case in history.
Hardly.
But you continue to not offer any other example.
If it's so easy to create such a mythic figure and spread his fame quickly, why is there no other case in the historical record?
Because Christians wrote the historical record.
No, most of it before 300 or 400 AD was not written by them. Why isn't there any other case of a mythic figure whose fame spread quickly?
We have the record of Apollonius of Tyana, not written by Christians. But there's ONLY ONE source for this and it doesn't appear until 150 years after the reported miracle events. Why isn't there one case which is closer and for which there is more than one source? If it was so easy for the Christ-believers to get their mythic hero into the record in only a few decades, why couldn't any other cult do the same?
There were many non-Christian cultists and educated people and philosophers writing the historical record during these centuries. Why is Apollonius of Tyana the closest they can come to a Jesus-parallel miracle-worker?
(Are we really talking about someone who only chopped down a tree?)
We're talking about a lie that spread because people didn't challenge the source.
Why should they? What's not credible about someone chopping down a cherry tree? What good is it to read a biography or history book if you have to personally go out and interview witnesses for every minor incident in the book?
You're making too much fuss over this one cherry-tree whodunnit mystery.
You ought to think long on that.
Longer than you thought before telling me what the gnostics wrote in books that . . .
We have a good general idea what they wrote. Plenty of the gnostic books were preserved and we know what they wrote. These give us a good idea what was in the other ones which perished because no one made copies of them.
. . . that were burned a hundred generations ago.
You need to "challenge the source" for these lies you're being told about bookburnings that never happened and for which those gurus teaching you this have no evidence.
