You know, you've never quite explained why Paul never mentions any of these miracle acts.
For the same reason that he mentions NOTHING about Jesus prior to the night of the arrest. He omits ALL the biographical information.
This omission does not somehow mean those earlier events never happened.
But it's also for the same reason why the many Christian writers for centuries into the future gave virtually no mention to the miracle acts. The
Jesus healing miracles are ignored almost entirely, very conspicuously, by all the church writers.
Most of the major writers -- famous names like Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, St. Augustine, etc. -- do make mention of them, but the space they devote to this is a tiny fraction of what they devote to the
miracles in the Old Testament, and also to "miracles" like the
Virgin Birth, also to the
Star of Bethlehem and other portents, and also to the
pagan miracle myths. These interest them, but not the Jesus miracle healing acts.
Also the Hebrew prophecies of the Messiah are very important to them, and they delve into these repeatedly and show the connection to Jesus, and devote much space to proving that Jesus must be the Messiah because of his fulfillment of these prophecies. But they almost never use the Jesus healing miracles as any kind of proof of his divinity.
So, Paul's epistles are right in line with the later patristic writings in ignoring the miracles of Jesus.
The patristic writers do devote much attention to the
miracles in the Book of Acts, and also to later reported miracles performed by Christians. These interest them vastly more than the miracles of Jesus.
In his
City of God,
St. Augustine says virtually nothing about the miracles of Jesus, but devotes many pages to the miracles performed by later Christians, including those of the Book of Acts, and especially to miracles of his time which he claims to have personal familiarity with, mostly through certain other Christians he knew who prayed and experienced healing and other signs.
You're spending a lot of time treating these 'miracles' as factual without actually producing evidence of the miracles.
We have the same kind of evidence for them as we have for most historical events. Plus, we have extra sources, or more sources than necessary to establish normal reported events as factual. So these reported events, not being normal, do meet the higher standard -- the need for extra sources -- for credibility.
Just anonymous accounts . . .
No one has given any reason why "anonymous" accounts have to be rejected. There are anonymous accounts which are accepted routinely as sources for historical events, even ones containing miracle events. Of course such unlikely events are routinely rejected or set aside as dubious, in any accounts, but this does not mean that the accounts are rejected as unreliable. Rather, the miracle elements in them are put in the doubtful category, outside the category of recognized historical fact.
And there is nothing about history that requires ALL the miracle stories to be rejected as fiction. Historians have not proved that miracle events can never happen. Nor scientists. Only some philosophers, e.g., Hume, claim to have proved such a thing, which is not binding on historians or anyone else.
The reasonable approach is to set aside those stories as doubtful, omit them from the official historical record, but leave open the possibility that some of them could be true, and allow that the credibility increases with a higher degree of evidence, such as extra sources for the questionable events. (And extra sources is not the ONLY example of more evidence, but also a consistency with other events or other sources.)
Just as with ALL historical events a
greater amount of evidence increases the credibility, so also with alleged miracle events a greater amount of evidence is relevant. One main reason to doubt miracle events is precisely the general pattern of poor evidence for them in the record. But in the case of the Jesus miracle acts there is an exception to this pattern, as in this case we have more evidence for these events than we have for many normal events which we routinely accept as factual, and far more than for miracle legends generally.
And there might be some other exceptions to this general pattern of poor evidence for miracle events. E.g., the case of Rasputin the mad monk, who had power to cure one child with a blood disease.
. . . of indeterminate time post-miracle.
The dating of the gospel accounts is no more "indeterminate" than that of most sources for the history of that period.
And treating this as real from an argument-of-incredulity.
Isn't the "argument from incredulity"
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity a fallacy only if the one making it is claiming virtual
certainty in his conclusion? If the one making the claim is only saying this is the best conclusion, from what we know, then it's not really a fallacy. It's only a claim of probability, or even just the "best guess" in view of the limited information we have.
So if one says, "This is the best explanation, and since there's no better explanation this one must be the truth," it is fallacious only if he means this explanation has to be the truth, with CERTAINTY, with no possibility of any other explanation being the truth.
But if he only claims that this is the best explanation so far, and it's reasonable to believe this explanation as the best possibility we can come up with, then there's no fallacy. Because it's not a claim of certainty, but only a reasonable belief, perhaps the most reasonable for now, given what we know at this point.
Such a belief often is in fact the truth. Maybe in most cases. It can be the truth, even though we know it only as a reasonable possibility, with doubt, rather than as a certainty.
Your whole argument centers around being able to establish these events in time, as history.
Right, the same way we establish general historical events.
And you're not going to do that by assuming they're historical before you try to evaluate the accounts.
The accounts are assumed as historical only in the same sense that ALL documents from the past are assumed to be. None is automatically disqualified as a source just because the content is disliked by someone.
What's an example of a document from the past which is rejected as a source because someone didn't "evaluate" it first? Or, what account has been rejected, i.e., its claims all disqualified from consideration, because someone evaluated the account and found that it failed some standard?
More reasonable is to accept every account as reasonably reliable, with skepticism toward any part which conflicts with other accounts or with science or something having higher credibility. There's virtually no case for throwing out an entire document because of some part that is dubious. Rather, individual parts can be rejected or put in the highly dubious category while other parts are accepted if they don't conflict with the rest of what we know.
And there has to be
allowance for that which is highly unusual. These might require a higher degree of attestation, but the unusual cannot be automatically ruled out. You cannot "evaluate" the gospel accounts based on your dogma that miracles can never happen and thus conclude that it has to be rejected as history.
Rather, the miracle elements are
more doubtful than the normal events, and so they
require extra sources, while any one account is still accepted for its reported normal events, and also subjected to the same critical inquiry as any other source. So if the gospel accounts are to be downgraded for credibility, this must be based on flaws or discrepancies found in them and separate from your dogma that miracle events can never happen.
Though there are some problems with the gospel accounts, just as with many non-Christian sources, and even if these make the accounts less reliable on some points, still there's no basis for rejecting these accounts entirely as non-historical. They are not in some kind of unique separate category setting them apart from all other documents as you imply with your "assuming they're historical before you try to evaluate" them rhetoric.
You probably cannot name one ancient document that is rejected from being used for history because it failed this "evaluate" criterion.
The 'unique savior' argument is a red herring.
The only uniqueness argument is that --
-- in the case of Jesus we have
documents attesting to his miracle acts, not just one but at least 4 (5) such documents or sources, and these are reasonably close to the time the alleged acts happened, i.e., just as close timewise as is the case for most other historical events of that time and the documents which report them. Plus also that
Jesus was not a famous celebrity at the time (if he did not really do the miracle acts), plus also that he had a relatively
very short public career; and
-- that all these factors make it much more difficult for anyone to gain a reputation as a miracle-worker if the claims about this are fictional; and
-- there are no other cases of a reputed miracle-worker about whom this is the case, and thus all of them can be explained, or their reputation as a miracle-worker can be explained, even if the miracle claims are fictional.
Though this may include a kind of "uniqueness" claim, this is not a claim that he must somehow be the "Real McCoy" because he is unique. This is not a claim that uniqueness proves the truth of the claim or that he must be God or anything else.
This simply says that in this one case we have reason to believe the miracle claims are true, because of evidence, whereas in all the other cases we do not have such reason to believe it.
Also, this does not rule out some other miracle acts having happened here or there, or that certain other persons might also have had some limited power to do some kind of "miracle" act. But this does suggest that those others are cases of a very limited range of power demonstrated by such a person.
So the "uniqueness" is not the point. Rather, the element of a miracle power on a large scale is evident in the case of Jesus but not in any of the other cases of alleged miracle-workers.
Since "uniqueness" per se can be attributed to anyone, in the sense that all persons and all objects are each unique in their own way, being unique is a trivial point of no importance and not a part of this argument.
You need evidence FOR your claims, not perceived holes in other people's claims.
Both are appropriate. If someone keeps refuting my claim with their own claim that there were many other "Jesus-like messiahs" or other great mythic heroes or miracle dieties who were just as real and powerful as Jesus was or just as believable, and so on, then it's appropriate to refute them if they are wrong, or require them to produce evidence for their claim.
So it is the obligation of those who make such claims to give the evidence for their claim, showing who these other "Jesus-like messiahs" were and cite the evidence from the documents written near to the time that the alleged miracle events happened, as we can do in the Jesus case, reported in documents near to the time in question.
Offer some actual evidence that's not written down a generation or two after the events, . . .
But this evidence offered is just as close to the actual events as most evidence we have for historical events of that time. Even closer than for many events which we routinely accept as reliable. And for many events we have ONLY ONE SOURCE, whereas for the Jesus miracle acts we have at least 4 (5) sources. So the evidence we have far exceeds the normal amount required.
Whereas, by contrast, we have no similar evidence from written sources for any of the "Jesus-like messiahs" which the chorus of Jesus-debunkers keep insisting were running around and doing everything he did, in their obsession to prove that his case was not "unique" or special or more credible, etc.
Why don't they "offer some actual evidence" which measures up to the same standard as the evidence we have for the Jesus miracle acts if they must continually insist that these "Jesus-like messiahs" really existed? Why do they keep saying the examples are there, in some historical source, and yet never provide any real examples or sources for this?
. . . or based on rumor, gossip and possible editorial tampering.
But this complaint can be raised against ANY source for historical events for that time. The gospel accounts measure up to the standard for all other sources for historical events. Why isn't this sufficient?
Why do the same ones who demand this higher standard of evidence then turn around and declare that there were other "Jesus-like messiahs" all over the place in those times and yet do not provide ANY evidence measuring up to any standard whatever? You need to "remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter" from the other one's eye whose evidence meets only the normal standards required instead of the extra standards you want to impose.
There is no historical source not likely tainted by "rumor, gossip and possible editorial tampering." But at least an imperfect source, which most of them are, is better than no source at all, such as we have for those other "Jesus-like messiahs" you're all saying were abounding in the 1st century.
