How much evidence is necessary to make a miracle story plausible? a reasonable possibility?
Again, I don't need the Jesus miracles via the stories from the synoptic gospels to be "proven". I'd like reasons that they are at least plausible if not probable.
We have more evidence for the Jesus miracles than we have for many historical facts which we routinely accept because they are reported in the documents which have come down to us, and it's only because the events are reported in documents that we believe they happened.
What makes the reported events probable? especially miracle events, which require extra evidence? It's difficult to calculate how much evidence is necessary before miracle claims reach 90% or 50% (or 99% or 10%) probable. But the extra evidence for the Jesus miracles -- much more than the minimum needed for reported events to be accepted as likely history -- does make the Jesus miracles plausible, and makes it reasonable for a person to believe the claims (not meaning it's the only reasonable possibility).
People believe a lot of stuff on much less evidence than this. One can reasonably insist that the evidence is still not enough, because of the extra evidence required for miracle events; but not that it's implausible. There's enough evidence to make it a reasonable possibility -- some will believe it, but others not. Either is reasonable. Neither can disprove the other.
The only reason to reject the Jesus miracles as implausible is that you start with the premise that miracle claims must always be false, regardless of any evidence. If you start with that premise, then yes, the Jesus miracle stories must be fiction. But this premise, that all miracle claims must be false regardless of evidence, is not required by science or logic or reason. So without that premise, the miracles of Jesus are plausible, and one can reasonably believe them, based on the evidence (even though another reasonably disbelieves it, based on the not-enough evidence).
There is no official scientific rule establishing exactly how much extra evidence is necessary before the alleged miracle event becomes a reasonable possibility.
Instead, if one steps back and looks at the larger picture of the formation of Christianity out of the history of Judaism one runs into so many problems, it is literally hard to list them all. I'll just re-post my comments from almost a year ago:
Your MHORC seems to include a magical decade limit conveniently right below the timespan that most scholars put down for the development of a large portion of your particular holy texts.
What? "magical decade limit"? "holy texts"?
The Jesus miracles, if they happened, occurred near 30 AD. Paul relates the resurrection miracle at around 55 AD. Mark's account of that plus the healing miracles is dated at about 70 AD, followed by the other gospels up to about 100 AD.
This time gap between the reported events and the writings about them is a relatively NARROW GAP by comparison to other historical events reported during those times. And there are virtually NO other reported miracle events, until modern times, where this time gap is so short, or where the alleged miracle event has that same amount of evidence, or minimum evidence necessary to establish normal events as historical.
The typically much longer time gap indicates a period of time when mythologizing or legend-building generally took place and thus produced miracle stories, e.g., the pagan heroes, etc. This gap explains where those miracle fiction stories came from; but there is no such gap in the case of the Jesus miracle stories, which therefore cannot be explained this way, because they are supported by evidence just as normal accepted historical events are supported by evidence, i.e., by reports in written documents dated near the time of the reported events.
However, there is nothing to support your time limit. In fact it has been shown over and over that mythos can develop within very short periods of time.
Not miracle claims. You can't give any examples.
This has not been shown for any miracle myths/legends before modern times, e.g., before 1500 AD. One supposed exception might be St. Genevieve, late 5th century AD. The biography of her appeared shortly after her death, but this was following her extremely long career as a guru. And also, for this example there is ONLY ONE SOURCE. We can consider other supposed exceptions to this if you want to offer them. There are virtually no exceptions. Dr. Carrier claims there are, but his examples are pathetic, if you look at them individually instead of just believing everything he says because he's your guru.
Don't just say it's been "shown over and over" -- it has not been. Give an example of an instant miracle-worker in the literature.
Even where a shorter time gap might be argued, like the St. Genevieve case (for whom there is ONLY ONE SOURCE), another factor is the very long career of the alleged miracle-worker, spanning several decades. This allows time for some legend-building even during the life of the charismatic figure, so a few stories might appear earlier in these rare exceptions. We have to look at each case to see how poor these examples are by comparison.
Also, there is no reason to limit such examples to miracle max workers, that is just your special pleading trying to pigeon hole your faith as the only valid one (aka random puzzle piece).
"miracle max"? "special pleading"? "random puzzle piece"?
There is reason to reject miracle claims which don't appear in the record until 100+ years after the event reportedly happened. If the alleged miracle-worker was a real historical figure who was a popular hero, then it's easy to explain how the stories evolved gradually over 100-200 years, as folklore (1000+ years for the pagan myths).
This is not a "random" standard, but is a reasonable criterion for judging the credibility of claims about unusual events which are in doubt. If they are reported in documents near to the time of the alleged event, then the credibility of the claim is higher. But if the claim does not appear until centuries later, then it is more likely fiction which evolved gradually. And if there is only one source, this too makes the claim less credible. There is no "special pleading" in applying these criteria for judging the credibility.
To recognize this, you have to look at the individual examples, where you think there's a miracle legend figure for whom there is as much evidence. There's none that comes close.
There is also reason to discount miracle claims about a charismatic hero if s/he was popular over a very long career of performing for audiences and winning disciples. It is easy to explain how the stories might emerge as folklore if the hero had decades of time in which to recruit followers and impress them with his charisma. So in a few cases there might even be some stories occurring during his lifetime, though most of the legend-building requires several generations and occurs after the death of the hero.
There is nothing "random" about these criteria for judging the credibility of the miracle claims.
Your MHORC seems to include your god doing parlor tricks as a pre-requisite for being a valid theology (aka random puzzle piece). Why?
"valid theology"? Wha-zat?
Are you asking why the Jesus miracle stories matter? I.e., are you asking what difference it makes even if the miracle stories are true?
These acts he performed indicate the possibility of life beyond the normal limits, beyond death, and reduction or elimination of suffering. I.e., that he had contact with a life-giving power which could be the source for producing the "eternal life" or "kingdom of god" he proclaimed.
It matters whether there is such a power or eternal-life possibility. If so, wouldn't that be more important than abstractions about "a pre-requisite for being a valid theology"?
Your MHORC seems to require the miracles to be recorded by someone(s) not currently part of the cult (aka random puzzle piece;
This is not "random" but is a relevant factor that increases the credibility. If the claims come only from disciples of the guru or alleged miracle-worker, then we have less reason to believe them because the disciple is intimidated by the guru's charisma and feels pressure to confirm the miracle claim being made. Or the disciple is easily deceived and can imagine seeing something that didn't really happen, or misinterpret as a miracle something that was really normal. The obsession with the guru distorts the disciple's critical judgment.
. . . which you conveniently leave out the fact that you CLEARLY have no evidence to support that your cult’s parlor tricks weren’t recorded by participating cultists).
There is evidence that the miracles of Jesus were observed and reported by onlookers who were not his disciples. For most of the Jesus miracle acts, the accounts clearly imply that observers or non-disciples went from the scene to tell others and spread the word about his healing acts. Very few of these acts were done privately with no outsiders/onlookers present. In most cases this is implied rather than stated explicitly, but it's clearly there in the wording of the accounts.
Consider the first miracle reported in Mark, the curing of a "man with an unclean spirit" (mentally deranged?) in a synagogue at Capernaum. The "they" in vs 21 means only the first 4 disciples -- Peter, Andrew, John, and James:
Mark chapter 1: 21 And they went into Caper'na-um; and immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. 23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; 24 and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, "What is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." 28 And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
How did "his fame spread everywhere" if it wasn't the ones present at the scene, the observers/onlookers who went out and told of this? Who is meant by the phrase "And they were all amazed"? Not only the 4 disciples who accompanied him into the synagogue.
And who is intended by the phrase, "there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit"? Not those 4 disciples, but a non-disciple obviously, someone unknown who had never seen Jesus before.
And this same pattern repeats over and over, throughout the miracle stories, the physical affliction healings as well as the "exorcism" healings like this one. In 2 or 3 cases it says explicitly that the one healed or other non-disciple went out and reported the event.
The pattern is regular, throughout most of the recorded miracle acts, always implying clearly that non-disciples reported it, orally, having only just encountered Jesus for the first time and witnessing the event.
Of course you can speculate that it was really disciples only who spread the word, and that only disciples were present and were healed at these events. But the text of the gospel accounts clearly says otherwise, implying very clearly that the one healed and many of those present were NON-disciples, and also saying that these ones later told others about it.
If this is not what really happened, you must assume that those who wrote or told the stories deliberately fabricated this element -- not just making up the miracle story, but specifically wanting to promulgate the falsehood that the story was spread by non-disciples, to deceive the hearers or readers into believing that the stories came from non-disciples, when they really knew it was only disciples who were present or who were healed (or claimed to have been healed).
You might be correct in conjecturing that such a conspiracy was part of the origin of the stories, that the conspirators planned to spread a falsehood about who was telling the stories and spreading them around. But this is an arbitrary conjecture based not on any evidence but only on the premise that the miracle acts must not have happened. Reason does not require us to make this arbitrary conjecture. It's reasonable not to believe there was such a conspiracy of this extreme complexity, and not to force such an extreme conspiracy theory into the facts but instead to allow that whatever process happened did not involve such a complex of conspiracy machinery at work in the origin of these stories.
It's reasonable to believe that these stories were spread around without a conspiracy taking place to deceive everyone about who was telling the stories. This would be a multi-layered conspiracy theory about not only the inventing of the basic miracle event, but also of inventing scenarios about who originated the stories or who was spreading them. One can reasonably dismiss that as unlikely.
You simply want them to be that way, so therefore it must be true.
No, the actual accounts do say, implicitly but clearly, that there were observers or onlookers present, not connected to Jesus, i.e., NON-disciples, and that these ones went and told others so that the stories spread throughout the region.
The gospel accounts say this -- it's not imagined. Look at the examples, in the text, to see whether there were others present, who were not his disciples, including the ones healed. Is it not clearly implied, in most of the cases, that the one healed was a NON-disciple, and likewise others present? And doesn't it imply that some of these then left the scene and reported this to others locally? Doesn't it say the story spread rapidly, to many areas, so that it could not have been only the disciples going out and reporting it? Usually the disciples remained with him and did not leave the scene to tell others.
Even if it's true that I "simply want them to be that way," this doesn't change the wording of the text. That is what the text says.
It could be true, but that is very different than solid evidence that it is true.
The evidence is simply the straightforward wording of the written accounts telling us of the alleged events. Not just that the miracle event happened, but about who was present, whether they were disciples or not, and whether they told others. This is evidence, not proof, of what happened, and it is totally artificial to insist that the storytellers fabricated stories to make it appear that non-disciples were present when they were not, and that non-disciples reported it to others when they did not.
See how complicated and multi-layered your conspiracy theory is: The accounts usually only IMPLY the above rather than stating it explicitly, so you have to assume the writers or storytellers planned very carefully to not say it explicitly but to only IMPLY this part of the story. So this is a THREE-layered conspiracy -- (1) They invented the stories, (2) they conspired to deceive people about the origin of the stories and who was spreading the stories, and (3) they conspired carefully to not say EXPLICITLY that it was non-disciples who witnessed and spread the stories, but to say it only by implication, to make the deceitfulness less obvious.
It's not reasonable to insist that such a multi-layered conspiracy as this must have taken place.
To assume someone made up a story is reasonable, but not that they engaged in a multi-layered conspiracy to deceive listeners/readers about who spread the stories.
Though it is obvious that this is the source for the LDS miracles, ergo your special pleading argument...
"special pleading"? You mean there is nothing significant in whether the stories were spread by non-disciples? But this IS significant. If the only source for the stories is the disciples, and also the only ones healed were disciples, this makes the stories less credible, because of the influence of the charismatic guru on his disciples, who are less able to make a critical judgment about what happened, and are much more likely to automatically believe the miracle happened, because they are attached to the guru and want to promote his reputation.
Your requirements are not only random, but you also ignore them when you pretend that your version of Christianity fits, as you pick and choose them to make your cult sound somehow more plausible.
Two of the major requirements are 1) the proximity of the sources to the reported miracle event, and 2) the number of sources. What is "random" about either of these? Are you denying that a source 30-50 years separated from the reported event is more reliable than a source 100-200 years later? And are you denying that it's more credible if we have 4 sources instead of only one? How did I "pick and choose" the dates when the gospels were written? or the date of the reported events (about 30 AD)? or the number of sources?
You have no evidence to show that it wasn’t a “small clique who decided to invent (or embellish a small kernel) an instant miracle-worker”, you just wish it is so.
There is evidence that it was not a small clique. (Of course there's no PROOF either way.)
If a small clique invented this instant miracle-worker, why are there no other cases of instant miracle-workers invented by other cults? This is the ONLY example of such a thing, in all the history from 2000 BC up to about 1500 AD, during which we have no other examples, as all the reputed miracle-workers are a result of long-term legend-building, usually over several generations or centuries.
It should be clear that the Paul epistles and the 4 gospels were not written or produced by any single small clique working together to invent an instant miracle-worker. Even if there is some fictional element, or embellishment, there could not have been one monolithic clique of conspirators inventing it, but rather, there were many different conflicting groups each inventing their own versions separately.
In which case you have to explain: Why did these separate groups all agree to create this one instant miracle-worker instead of different ones each creating a different miracle hero, a separate one from the others? I.e., why don't we have MANY of these instant miracle-workers popping up in the literature during the period? There were many possible charismatic heroes to choose from -- John the Baptist, e.g., and the messiah pretenders named in Josephus, and famous rabbis like Hillel and others -- so why did all the myth-inventors happen to make only this one Jesus person into their instant miracle-worker?
Did all the instant miracle-worker inventors hold a secret convention and vote on who they should converge on, or unite around, as their single instant miracle-worker?
One good indicator that there was no organized clique inventing this miracle legend is the "rejection at Nazareth" story which could not have been invented by any such clique trying to invent an instant miracle-worker:
Who says a prophet is without honor in his own country?
Was Jesus the son of Mary & Joseph? with 4 brothers, including James?
In this story we encounter the strange saying, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country." All four gospels, and even the Gospel of Thomas, put forth this saying. How could they all have invented this same saying? This saying could not have been invented by a clique trying to create an instant miracle-worker.
The saying is a falsehood. Prophets are not rejected in their own country. The saying is artificial and makes no sense. It occurs ONLY in the four Gospels and in the Gospel of Thomas, and is connected to Jesus and a story that he was rejected in his home village.
The "rejection at Nazareth" story must have been a put-down of Jesus, in its original form, saying Jesus was a charlatan, or a phony of some kind. In Luke, there's an additional put-down of Jesus, "Physician, heal thyself!" which must have been said by someone mocking him. There is no other way to make sense of these words.
This depiction of Jesus in the gospel accounts could not have originated from any clique which was promoting Jesus as an instant miracle-worker. The only possible explanation of it is that this story did exist, from the beginning, about 30 AD, as some kind of spontaneous rumor or gossip circulating from somewhere but not invented by any such clique. Neither a pro-Jesus or ANTI-Jesus clique of any kind could have created this story, because the story contradicts both, saying Jesus could not do any miracle in Nazareth but did do such acts at other places.
And the story could come into existence only AFTER Jesus was reputed to have done miracle acts somewhere, so that this story is a reaction to those claims, but a reaction not from any clique of believers trying to invent an instant miracle-worker.
It has to date from earlier, and the gospel writers felt obligated to include it in some form, even though they did not like this story and wished it did not exist, and Matthew tries to tone it down from the earlier Mark version, which reveals his dislike for the Mark version. How could these Jesus Christ evangelists possibly make up a story saying Jesus was unable to perform a miracle, at Nazareth or anywhere else? It makes no sense.
Though the story says he could do no miracle in this one case, it also says or implies that he did perform miracles at other places. So it confirms that he did perform these acts generally, but says he could not at this one place and time. This story had to be unplanned and spontaneous.
Here's a possible explanation of this Nazareth story:
What is the meaning of the "Rejection at Nazareth" story?
Any explanation of it necessarily contradicts the theory that the miracle stories originate from a clique inventing an instant miracle-worker legend. And other elements in the gospel accounts and the Paul epistles also contradict such a theory.
(this Wall of Text to be continued)