120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Keith&Co.]

I'd say your "internal evidence" is clearly lacking in support of your claim about the Jesus miracle stories coming from mystery "onlookers".

It overwhelmingly supports the claim that NON-disciples were present in most cases, and that in at least some cases these ones did spread the story. Also that the ones healed were NON-disciples, and in some cases these also spread the story. In contrast to the JS miracles which were done in private locations where only JS disciples were present.

So, 'support' is yet another word that you don't understand...

The fact that a story is consistent with a claim does not mean that it's evidence to support the claim.

You still cannot show ANYONE transmitting the story external to the biblical authors or any evidence the miracle stories weren't made up on the spot.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Matthew 13
⁵⁷ And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
⁵⁸ And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

 

[funinspace]

It overwhelmingly supports the claim that NON-disciples were present in most cases, and that in at least some cases these ones did spread the story. Also that the ones healed were NON-disciples, and in some cases these also spread the story. In contrast to the JS miracles which were done in private locations where only JS disciples were present.

So, 'support' is yet another word that you don't understand...

Butt, butt, butt...clearly the Lord of the Rings supports the claim that Hobbits can speak.

You still cannot show ANYONE transmitting the story external to the biblical authors or any evidence the miracle stories weren't made up on the spot.

Sounds like an STD...

 

[DBT]

Matthew 13
⁵⁷ And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
⁵⁸ And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

So it appears the folks in his home town knew him too well to fall for the miracle worker line....as with prophets in general.

 

[Lion IRC]

Matthew 13
⁵⁷ And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
⁵⁸ And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

So it appears the folks in his home town knew him too well to fall for the miracle worker line....as with prophets in general.

Go back and read it again folks.

"...Coming to His hometown, He taught the people in their synagogue, and they were astonished. “Where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?” they asked."

"miraculous powers"

 

[Keith&Co.]

So, Jesus brings the traveling messiah show to his home town.
Bang at the start, he shows some flashy miracles.
Everyone's confused. He was just a normal kid, doing normal stuff back before, now he's got a magic act.
Odd that no one remembered that Jesus had been something of a religious prodigy, astonishing everyone at temple. To an enlightened society, this might have been a 'clue.' In fiction, or a fictionalaized account of events, it'd be 'foreshadowing.'
Anyway, they are suspicious of the miracles. The miracles that, it says in scripture, and in Lumpy's evaluation of the stories, Jesus performed exactly to show that he was the messiah, with divine power, to buttress his offer of eternal life-after-death. But they didn't convince people here... Odd, that.

They were SO unconvincing that he decided not to do any miracles there. (According to Mark, he COULD not do miracles... possibly because their unbelief spoiled the magic. Happens from time to time, even today. if someone at the séance keeps looking under the table for the source of the knocking, the medium will complain that ghosts won't come tonight, blame the non-believer)(it's also been suggested that he couldn't do healing miracles if no one in the community would bring their sick or wounded to him... But that seems weak, to me. Look at the Charlie Gard story right now. If the kids are sick, the parents will take any chance to heal them, even stuff they wouldn't rationally attempt in a less desperate moment. Also, healing wasn't the only miraculous power attributed to Jesus).

So instead of more and more flashy miracles to force people to accept his divine power, which would have saved the souls of the people he knew, he folds the tent and moves on, saying 'I know where I'm not wanted.' Couching it as a moral decision, not a failure to impress the rubes because they keep asking 'how'd you do that?'

 

[Lion IRC]

...flashy miracles to force people

?
LOL

It's the other way around. People demand miracles to try and force Jesus.

First you obey us and prove you are God THEN we will decide whether to obey you.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's the other way around. People demand miracles to try and force Jesus.

You're confusing the bible with your hobby horse.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

John 2

⁶ Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.^{[a] 7} Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. ⁹ When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹ This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.


----


Amazing how even his own family and apostles didn't seem to remember this.

 

[DBT]

So it appears the folks in his home town knew him too well to fall for the miracle worker line....as with prophets in general.

Go back and read it again folks.

"...Coming to His hometown, He taught the people in their synagogue, and they were astonished. “Where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?” they asked."

"miraculous powers"

Probably learned the miracle worker trade from the likes of Simon Magus, et al, while away from his hometown and his carpenter friends....

 

[Lion IRC]

Go back and read it again folks.

"...Coming to His hometown, He taught the people in their synagogue, and they were astonished. “Where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?” they asked."

"miraculous powers"

Probably learned the miracle worker trade from the likes of Simon Magus, et al, while away from his hometown and his carpenter friends....

Simon who...?

Never heard of him!

But then, I've never read any historical documents that dispute the existence of Jesus either. Amazingly, theres a conspicuous lack of 'counter-gospel' propaganda or contemporary historical writing that contradicts the Gospel fact claims about Jesus.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Amazingly, theres a conspicuous lack of 'counter-gospel' propaganda or contemporary historical writing that contradicts the Gospel fact claims about Jesus.

How many historians can you find and quote, saying that Paul Bunyan did not actually own a blue ox?

 

[DBT]

Probably learned the miracle worker trade from the likes of Simon Magus, et al, while away from his hometown and his carpenter friends....

Simon who...?

Never heard of him!

But then, I've never read any historical documents that dispute the existence of Jesus either. Amazingly, theres a conspicuous lack of 'counter-gospel' propaganda or contemporary historical writing that contradicts the Gospel fact claims about Jesus.

You should have heard of him. He was mentioned as being a miracle worker of period, one of many. Whether he existed or not is irrelevant to the point of what is written; that miracle workers were relatively common during the period.

Simon the Sorcerer or Simon the Magician, in Latin Simon Magus (Greek Σίμων ὁ μάγος), is a religious figure whose confrontation with Peter is recorded in Acts 8:9–24. Accounts of Simon by writers of the second century exist, but are not considered verifiable.[1][2] - Wiki

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The evidence for the miracles of Jesus is superior to that for other acclaimed miracle legends, myths, prophets, heroes, etc.

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

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.

LOL…You again, ignored the first few words. I know, I know, the disciples added that first part, . . .

What difference does it make that the first few words originate from disciples? That sentence does not undermine the credibility of the rest of the account. That first sentence does not suggest that the event did not happen, or that only disciples were present, or that only disciples knew of the event or transmitted it to others.

Your premise is clear: The event is fiction, invented by later Christians only, who are the only ones who knew of the story and who could have transmitted it, and anything in the account which indicates otherwise has to be false and is excluded as evidence.

But it is not required that everyone start out with this conclusion in advance, as the premise. Rather, it is possible that the account we have accurately relates what happened, as to the normal details aside from the particular miracle happening. Speculating who wrote the first sentence does not change this.

It doesn't matter who knew where the disciples came from. What matters is who directly knew of the event described, or who was present, and what their reaction was. And it's reasonable to accept the recorded account we have as accurately telling us these incidental details, just as we can accept such details related in the JS miracle claims. There's a good possibility that these details are mostly accurate, unlike the particular miracle claims which are treated as dubious.

A willingness to look at ALL the evidence requires us to take into account the possibility that the reports are reliable as to the normal events. This is evidence which cannot be excluded based on an impulse to exclude anything which might lead away from your predetermined conclusion. You cannot expect EVERYone to agree in advance to the exclusion of this evidence you choose to censor from being presented on the basis of your need to force the investigation toward the particular outcome you've determined in advance as the only one allowed.


All the CONTENT of the miracle story is part of the evidence.

The incidental details of the account are legitimate evidence for what happened, regardless that there are also supernatural claims which are set aside as dubious.

The details in the accounts -- the setting of the story, who was there, the circumstances, etc. -- are something one reasonably considers in order to judge the credibility of the stories. Your choice to exclude these from consideration, as a personal preference, does not apply to others who do not suppress and ban them from being considered. There is nothing scientific or logically necessary about excluding this from the evidence to be considered.

Such details, in both the JS miracle stories and in the Jesus miracle stories of the gospel accounts, should be taken into consideration by a reasonable person judging the credibility of these claims, treating them as something which possibly did happen, just as we treat our sources for historical events as possibly accurate descriptions of the past events. To automatically reject records from the past as fiction, because we cannot prove their reliability with certainty, is to obliterate most of our historical record.

The impulse to blindly censor and suppress and ban entirely the accounts of these or other miracle claims is not science but pseudoscience.

Reasonable skepticism about the reported events doesn't require that they be totally ruled out. Rather, we can reasonably accept the non-miracle parts as accurate, or partly accurate, to be considered as a possibility, and not excluded from fear that this would lead toward a dangerous outcome.

So it's reasonable to accept the accounts we have as evidence, allowing the possibility that at least those parts are true which assert nothing miraculous.

Your inability to do this, your impulse to shred this evidence and ban it from being considered is only your personal crusade, not everyone else's. A scientific skeptical investigator may reasonably take these accounts into consideration, asking what might have happened at these reported events, allowing that the non-miraculous part really did happen, either partly or entirely as reported in the accounts.

. . . the disciples added that first part, showing that someone knew the wanderings of the disciples (like the disciples) only to help with readability….sure.

We don't know what they knew or how they put the pieces of the story together. Speculating on that or their motive for adding this or that does not clarify who was there or who knew what happened or who transmitted the story.

There were probably many accounts of this and the other events, and the different versions did not all have the same parts in them. There could even be contradictions between the different earlier versions, and all we have now is this one (or these three), whatever the earlier pieces of the story may have been.

The stories we have now, in the gospel accounts, were written by Christian evangelists, editors, redactors, etc. many years later. But they relied on the earlier sources or versions of the events.

The later writers had these stories before them, in oral and written form, and from these earlier sources they then wrote the final stories in the form we have them now. Even if they added some detail or explanation or theology along with the original story, that does not cancel anything of the original stories.

Nothing about the version(s) we have now gives any clue that the event never happened or that no one but disciples knew of it. The accounts say explicitly and implicitly that non-disciples were present and saw it and told others. We have good reason to believe this, as a reasonable possibility, even if we doubt the particular miracle event in each case.

The details of who was healed, what the circumstance was, where it happened, who was there, etc., are based mainly on the earlier source the final writers had, or on their additions to the earlier source(s). Even if they did add some detail, they did not add something like the onlookers and a subtle claim that these went out and spread the story, nor imply something false to deceive later readers about the origin of the story. Had they intended such deception, they would have done it much more blatantly and frequently than we see it in these accounts, instead of leaving so much ambiguity about it.

It's reasonable to take the story as it is written, in the gospel accounts and also in the case of Joseph Smith reported miracles 1800 years later, and accept the story at face value, assuming it represents something which really happened, even if there was no actual miracle -- i.e., the "supernatural" part is set aside as doubtful, while the rest is accepted as generally an accurate description of real events.

So, taking all the stories at face value, those in the gospels imply that there were onlookers present, who outnumbered the disciples, and also that the one healed each time was a NON-disciple. But the Joseph Smith stories, by contrast, have only disciples present, and only a disciple who is healed. So everyone present at the JS miracle acts is already a disciple, as is the one healed. Most of them were long-time disciples of the Prophet who had heard him preach many times and had been strongly influenced by his charisma and are thus less objective or critical of him.

The purported fame spreading is often repeated after many of the parlor tricks. You assume that his “fame spread”. There is no evidence to suggest this happened outside of the story;

But the story itself is evidence of what happened, just as the Joseph Smith stories are also evidence of what happened in those cases. There is no reason to automatically assume that everything in the reported story is false. On the contrary, we should assume that the reported event did happen similarly to how it's reported in the accounts we have -- with the exception that we suspend judgment on whether the actual miracle event really happened. We set that aside but accept all the rest of the story. What's wrong with that? Of course there's no PROOF that any of it happened. There's no hard PROOF that ANY historical events happened. All the documents might be forgeries.

But we can just accept the reports we have as being mostly truthful, for all the general facts, while setting aside only the miracle claim as doubtful. Or, setting aside any claims we specifically know from other sources to be false.

the Jews pretty much forgot about him as his cult went nowhere . . .

Some "Jews" forgot him while others did not but created new theologies and religious rituals in response to him. And there were many cults, not just one -- some "went nowhere" and others went somewhere.

. . . went nowhere in Galilee as far as the lack of records suggest.

There are more "records" for these events than there are for most historical events of that time which we routinely accept -- MOST, not all. For major historical events we have a greater quantity of "records" -- but most historical events are not the major ones, and yet we recognize them -- the minor events -- even though there are so few sources and these are so far removed time-wise from the actual events.

The "records" we do have tell us enough that we can reasonably conclude that Jesus caused a disturbance by these miracle acts, or acts interpreted as miracles, and the new Christ cults are the result, and the eventual "Church" evolved from these.

The rest is your gibberish, as anyone could have provided such words, including the disciples.

That can be said of most sources we have for historical events. Anyone could have provided the words and made it all up to serve propaganda purposes. Maybe all our known history, or most of it, is hogwash, as "anyone could have provided such" accounts, or could easily have made it all up. You're right about that being a theoretical possibility and that all our recorded history is fiction. That's one point that you and your cohorts here have articulated successfully.

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.

INCONCEIVABLE! You seem to have forgotten that you clearly do not know what the meaning of the word “clearly” means.

Were there observers/onlookers/non-disciples present or not? and did these tell others or spread the stories abroad? according to the story we have, taken at face value? You can't take the story at face value, allowing the non-miracle elements as possibly true?

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 . . .

Who's the "they" who were astonished here? Do you think this refers only to the 4 disciples who entered the synagogue? Why would they enter an empty synagogue and start teaching? He could have taught those same 4 disciples earlier without entering the synagogue. What's not "clear" about the fact that someone other than his disciples were present in this synagogue he entered?

. . . 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;

Who was this man with an unclean spirit? one of the disciples entering with Jesus? "And immediately there was . . . a man with . . ." This was one of the 4 disciples who went in with him? You can't see clearly that this was someone new? a new character now entering the scene for the first time? How is that not "clear"? You can't plainly see that this was someone who showed up after they entered? a NON-disciple?

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, . . .

Who are the ones "amazed" here? The "all"? Only the 4 disciples? How can you not recognize that the writer of the story is saying there was a crowd present who were astonished at his sudden appearance, like an interruption, and at what he was doing?

. . . 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.

Who started "his fame" to spread here? There were only 4 disciples with him. How can it not be obvious that there were many here who then went out and reported what had happened? NON-disciples, not the original 4 who entered the synagogue with him. How is that not "clearly" implied by the wording?

This wording was written, as we now have it, by someone many years later. But the story itself, at face value, as this writer is relaying it to us from his earlier source, tells us that onlookers were present who were NON-disciples, and that some of these went out from this place and told others what had happened. Why is this not admissible as evidence for determining what happened?

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.

Clearly you do not get the point. I agree that it is significant that we know that it was key players in the emergent LDS sect that wrote of the miracles.

No, the point here is not about WHO WROTE of the miracle claims decades later, but about how the original story got started and became circulated -- in particular, whether any NON-disciples were present at first who then told others about the event. NOT who wrote about it later, but who saw it originally and then told someone else, early, before it was written down.

If only you had anything that made it probable that it was any different for your holy writings.

What the final accounts tell us is evidence for what happened. And these tell us that there were non-disciples who witnessed the Jesus miracle acts, just as the JS miracle stories tell us that only JS disciples were present at the JS alleged miracle events.

I.e., if we take the later written stories at face value, doubting only the actual miracle claim, these clearly tell us that at the JS alleged miracle events it was ONLY JS disciples who were present and who were healed, while at the Jesus miracle healing events it was NON-disciples who were healed and mostly non-disciples who were present and who then told others so that the word spread to the surrounding region. While the direct disciples were usually a minority of those present at the scene.


(This Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[Keith&Co.]

No, the point here is not about WHO WROTE of the miracle claims decades later, but about how the original story got started

What a curious distinction. If all we have of the miracle claims is one account (and some johnny-come-plagiarists), then who wrote it and why they wrote it and when they wrote it is a crucial part of determining how the story got started.
You're saying they wrote it decades later, but you can't show that. You can't show that they didn't just make it up when they wrote it down. Or that they were recording an oral history that was made-up only a few years before.
You are assuming the miracle claims are true IN ORDER to show that the miracle claims are true.

This isn't history, this is masturbation.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The evidence for the miracles of Jesus is superior to that for other acclaimed miracle legends, myths, prophets, heroes, etc.

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

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 assume that we have your claimed 4-5 sources.

That's a fact. Just like we have the JS written reports. Are you saying the scholars are only hallucinating when they say the gospel accounts and Paul epistles exist? that they hallucinate these manuscripts? or the number of documents? that there are really only 2 gospels? or only one?

However, what is known is that Paul’s letters that only hint at who this purported Jesus is . . .

He tells us enough that it has to be the same person described in the gospel accounts. There is enough overlap that it cannot possibly be any other person. Why does Paul speak of the "churches in Judea" and his encounter with Peter and James, who are in the gospel accounts? How can it not be the same Jesus person they knew?

. . . and he states he never met Jesus;

You mean no one can ever write about someone they never met? Once again, you have to throw out virtually ALL of our historical record if you follow that guideline. Why is it that your logic, again and again, requires us to scrap virtually ALL the historical record?

It's this constant absurd result you keep leading us to which keeps reaffirming that this must be true, i.e., that Jesus really did show this superhuman power in the reported miracle acts. All the facts point to it, and you keep uttering one wacko gaff after another in trying to deny it, like suggesting here that no account of history is credible if it's from an author who did not have direct contact with the characters he wrote about. Bingo! 90% of our ancient historical record tossed into the waste-basket, in one fell swoop!

. . . and then there is some vague Q assumed source for the ever-expanding tales . . .

Of course there were probably earlier sources. Just because they are lost doesn't mean they never existed. Q stands out as one which they have good evidence for, as a particular document that must have existed, but there were probably others. We should expect there would be these earlier documents that did not survive.

There's really more than only the 4 (5) sources we have for sure, while the others which are lost cannot be offered as hard evidence. But we're free to speculate about them and how they fit in with the hard evidence. Nothing about them casts any doubt on the credibility of the hard evidence we do have.

. . . as the synoptic Gospels that emerged decades later . . .

As with most of our historical facts, which emerge for us in documents decades or generations later after the facts/events had happened.

. . . by anonymous authors.

Like 1 Maccabees, which is anonymous and yet is more reliable than 2 Maccabees which names Jason of Cyrene as its original author/source? Why are you pretending that anonymity is a criterion to exclude an account from being credible, while ignoring the many anonymous documents which are used as legitimate sources for history?

Other examples of reliable anonymous sources are: much of the Dead Sea Scrolls, I-II Samuel, and I-II Kings, and so on. Even if some parts are dubious because of supernatural claims, that doesn't undermine the rest as credible. So your continued pounding away on this "anonymous" rhetoric is just further indication of your failure to find any substantial reason to discount the credibility of the gospel accounts.

And you even admit that these anonymous authors embellished many parts of the Gospels.

And Josephus and Tacitus and Herodotus and Plutarch etc. also embellished many parts of their accounts -- So therefore, what? most of our history sources are unreliable? There you go again -- shit-canning 90% of our historical record! Ruthless!

And one might even speculate that the gospel accounts contain more "embellishment" than Josephus or whoever. Some writers do it more than others. But ALL are legitimate sources for the events they report. We don't throw them out because of embellishment or failure to stick to the hard facts only.

I’m saying that whether it is 30 years or 120 years, BS can emerge in days, so it doesn’t matter.

But you'll never give an example of a miracle story in the ancient literature which emerged in a short time, or instant miracle-worker legend. You will look like a buffoon trying to cite a case of this. Dr. Carrier tries to find examples and makes a fool of himself with the ludicrous examples he comes up with.

It's easy to just say "BS can emerge in days" but not give any example, i.e., of an instant miracle-worker.

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.

Again, that is your hobby horse, not mine….

Your hobby horse is claiming that something happened easily but not being able to give any example of it -- that instant miracle-workers could emerge in days, created by any small clique wanting to foist a new cult, and that there were many such small cliques and many such instant miracle-worker legends emerging everywhere, frequently, with the Jesus miracle legend being just one of many such instant miracle-workers popping up here and there. For which you can't give any examples. Nothing coming even close.

Further indication that it was not a small clique which invented this instant miracle-worker is that if such were the case we would have a MONOLITHIC Jesus hero figure emerging from the clique rather than the confused portrayal we see in the gospel accounts and other Jesus literature coming out of this period. It's impossible to explain the gnostic themes along with the Jewish rabbinical ideas and the apocalyptic sermons and so on -- this mish-mash cannot be the product of a "small clique" but of a mixture of differing factions which often are even opposing each other.

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.

I think it is reasonable to assume that Paul was a charismatic and coalescing force that helped build up the Jesus demigod out of some kernel of a very human man named Jesus.

But why did Paul choose this particular Jesus figure, and not someone else, out of which to build up his demigod? Why is there no other such figure, or no other such demigod appearing than just this one?

There were thousands/millions of other "very human" men. Why don't we have more demigods than just this one which were built up from some "very human" man -- named Joseph, or Simon, or Jacob, or Frank? Or do you say there were others? who's another example? Why did those wanting to build up a demigod all unite around this one Jesus figure only? What made him the only candidate for this demigod status for them to use?

As the tales emerged and were passed around about Jesus (aka the Q source) . . .

Why were there no such tales emerging and being passed around about others? Why did no such tales emerge about John the Baptizer, e.g., to be "passed around"? about Hillel and other respected rabbis who were arguably more famous in 30 AD than Jesus was? Why was Jesus so special that he's the only one about whom such tales emerged and got passed around?

. . . the image of Jesus of the Gospels took form and eventually someone pushed out a written Mark.

Why did no image of any other miracle-worker take form for someone to push out a written gospel about? Why didn't such an image of anyone else take form?

And not so surprisingly, Mark is the shortest and least flashy. Tack on another 3 to 5 decades and the Gospel of John emerges with quite the flare for being different…

If it was really different, why didn't it pick a different person than Mark's Jesus for its messiah figure? for its "Logos" or "Bread of Life"? And why did Matthew and Luke take this same Jesus person instead of someone different for their Jewish King or Son of Man or virgin-born messiah? Why did all these different sources converge on this one person only?

And why didn't the Gospel of Thomas take a different person than the Mark Jesus to preach its version of the invisible Kingdom of God? and the other gnostic writers? etc.?

What was it about the Jesus person that all these different gospel crusaders united around him and not anyone else? Why did everyone wanting to create an instant miracle-worker (or Messiah or Son of God etc.) choose this person rather than different ones of them choosing different persons to serve this role for them? What was going on that forced them all to choose this person only?

Clearly, you do not know what the meaning of the word “clearly” means, . . .

What I said is that if these accounts in the gospels are taken as true about everything except that of the specific miracle act in each case, then it's clear from them that there were non-disciples present.

Instead of squabbling childishly over a word meaning, why don't you explain how it's not "clear" that there were NON-disciples present at these events, if we take the gospel accounts as generally accurate on the non-miracle elements in the story, while setting aside only the specific miracle claim in each case?

How can you be so petty as to pounce on one word like this as though everyone must be starting out with your narrow premise that the accounts are totally fiction in every detail, and so nothing is clear other than your insistence that everything contained in the stories has to be fiction, without any possibility of any detail of it being true?

You can't understand that someone else might choose to consider these accounts true as to the NON-miracle elements in the story? Why can't we make that allowance, as a hypothetical possibility, following that logic and drawing whatever conclusion, on the premise that at least the non-miracle elements are allowed as something which happened?

Isn't it CLEAR from the accounts, if this allowance is made, that there were non-disciples present -- i.e., don't these accounts say, implicitly, that in most of the cases they were there, usually in large numbers? and that in some cases they told others?

To keep insisting that their presence is not clearly the case you can only mean you're falling back on your premise that the whole account must be total fiction, in every detail presented in the account. We went through every example in Mark, and it was noted how in most of them the non-disciples were present -- So, in which of those 11 of 17 cases noted are you saying it's not clear that they were present?

. . . and evidently you also don’t know what the word "clique" means either…

So semantics word-quibble nit-picking is your "hobby-horse"?

Google definition: "CLIQUE"

"a small group of people, with shared interests or other features in common, who spend time together and do not readily allow others to join them."

The Jesus clique you envision was the group who produced the Jesus legend we find in the 4 gospels and the Paul epistles.

This CLIQUE of Jesus cultists included rabbis with pharisaical beliefs, plus Essenes and other pharisee-haters, plus traditionalist Jews/Ebionites worshiping at the Temple, plus Alexandrian Platonists (or neo-Platonists), plus gnostics, plus apocalypticists who believed the Son of Man was coming to destroy pharisees and gnostics and Platonists, plus uneducated masses who mostly could not afford to be in the above categories, plus militant Zealots wanting war with the Romans and who murdered some of the above types.

You think all the above spent time together with shared interests or other features in common? A "small group" who did "not readily allow others to join them"?

These differing Christ cults did not even all agree on the same Scriptures. There was no "New Testament" or "canon" at this early point. So, what united them all together into one "small clique" you claim created the Jesus legend?

Why didn't some of them want to make John the Baptizer into the God-Man figure? or James who led the Jerusalem Church and had a conflict with Paul? This James is identified by some (e.g., Robert Eisenman) as the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, so why don't we have a "clique" who promoted this James as the new Messiah or the new miracle-worker or Son of God, rather than Jesus?

Why did all these instant miracle-worker inventors choose only Jesus as their hero instead of someone else? There were plenty of other candidates for a small clique to choose from for their instant miracle-worker or miracle hero. Surely the Ebionites and the Gnostics were trying to find someone to play such a role. So, why did they and the other instant miracle-worker inventors all have to choose Jesus only, which they obviously did?

The Jesus legend did not arise from a "small clique" but from a group of many cliques, who produced the writings which later became our New Testament and who are responsible for the Jesus legend, but you cannot give us any reason why these different groups would all unite around this one Jesus person only, to make him their common Messiah or Son-of-God or Son-of-Man or Prophet or Logos etc. What did they have in common that they all converged onto this one person only?

 

[Keith&Co.]

That's a fact. Just like we have the JS written reports. Are you saying the scholars are only hallucinating when they say the gospel accounts and Paul epistles exist? that they hallucinate these manuscripts? or the number of documents? that there are really only 2 gospels? or only one?

wow.
That's some hard-core spin you're throwing out there, Lumpy.
You know EXACTLY why he questions your constant claim that you have 4-5 sources.
And you pretend that he's questioning the existence of the gospel?

Dude, why do you even pretend to respond?

 

[funinspace]

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

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 assume that we have your claimed 4-5 sources.

That's a fact. Just like we have the JS written reports. Are you saying the scholars are only hallucinating when they say the gospel accounts and Paul epistles exist? that they hallucinate these manuscripts? or the number of documents? that there are really only 2 gospels? or only one?

Your babbling really isn’t helping you as your misrepresentations have been already addressed, see below link to the past:

We don't choose what the sources are. We have 4 sources about the healing miracles, or 5 about the resurrection. The scholars/experts/researchers have turned up these separate documents. Just because there is content which overlaps them does not mean they are less than 4 (5) sources.

Yes, these Gospels exist. Yes, they are sources of information, just as the Marcion attempt at a single Gospel is also a source of information; as is the Gospel of Thomas. However, that does not establish that they are independent sources.

Hey, look some Christian blowhard thinks 5,800 NT manuscripts means something, why not run with that?
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sources-for-caesar-and-jesus-compared

What about the manuscripts? Here the New Testament is far superior to its classical companions. Our earliest manuscripts start appearing within decades of the writing. The fragment p52 is dated around AD 125. It only has a few portions of John 18, but it starts a trail that has full manuscripts of the Gospels appearing by the fourth century. The number of Greek manuscripts we have of the New Testament up to the time of the printing press is more than 5,800. The wording of the New Testament, including the Gospels, is extremely solid. Unclear spots often appear with an “or” note in Bible margins that record such differences.

Or maybe take the word of the dozens of esteemed Christian theologians involved with the development and release of the New Oxford Annotated Bible:

I also like what the forward to GMark in The New Oxford Annotated Bible; NRSV with the Apocrypha; an Ecumenical Study Bible says: "Mark is by far the shortest of the four canonical Gospels and is generally thought to be the earliest, and to have been used in the composition of both Matthew and Luke".

Or the well known 2-source-hypothesis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis

The Two-source hypothesis (or 2SH) is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were based on the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical sayings collection from the Christian oral tradition called Q.
<snip>
The Two-Source Hypothesis was first articulated in 1838 by Christian Hermann Weisse, but it did not gain wide acceptance among German critics until Heinrich Julius Holtzmann endorsed it in 1863.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Hermann_Weisse

Weisse was the first theologian to propose the two-source hypothesis (1838), which is still held by a majority of biblical scholars today. In the two-source hypothesis, the Gospel of Mark was the first gospel to be written and was one of two sources to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, the other source being the Q document, a lost collection of Jesus's sayings.

I see one source gradually exaggerated and expanded into what we now know as the synoptic gospels.

If it makes you feel good to "see" or pretend the number of sources is fewer than the 4 or 5 (the correct number), then no one can force the facts into you to contradict your visions. But you are fantasizing and inventing your own set of facts to suit your ideological commitment in artificially reducing the number of sources.

You are funny….pretend…LOL Yeah, Dr. Feel Good…

I feel good about pretending to agree with the 2-source hypothesis (Q & Mark) that most theologians ascribe to. Then we have Paul’s letters, from a guy who never met this Jesus; and the psychedelic Gospel of John that is said to have been written circa 80-90CE per the same New Oxford Annotated Bible.

However, what is known is that Paul’s letters that only hint at who this purported Jesus is . . .

He tells us enough that it has to be the same person described in the gospel accounts. There is enough overlap that it cannot possibly be any other person. Why does Paul speak of the "churches in Judea" and his encounter with Peter and James, who are in the gospel accounts? How can it not be the same Jesus person they knew?

. . . and he states he never met Jesus;

You mean no one can ever write about someone they never met? Once again, you have to throw out virtually ALL of our historical record if you follow that guideline. Why is it that your logic, again and again, requires us to scrap virtually ALL the historical record?

Why do you parse my statements, like each phrase is supposed to exist on its own? Each part, is part of the whole analysis. Only a buffoon would argue in such a way.

And you even admit that these anonymous authors embellished many parts of the Gospels.

And Josephus and Tacitus and Herodotus and Plutarch etc. also embellished many parts of their accounts -- So therefore, what? most of our history sources are unreliable? There you go again -- shit-canning 90% of our historical record! Ruthless!

And one might even speculate that the gospel accounts contain more "embellishment" than Josephus or whoever. Some writers do it more than others. But ALL are legitimate sources for the events they report. We don't throw them out because of embellishment or failure to stick to the hard facts only.

You must be debating your sock puppet again… Yes, the Gospels are very ordinary documents from history, and you demonstrate part of why that is all they should be considered, and the magic shit should be shit-canned as you suggest.

I’m saying that whether it is 30 years or 120 years, BS can emerge in days, so it doesn’t matter.

But you'll never give an example of a miracle story in the ancient literature which emerged in a short time, or instant miracle-worker legend. You will look like a buffoon trying to cite a case of this. Dr. Carrier tries to find examples and makes a fool of himself with the ludicrous examples he comes up with.

Ah, but again as always, you try to tie down the BS to only your special sweet smelling shit. When I say BS can emerge quickly, I don’t care if it is about UFO’s, special healing, the loch ness monster, or any other kind of fantasy. Again, I don’t care about your hobby horse…

Clearly, you do not know what the meaning of the word “clearly” means, . . .

What I said is that if these accounts in the gospels are taken as true about everything except that of the specific miracle act in each case, then it's clear from them that there were non-disciples present.

Instead of squabbling childishly over a word meaning, why don't you explain how it's not "clear" that there were NON-disciples present at these events, if we take the gospel accounts as generally accurate on the non-miracle elements in the story, while setting aside only the specific miracle claim in each case?

I don’t quibble over words, I call you on your BS. Though I do make fun of your abuse of word meanings. You make vacuous claims and then try to move goal posts to pretend are aren’t full of it. Who the fuck even suggested that there weren’t “NON-disciples” within the tales? That is completely different then the notion of who passed on the miracle healing tales (which was your claim relative to clarity). You are quibbling as you can’t back up your claim of clarity. If you did’t abuse words, as you make arguments, then you probably won’t feel like people are quibbling when they challenge your bald assertion. Never mind that I made this painfully clear already:

This one fits the pattern of at least one non-disciple being present. The earlier crowds may be included, or excluded, as part of this miracle story. The general context shows that probably other non-disciples also were present, but in this case it's not clearly implied.

Within your voluminous babble is really a simple point of debate. The logic of my scoreboard had nothing to do with assuming the miracle accounts as false. Of course, there are many side characters or non-disciples in the healing stories. You belabor such obvious details ad nauseam. There was also most probably earth under their feet, but we don’t state it. My view is that in the large majority of the healing stories, the disciples had to be components of the story that only the disciple could know. In your desperation to have lots of witnesses to buttress your “believe the Miracle Max part, cuz that is what I cling to while throwing most of the Bible into the trash can”, you assume that these side characters passed along these stories. You once said something like ‘these parts where the disciples had to be the ones telling the story, the Gospel writer(s)/composer(s) were just being editors of the larger Gospel document to make it more readable but not the source of the story’. We have nothing outside of the Gospels to suggest that non-disciples were passing healing stories forward to the later decades. While this is clearly a possible explanation, it is hardly a fact, nor is it clearly the most likely explanation.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why were some alleged miracle-workers credible and others not? And why --

-- why was Jesus Christ the most credible, even though he violated the norms for credibility?

I could post pages citing the linkage between Jesus and Judaism. But let me cite this one verse that is in all 3 Synoptic Gospels (and 2 others)

Mat 22:31-32: But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

&

Matt 24:37 (Luke 17:36) "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah…

&

Matt 5:17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not [h]the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished”

Of course there are such quotes attributed to Jesus in the gospels, which he may or may not have said. We don't know which quotes are really from him and which ones not.

However, in all the healing miracle stories of him, he is never quoted as performing his miracle healing acts in the name of Yahweh or Moses or Elijah or Elisha etc. He did not invoke any such names in his miracle acts.

But by contrast, all the reported miracles of Joseph Smith were done by him in the name of Jesus Christ, who was invoked by him every time. Likewise all the modern faith-healers do their healing acts in the name of Jesus, though there are a few Eastern mystics who invoke other ancient gods like Krishna. E.g., Sai Baba, who had a reputation for doing miracles and who enjoyed a very long career of winning disciples with his charisma.

Also, the ancient healing miracles at the Asclepius temples were done in the name of the god Asclepius, never by a recent miracle-worker acting on his own, a "free-lancer" as it were. They all invoked the name of the ancient healing god. There were also some other pagan gods invoked by the healers, but Asclepius was by far the most common.

So it's not that Jesus is unconnected to any ancient deity -- obviously he is put into the Jewish tradition of the land where he carried on his mission, and he is quoted citing Moses and others, but never naming them as the source for his miracle healing acts or doing these in their name, as in the case of Joseph Smith and all other reputed faith-healers. So we know these practitioners have always relied upon the already-existing traditions of the ancient healing gods, invoking them by name, without which their followers would not have believed in them.

So again, no one would have believed Joseph Smith had he not named Jesus as the source for his power or claim to be able to heal. He would not have acquired miracle healing stories in his reputation and his new religion would not have attracted followers had he not invoked by name the ancient faith healing tradition.

It's true that at least some of the earlier Jewish ideas are artificially added to him. Jews put words into his mouth, based on the Hebrew Bible, probably. But also Greeks put some words into his mouth. So it's not just the Tanakh tradition the writers tried to connect him to. So the later writers were not a united single group, but were different or separate cliques, each giving their particular interpretation in contrast to the other groups.

And we cannot easily separate out the part which Jesus really said vs. the part put into his mouth by the later writers. All that is conjecture, and yet one must try to do this separating of the original from the later.

You could reasonably argue that anywhere from 2% to 98% of the "teachings of Jesus" were really words put into his mouth by later Christian writers. I.e., Jewish and Hellenistic writers.

Well, at the upper end of your own estimated insertions, it pretty much deep sixes any point you are trying to make…

No, the point is that Jesus did perform the miracle healing acts, regardless whether he said any or all of the words attributed to him in the gospel accounts. Even if he did not say one word of it, the evidence is that he did perform those acts, and the words must have been added by others who used him as a mouthpiece for their teachings. But he probably did say some of it.

But the main point here is that he did not attribute his healing acts to earlier healing gods, as the other reputed faith-healers always did and still do today.

WHY was Jesus "written up" to promote earlier (Jewish/Greek) teachings, traditions, BS, etc.?

There is nothing about this that contradicts the miracle stories. Rather, it's precisely his power, demonstrated in the miracle acts, which explains the attention he attracted and his becoming an object of theologizing and mythologizing by later writers who put words into his mouth.

That Jesus performed the miracle acts explains WHY he "was written up" by later Jews and Hellenists to promote their teachings. Without those miracle acts, it's difficult or impossible to explain why they did this. Why didn't they put those words into John the Baptizer's mouth, e.g.? There were many celebrated prophets and wise men and rabbis of the time into whose mouths they could have put their teachings. Jesus was less famous in 30 AD than a number of others who would have been more appropriate as mouthpieces for these writers.

And, if Jesus performed NO miracles, as you assume he didn't, then he was probably less famous than these other possible mouthpieces even as late as 40 and 50 AD. Even 60 AD. Without those miracle acts he did as the explanation, there is no way to account for this epidemic among so many writers to use Jesus as their mouthpiece instead of someone else. Can you name JUST ONE other 1st-century figure who was used as a mouthpiece by so many diverse writers? How do you explain why they all wanted just this one person to be speaking their teachings? What did he do to gain this widespread recognition? recognition even from different crusaders who hated each other and would have killed each other in some cases?

What explains how he so suddenly became the widely-celebrated Teacher to whom everyone wanted to attribute their ideas? (hint: he did something the others did not do -- What was it? hint: it starts with the letter "m")

Back to your hobby horse I see. Why did LDS blossom and grow at a rate like the initial spread of Christianity?

Non-sequitur. No one has made Joseph Smith the mouthpiece for their religious teachings like so many writers from 70-300 AD (and later) made Jesus their mouthpiece.

There are millions of reasons why a new religion grows fast. That's not the point. What's different here is that everyone wanted to adopt this Jesus person as the mouthpiece for their philosophy, and there's virtually no other example of such a thing -- virtually no other. We do see some of this in the case of a few famous prophets/gurus, like Confucius, Socrates, Buddha. All of whom had long careers in which they became widely-reputed celebrities.

But there's only a tiny few examples of such cases where a prophet/teacher is used as a mouthpiece by later writers. And in the case of Jesus this was happening in less than 100 years from his life, and by multiple writers, which is a singular case. And also in this case the one used as a mouthpiece had a public career of only 3 years or less, which sets him way apart from any other example you can offer of a revered prophet/guru used by later writers as a mouthpiece for their words.

Why did the LDS flourish while the Church of Christ, Scientist has floundered? Why did Hinduism become the 3rd largest faith in the world, and Jainism barely make a dent? Why has the Christian faith stalled over the last century; and sagging as a percent of the world population?

Irrelevant to anything. There are millions of reasons why one religion spreads faster than others. What's unique about Jesus is that everyone wanted him to be their mouthpiece. And no one can explain why. Even less than 100 years from his life he was being quoted saying the gnostic and rabbinical and apocalyptic teachings, which had nothing to do with each other. And yet during his life he was not famous or very influential (except very locally), like all the others who were famous celebrities during their lifetime.

John the Baptizer had a few words put into his mouth (maybe he really said them -- we don't know), but there are so very few other examples of this.

The question is: Why did so many writers do this with Jesus? And the best answer: They believed (or many believed) that he had power which he demonstrated in those miracle acts, and this gave authority to anything he said. So if you put your words into his mouth, your words were given authority they wouldn't have otherwise.

So it's further evidence that he did the miracle acts. Or that so many believed he did, and yet they didn't believe anyone else did such acts or showed any such power. What other person was used this way by crusaders, putting their words into his mouth because he was recognized as an authority?

. . . even though you admit that the Deluge, Joshua’s day the sun stood still, the Exodus, et.al. are largely BS.

Even if those stories are not literally true, this in no way undermines the credibility of the Jesus miracle stories as literally true. There are plenty of true and false stories. You can't condemn all of them as fiction simply because some appear to be fiction. If you do that consistently, you have to throw out all our historical facts as fiction.

Yeah, in fact it does undermine Christian theology.

It does not undermine the miracle stories in the gospel accounts. That one particular claim is lacking evidence does not disprove another claim for which there is evidence, even if there's a similarity between the 2 claims.

But there's probably much in the various "Christian theology" doctrines you can find fault with, though not because of earlier dubious miracle legends. These don't undermine other unrelated claims or beliefs.

If earlier miracle fictions in the record cast doubt onto the later reports of events, then your logic results in tossing out ALL claims about any past events, or at least about any ancient history events, because some such claims in the ancient documents are false, and by your reasoning that undermines ALL of them.

Now you have built up this custom MHORC quasi-Christian theology to try and get away from the tons of problems.

I've only "built up" the Jesus miracle acts as real events in history, or as real acts which he did 2000 years ago, and am not emphasizing much "theology" here.

You haven't presented any "problems" to worry about. Rather, with your repeated gaffs which would force us to throw out all our history books, it appears you have "problems" you keep tripping over and can't "get away from" -- Why don't you work on it and quit imposing criteria on the writings which would require us to reject all the historical record and not just the gospel accounts? You haven't been able to get away from that problem so far.

You acknowledge that the miracle birthing narratives are most probably BS. “But hey pay no attention to all that, but believe the miracle max part, cuz I like that part”.

There are good reasons to believe the miracle healing accounts, and the resurrection, but not the virgin birth story. Why do we have to lump them all together and give them equal credibility? There's nothing wrong with believing that for which there is evidence, but disbelieving the part that lacks evidence or is contradicted by evidence.

You keep saying this, but it doesn’t make it any more true… They are lumped together because it comes in a big package that most people call Christian theology.

Nothing says we have to believe everything in the package just because someone has "lumped" it all together and called it "theology" or other designation.

"Christian theology" has so much stuff in it that any Christian you can name rejects some of it. There are obviously some Christians who do not believe literally the virgin-birth story.

It doesn't matter who believes it or whether it's part of someone's "Christian theology" or if it's in the catechism or creed. All that matters is how much evidence there is for it.

Without the earlier Yahweh tradition, there could have never been the Jesus cult tradition….

This makes no more sense than saying: Without the earlier Apollo tradition, there could never have been a Socrates tradition. Or: Without the earlier Romulus & Remus tradition, there could never have been a Caesar Augustus tradition, or a Cicero tradition.

You can't just take any two names or events happening in the same geographical region and proclaim that the later of the two could never have existed without the existence of the earlier one.

That is just nuts! The Christian sect clearly emerged out of the Judaic faith.

S E C T S -- plural. There were MANY of these sects/cults, not just one.

The first Christ believers were people at the same place where he was -- obviously. It was a land where Judaism was the main religion, so those followers of Jesus were Jews. Had he made his appearance somewhere else on the planet, who knows what religion would have got attached to him!

In India they would have made him a Hindu Avatar, probably a reincarnation of Krishna. In Egypt, perhaps they would have made him into another Osiris. In Mexico he would have been identified as that Quetzal-something-or-other, or Son of Quetzalquotzl, etc. (don't check my spelling).

If he really did those miracle acts, any place he made his appearance would have adopted him as Son of their ancient deity, and so on. They would have put their words into his mouth and spread the "good news" of salvation to the current and future generations, making him a great Teacher of their ancient traditions, and creating a Church of some kind with rituals and liturgy etc., combining the old symbols/traditions with new elements based on his life and deeds.

There is nothing in the Judaic tradition to explain the outburst of miracle healing stories in the New Testament. This happened at a time when there was no such thing happening in Judaism. The Dead Sea Scrolls and virtually all the Jewish literature after I-II Kings has virtually nothing in it about any healing miracles. Or about a resurrection of a historical person -- someone killed and coming back to life. It's impossible to explain how these events, or claims or stories of such things, suddenly pop up in the Jewish tradition, out of nowhere.

You don’t happen to be reincarnated from a follower of Marcion?

No, but maybe of some other similar heretic, and one totally forgotten.

There were many other variant Christ cults than this one. Marcion became famous/notorious because he was wealthy and could afford to publish his version of the gospel, but there were many others. Those ideas did not originate from him. Others had said similar things earlier, but Marcion had the means to promote the ideas on a grand scale.

But we can say correctly that the LDS tradition could never have existed without the earlier Jesus tradition, because everything the LDS religion teaches is explicitly based on the Jesus of the gospels, or is an extension of this. Joseph Smith in his writings, and in his Book of Mormon, names Jesus Christ as the Son of God who performs the miracle acts he (JS) is credited with. He connects himself to the Jesus tradition, despite being thousands of miles away from where the Jesus events happened.

<snip>

But the only connection of Jesus to "Yahweh" is the close geographical proximity, so that those encountering Jesus were inheritors of the "Yahweh" tradition, and so their explanation of Jesus contains some of their "Yahweh" language or symbolism. Jesus did not perform his healing acts in the name of Yahweh or any other earlier god. No such expressed connection to an earlier belief system was the basis for his miracle acts.

Uh, can you share some of those shrooms? Well in most versions of the Christian faith, Jesus is part of that Trinitarian god-head, so of course he wouldn’t need to heal in the name of Yahweh/Lord/Father.

What you're saying is only about later Christian believers and has nothing to do with how Jesus became a reputed miracle-worker in the 1st century. The question is how the belief in his miracle power happened in the first place, sometime from 30-60 AD, when he was not a famous celebrity and there was not a centuries-old religious tradition to produce a popular belief in him and create fiction miracle stories, such as was the case for all other miracle legends.

By contrast, the miracle legend Elijah/Elisha required 300 years to evolve and become recorded in I-II Kings. Or the Apollonius of Tyana legend which evolved over 150 years before being written down in about 220 AD, many generations after the celebrity hero's life.

The only reputed miracle events we know of, from any of the literature or evidence (like inscriptions), were those performed in the name of an ancient deity, with Asclepius being the foremost example. There were priests at the temples who invoked the name of Asclepius, and without this there would have been no credibility and no alleged miracle event. Over many centuries this tradition had evolved, based on some ancient myths, so that it became a widespread cult with millions of worshipers. That's the only way healing gods had any credibility.

There was no such thing as an instant miracle-worker-healer popping up and doing such acts and being taken seriously, except practitioners who invoked an ancient healing deity, generally practicing the established rituals for that deity. Of course there were charlatans here and there, but virtually nothing about them is preserved, in contrast to Asclepius, because their following was too small for them to get notice. Because people did not believe in instant miracle-workers.

The best way to explain the Jesus case, which is an exception, is that the described miracle acts really did happen, and it was this which brought him the favorable attention, whereas the usual way to gain credibility was to be a priest at a temple of Asclepius and perform the standard ancient rituals. And in this way some alleged "healings" did take place and were recorded.

Joseph Smith never claimed to be a god/demigod, so your point is pointless.

He claimed to be a miracle healer, and he based this on the ancient Jesus miracle stories, healing in the name of Jesus, and this brought him credibility. This wins followers/believers even if no healing really takes place, because of the popular centuries-old tradition. Just like today's televangelist healers perform their acts by invoking the Jesus name and winning believers, whether the victim prayed for recovers or not. The followers believe anyway, because of the popular tradition, and of course the evangelist's charisma is a necessary part in combination with the ancient popular miracle tradition. That's what JS did -- not claiming to be a god, but invoking the ancient Jesus tradition, and having the necessary charisma.



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[Keith&Co.]

He claimed to be a miracle healer, and he based this on the ancient Jesus miracle stories, healing in the name of Jesus, and this brought him credibility. This wins followers/believers even if no healing really takes place, because of the popular centuries-old tradition. Just like today's televangelist healers perform their acts by invoking the Jesus name and winning believers, whether the victim prayed for recovers or not. The followers believe anyway, because of the popular tradition, and of course the evangelist's charisma is a necessary part in combination with the ancient popular miracle tradition. That's what JS did -- not claiming to be a god, but invoking the ancient Jesus tradition, and having the necessary charisma.

So, your bottom line is that healing need not take place in order for people to believe someone has miraculous healing power.
Not as long as the hearer is receptive to a miracle story.

'Kay.

That just pulls the rug out from under every argument you have offered for people telling stories about Jesus' healing miracles... There's no reason to assume any oral or written tradition for such events MUST be based on historical events.

Just gullibility.