Shouldn't the "context" for the Jesus miracle stories include something from the time of Jesus and the gospel accounts? and even earlier?
(continued from previous Wall of Text)
(Cleaning up a sloppy summation of Dr. Carrier's would-be "context" for the Jesus miracle claims)
. . . historians learned of Jesus Christ's miracles and started saying "I'll have to write miracles into my histories" -- miracles that were previously absent.
https://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html
Carrier: We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that.
Carrier: Likewise, statues with healing powers were common attractions for sick people of this era.
Only the Asclepius cult, which was declining before 100 AD but then suddenly had a revival. Admittedly there were these healing claims, in inscriptions at the temples and statues of Asclepius, but this was an ANCIENT cult worshiping an ancient pagan deity, and thus not anything arising in the period when the new Jesus miracle cults popped up suddenly in the 1st century AD with no precedent or context explaining where they came from.
This Asclepius cult evolved gradually over many centuries, after possibly an ancient healer-practitioner had enjoyed a distinguished career of successfully treating patients and eventually became mythologized over centuries of storytelling, during which the legend could grow and the supernatural element could set in. That has an explanation and a context as following a normal pattern we see repeated in many legends of heroes credited with miracle power over centuries of mythologizing, unlike the Jesus miracle legend, which popped up in the written record within a 30-50 year period and in multiple sources.
Lucian mentions the famous healing powers of a statue of Polydamas, an athlete, at Olympia, as well as the statue of Theagenes at Thasos (Council of the Gods 12).
Same pattern. Only late sources. Lucian -- 2nd century AD. How is this is a "context" for what happened during 30-100 AD?
Both are again mentioned by Pausanias, in his "tour guide" of the Roman world (6.5.4-9, 11.2-9).
Another 2nd century AD source. Notice how conspicuously Carrier is unable to name ONE source prior to 90-100 AD. Conspicuous pattern, conspicuous omission, by a debunker-crusader trying to explain events which happened 50 years earlier than anything in his explanation.
If no one can give an explanation for this, how can you say it's unreasonable to believe the Jesus miracle claims are different, as being the only ones that are unexplained, and perhaps real events? When all the evidence points to this, why isn't this a reasonable possibility? Why is one forced to go against this evidence, based only on the dogma that miracle events can never happen?
Why can't a professional scholar like Carrier give us any relevant information pertinent to the gospel origins other than his fundamental premise that miracle claims can never be true? Shouldn't a paid scholar have something more to promote his theory than his basic ideological premise that miracle events can't ever happen?
Lucian [2nd century AD] also mentions the curative powers of the statue of a certain General Pellichos (Philopseudes 18-20). And Athenagoras, in his Legatio pro Christianis (26), polemicizes against the commonplace belief in the healing powers of statues, mentioning, in addition to the statue of a certain Neryllinus, the statues of Proteus and Alexander, the same two men I discuss in detail below.
Why so much detailed discussion of these late 2nd-century sources, long after the Jesus miracle stories were circulating, and omission of anything in the earlier period of Jesus and the gospel accounts? and then pretending that these later sources are the "context" for those Jesus miracle stories of 50-100 years earlier?
But above all these, the "pagans" had Asclepius, their own healing savior, centuries before, and after, the ministry of Christ.
Carrier recognizes that this is really the ONLY example which even comes close to being relevant to a "context" for the Jesus miracles, because the date of this goes earlier.
He neglects to mention that this cult was declining in the 1st century but then experienced a revival after 100 AD. What caused this revival? Virtually all the evidences for the Asclepius cult, such as the inscriptions, are from after 100 AD and before 100 BC, with the earliest examples being mostly in the 3rd and 4th and 5th centuries BC.
And Asclepius was not any new historical figure, or a new charlatan popping up during these times. This cult had at least 1000 years to evolve from an ancient deity figure, which is the ONLY kind of miracle healing entity which the ancients believed in. It is not true that there were any miracle healing heroes in history which gained a sudden following, in less than 100 years, or even 500 years. There are no examples. All that is offered to us are ancient deities like Asclepius which evolved over many centuries of legend-building.
Surviving testimonies to his influence and healing power throughout the classical age are common enough to fill a two-volume book (Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, in two volumes, 1945--entries 423-450 contain the most vivid testimonials). Of greatest interest are the inscriptions set up for those healed at his temples. These give us almost first hand testimony, more reliable evidence than anything we have for the miracles of Jesus, of the blind, the lame, the mute, even the victims of kidney stones, paralytics, and one fellow with a spearhead stuck in his jaw (see the work cited above, p. 232), all being cured by this pagan "savior."
But what's the connection of this cult to the "context" for the Jesus miracle stories?
In ALL ages people pray to their ancient gods for healing, and claims are made that the prayers were answered. This was not unique to the 1st century AD -- or was even LESS typical of that time than of other periods when there was a greater amount of such worshiping of healing gods.
The Asclepius evidence is almost all from before 100 BC and after 100 AD -- i.e., there's a 200-year gap or blank period -- almost ZERO Asclepius evidence during the time when the Jesus miracle stories appeared. If instead of 30-100 AD Jesus and the gospels had appeared around 300 or 200 BC, you could relate them to this Asclepius cult as being a "context" in which the gospel accounts appeared and had borrowed from those earlier pagan traditions which were still popular. But the two are mostly non-overlapping, so virtually nothing about this ancient cult offers any explanation why the Jesus miracle stories suddenly appeared out of nowhere after 30 AD.
And this testimony goes on for centuries. Inscriptions span from the 4th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. and later, all over the Roman Empire.
But the cult does not span equally throughout this period, but is relatively absent from about 100 BC to 100 AD. The period when the Jesus miracle stories appeared was one when the Asclepius cult was DISappearing. The evidence from this cult indicates less and less demand for healing gods, until about 100 AD when the demand suddenly increases again.
And the popularity of Asclepius goes back prior to the 4th century BC.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius
From the fifth century BC onwards, the cult of Asclepius grew very popular and pilgrims flocked to his healing temples (Asclepieia) to be cured of their ills.
The early popularity of Asclepius is indicated by the inclusion of Asclepius by name in the Hippocratic Oath, which is dated to the 4th or 5th century BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Earliest_surviving_copy
So, one can name the Asclepius cult as having some similarity to the Jesus miracle claims, but this cult was popular mostly long before the 1st century AD and was declining after 100 BC, but then experienced an abrupt revival after 100 AD. Any possible causal connection would be that this later revival of the cult was sparked by the new appearance of the Jesus miracle legend in the mid-1st century. I.e., the later event can be caused or inspired by the earlier.
The most famous Asclepius temple was at Epidaurus, about which the Oxford Classical Dictionary says:
After a decline in the later Hellenistic period, and spoliation in the 1st century BC, the sanctuary revived in the 2nd cent. AD, when many buildings were reconstructed or replaced.
What inspired this revival of the famous Asclepius temple at this later time?
Clearly, the people of this time were quite ready to believe such tales.
People of WHAT time? Not in 30 or 50 or 60 AD when the Jesus miracle stories appeared.
They were not remarkable tales at all.
The Asclepius miracle claims were not remarkable because they fit into a normal pattern of mythologizing over many centuries in which they evolved. But the Jesus miracle stories, by contrast, appeared abruptly, not over centuries, totally out of context, during a time when there's virtually no evidence of any miracle legends appearing, and when the ancient ones were disappearing. Claims like the Jesus miracle acts were not normal in the 1st century, but began appearing only from about 100 AD (or 90 AD) and later.
Why is it that Carrier can cite NO examples except long AFTER the Jesus miracle claims appeared? If the examples exist, why does he consistently IGNORE them when it's his job precisely to give us such evidence? Why is he being so irresponsible as to give us NO EVIDENCE from the precise period when such evidence is demanded, but instead keeps falling back on the far inferior evidence from after 100 AD?
This more general evidence of credulity in the Roman Empire shows the prevalence of belief in divine miracle working of all kinds.
But not until AFTER 100 AD. Carrier gives NO evidence of any such credulity in the Roman Empire earlier, like 50 AD or 20 AD, during which the Jesus miracle claims emerged. His claim is false that there was any such "credulity" in miracle claims. There is a virtual total BLANK or ZERO quantity of any such evidence. What can explain this pattern except that he has no evidence, there is none, so that the Jesus miracle stories appear without any explanation and out of sync with the cultural context of the time? If there were any such context, it is unthinkable that this famous professional Jesus-debunker-crusader would completely omit it from his writings.
I will now present you with three historical individuals who truly flesh out the picture.
The Major Evidence: Apollonius, Peregrinus, and Alexander
This is Carrier's main case for the context of the Jesus miracle stories. And when are they taken from? All from after 100 AD. This is the main part of his case. And all of it comes AFTER the Jesus miracle stories were long in circulation.
Does anyone need a basic course in logic to understand Carrier's fallacy? To understand that the CAUSE MUST PRECEDE THE EFFECT?
So,
. . . historians learned of Jesus Christ's miracles and started saying "I'll have to write miracles into my histories -- miracles that were previously absent."
sort of sums up what Dr. Richard Carrier seems to be saying. He's saying there were lots of miracle stories appearing AFTER the gospel accounts were already circulating, but none before or during the time the gospel accounts were written. He must be saying this because it's unthinkable that he would omit any such earlier examples if any existed. By omitting them he's in effect saying they don't exist.
So then, is Dr. Carrier himself one of those "kooks and quacks" of some kind? telling us the historians (Plutarch and others) started making up miracle stories after they heard about the Jesus miracle claims? which they did not ever do earlier? or started reporting such stories which they used to ignore? I.e., they never reported statues doing miracles until after they heard of the Jesus miracle events, and so they said, "Now we'll have to report about those miracle statues we've always known about but ignored"?
A better explanation, and much simpler and less conspiracy-theory-oriented, and less goofy, is that something real happened in the early 1st century, resulting in the Jesus miracle claims which spread very fast, and this was an event unlike others and unexplainable as a product of mythologizing like all the other miracle stories before and after are explained.
Conclusion
From all of this one thing should be apparent: the age of Jesus was not an age of critical reflection and remarkable religious acumen.
But only the age AFTER Jesus, and after the gospel accounts, because that's the only "age" Carrier takes into consideration, omitting anything about miracle claims before 100 AD. Carrier gives us NO evidence whatever that the age of 50 BC to 100 AD was any less critical, but really gives us the opposite. The period of Jesus and the Gospels, from 30 AD to 100 AD was MORE critical than the later period from which Carrier takes his examples. His evidence shows that the age of Jesus, from 30 AD to 100 AD, was MORE critical, because there was nothing in this age showing any absence of critical acumen, or increased belief in miracle superstition.
I.e., there was no increased belief in miracles unique to this period -- nothing outside the Jesus miracle stories alone, as the sole exception to the rule, as something totally out of character to anything going on which can be cited in all the historical record (unless you think Carrier is an incompetent fool, unfit to serve as a scholar on the ancient world, or maybe a total fraud, pretending to be a Jesus-debunker when he's really a secret Christian Apologist in disguise who deliberately omits important evidence which would undermine the Jesus miracle claims).
It was an era filled with con artists, gullible believers, martyrs without a cause, and reputed miracles of every variety.
But all this is only from the "era" AFTER the gospel accounts were written. Carrier shows none of this in the period from 30 AD to 100 AD.
In light of this picture, the tales of the Gospels do not seem very remarkable.
But "this picture" from Carrier is all in the period after 90-100 AD. This "era" he artificially extends earlier, to 50 or 40 or 30 AD, by pretending the Josephus anti-Roman charismatic rebels somehow explain the Jesus miracle stories, and thus scooping the earlier gospel accounts/events into this "era" he mislabels as "the Age of Jesus" but has nothing in it of miracle claims from that time, because all Carrier's miracle claim examples are later than Josephus, into the 2nd century, 100 years after Jesus, and 50 years after the gospel accounts were written.
Even if they were false in every detail, there is no evidence that they would have been disbelieved or rejected as absurd by many people, . . .
Yes there is such evidence. Because there is NO OTHER EXAMPLE from the period showing that people generally believed such false stories. ALL such fraudulent stories or hoaxes were rejected, if we believe the evidence we have. There is no other case of any such hoax or fraudulent miracle legend in this period being invented and circulated and believed.
Such fraud expanding to gain thousands of believers is unheard-of before 100 (90) AD when the Jesus miracle stories had appeared and expanded. All such frauds were rejected as absurd by people generally. Where's the evidence to show otherwise? Carrier's examples are precisely evidence that such frauds were rejected, because he can cite no successful frauds during the "era" of the Jesus miracle claims.
. . . who at the time had little in the way of education or critical thinking skills.
No more so than at any other time, such as 200 years earlier or 200 years later. There's nothing about the period 30-100 AD to show that people were any less educated or less critical-minded than any other time. The indication is that they were MORE critical at the time of Jesus and the gospel accounts than in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, where we see an onslaught of new miracle superstitions beyond anything of the 1st century. The time of Jesus and the gospel accounts, and just prior to it, was a time when miracle superstitions were DEcreasing, in both Judaism and in the Greek-Roman culture -- e.g., the decline of the Asclepius cult.
They had no newspapers, telephones, photographs, or public documents to consult to check a story.
That was no more the case in 30-100 AD than any other time before 1000 or 1500 AD. And in this period of Jesus and the gospel accounts we see no evidence of any new miracle legends appearing or of a superstitious mindset or credulity, other than the bare minimum we see in ALL periods, even up to today.
This point in history (30-100 AD) was as unlikely to produce any new miracle cults as any period up to modern times. So the new Jesus miracle legend appearing here is totally out of character to everything we'd expect for this period, based on the historical record we have, or the pattern we see in all our sources.
If they were not a witness, all they had was a man's word.
That's what 99% of our known history is based on. And that was the same condition for every other historical period, not just the 1st century or the period of Jesus and the gospel accounts.
And even if they were a witness, the tales above tell us that even then their skills of critical reflection were lacking.
Only after 100 AD. Why does Carrier claim to be describing a general "era" when people lacked these skills, and yet gives examples only AFTER that era while completely ignoring the people at the beginning of that era and before it? All his "tales above" are from later, after the era of Jesus and the gospel accounts.
Certainly, this age did not lack keen and educated skeptics--it is not that there were no skilled and skeptical observers. There were. Rather, the shouts of the credulous rabble overpowered their voice and seized the world from them, . . .
But why are all these "shouts" only from after 100 AD? We can't have just ONE example from about 50 AD or earlier? Why not? Why not JUST ONE example of it? Why does "this age" have to be from 100 (or 80 or 90) AD and later only?
. . . boldly leading them all into the darkness of a thousand years of chaos.
Which thousand-year period was from 100 AD to 1100, not from the time of Jesus and the gospel accounts.
I am merely presenting a survey of the social and intellectual context in which those miracles came to be believed.
No, not the context when the Jesus miracles came to be believed, but AFTER it.
The "context" Carrier presents here is that of the 2nd century AD, 50 years or more AFTER the Jesus miracle stories appeared and came to be believed. All Carrier offers of anything earlier are the Josephus charismatic Anti-Roman dissidents, who have nothing to do with miracle claims.
The gospel writers and whoever they relied on as sources, long before the 2nd century, believed the Jesus miracle claims, which is why they made the effort to record them. What is the "social and intellectual context" in which these earlier persons came to believe those miracle claims? How do Carrier's examples from the 2nd century answer this? He completely ignores those who first believed the Jesus miracle claims and first circulated them, and instead presents a survey of a later age, 100 AD and later, pretending that this much more superstitious age, 50+ years later, somehow is a context for what appeared and was believed earlier.
How can only later events be a "context" for what happened earlier?
