There is good reason to believe the Jesus miracle legend, but little or no reason to believe the other miracle legends.
You haven't addressed my question about these early believers. Why do they matter?
They are evidence that the Jesus miracles really happened, unlike other miracle legends for which there is not comparable evidence. I.e., in the other million or so miracle legends, no one took the trouble to record the events and copy them and publish them for future generations.
For the Jesus miracle legend we have the same kind of evidence that we have for our standard historical facts, unlike other miracle legends for which no record was left, or virtually none. So the wide circulation of these accounts, oral and written, among such a large number of believers is evidence that the miracle stories are really true. Just as our belief in standard historical facts is also based on this kind of evidence.
Do you think hordes of people went and investigated the Jesus miracles and that's why they believed?
They believed because the stories/reports were widely circulating, and there were many encounters with direct witnesses, or at least witnesses 2nd- or 3rd-removed. So in this case the claims were much more credible than other miracle claims which were not so widely circulated.
There was some investigation. What they did was much the same as with other historical events which we believe because they were widely circulated and so became published.
Because if they believed hearsay, then their number is completely irrelevant.
No, "hearsay" testimony is reliable for history. Virtually every historical fact you believe (at least before modern times) is based on hearsay only. You can't name any that's not based on hearsay. I.e., a writer wrote that it happened, so you believe it happened.
Also, you don't know if the Jesus myth happened instantly or not, . . .
And you don't know as an absolute certainty that Washington was the first U.S. President.
This is an historical fact just as certain as virtually all our historical facts. The time of the reported events is known (when they reportedly happened) and the date of the written accounts is known just as definitely as the dates of most other written accounts for history are known. It is a fact that the Jesus myth is an "instant" miracle myth in comparison to the other alleged miracle events, like that of the pagan heroes and the 1st-century Jesus parallels like Apollonius of Tyana etc.
. . . but if you thought it happened over a century, then you'd claim that's the ultimate sign of truth, that over a century nobody could debunk it or something;
No, it's not about any "ultimate sign of truth" or who "could debunk it or something" -- it's about the only miracle legend which cannot be explained as caused by a normal mythologizing pattern which we see in all the other miracle legends, with this one being the only exception. No one has explained how this one miracle legend, from about 30 AD, could have emerged as fictional, whereas all the other miracle legends as fictional can be explained as a product of normal mythologizing.
. . . that's how your special pleading looks like for the rest of us.
It is not "special pleading" to say one case differs from the others. It's not "special pleading" to point out that all the pagan miracle hero legends required many centuries to evolve whereas the Jesus legend emerged in less than 50 years, and that this time period was much shorter than for most historical events of the period.
You don't prove there's a flaw in the logic by just repeating the "special pleading" jargon.
You claim instantaneous mythologizing matters because your favorite story has it, not the other way around.
Whatever you're saying, my "instant mythologizing" argument is correct anyway.
I.e., it could be that I once believed the Jesus legend (and disbelieved all the others) but did not know what the good reasons were for believing. Then I checked into it and found there were some good reasons (like the "instant mythologizing" or "instant miracle legend" reason).
This is like someone believing the earth is round because he was taught this but not knowing the reasons for believing the earth is round. Then he learned what the reasons are and now knows the reasons. His original belief is not falsified simply because he did not know the reasons.
One's belief may be correct even though one does not know the good reasons for holding the belief. What matters is whether there are good reasons. If there are, then it's correct to believe it, even though there are some believers who believe it only because they were taught it and don't know the good reasons.
The one saying it's not true still has to look at the reasons for believing, regardless of the mental state of some believers who believe without knowing the good reasons. Like believing the earth is round without knowing the reasons for believing it.
