Was the time of Jesus a SUPERSTITIOUS AGE likely to produce new miracle stories? NO, it was the LEAST likely time for such stories to emerge.
There is no decree from historians pronouncing all miracle stories as false.
Miracle stories are
implicitly treated as false for quite some time. There's no need for an explicit decree: it's as implicit as the rule followed by car makers which would say, if made explicit, that cars don't just float up into space so there's no need to shield them for re-entry.
That's a very bad analogy, because no one is making any such claim about cars. There's no need to correct claims which are not being made.
But miracle claims are made -- probably millions of them, and yet historians don't make pronouncements that such stories are false, as if that's part of their job. It's not their function generally to pass judgment on such claims. As historians it's not their proper role in society to pronounce such claims as false, whether or not they believe privately that they are false. It's their role to criticize ANY claims which are part of their expertise, such as claims from history about which there is empirical evidence, both normal and paranormal claims, if there are historical facts pertaining to the claims. And there is nothing about history which disproves miracle claims generally.
The proof for the implied existence of such decrees is that you still could not present a miracle story accepted by historians, . . .
Yes I did. The story of Rasputin the mad monk who healed the Czar's child is accepted by historians. Or your term "accepted" is meaningless babble.
There was a History Channel documentary in which an historian said that the healing event did happen and that Rasputin had some unusual power to make this happen. It's generally recognized that the event(s) did happen, but there's no consensus on how Rasputin did it, and a reluctance to accept a "supernatural" explanation.
It's true that "miracle stories" are generally not "accepted" by historians if you mean the latter don't declare the stories to be true. They leave it open to doubt in cases where the explanation has not been determined, as it often has not been. History is not a discipline which pretends to have an explanation for everything odd that ever happened. It is normal history for doubtful claims from the past to be left unresolved. And there are many reported events which are not explained.
The abnormal powers possessed by SAVANTS have not been explained.
The powers displayed by
savants are essentially in the "miracle" category. These cases are documented. These are cases of someone, usually autistic, having paranormal ability to perform a "superhuman" act which cannot be learned. In each case the savant has a power to do the one kind of act only, with no other unusual power, and usually being deficient in performing many normal acts. These cases are baffling to science, which cannot explain them, but they are proven "accepted" fact, not based on doubtful stories. Of course some theories are proposed, but none of them is verified. And there is no way to induce the paranormal ability into a subject, though the negative effects can be induced.
There are plenty of "accepted" accounts of unusual events which cannot be explained. So in this sense historians do "accept" the claims, i.e., that the event did happen, but assuming that there is a normal explanation for it. But that's only an
assumption, not a fact. Properly speaking, it's in the unknown category.
There's no implied decree that all such claims are false. There are no "implied" decrees of any kind. If it were a proven fact that ALL miracle claims are false, then scientists or historians or other experts would be obligated to state it explicitly.
. . . or a car mass-produced with proper heat shields.
As long as no one is claiming any such thing exists, then your point is meaningless. The question here is whether the claim that Jesus did miracle acts might be true. I.e., is it possible he really did such acts, given the evidence that he did? No historian or scientist has ever proved that such acts cannot happen.
All you might be able to claim is that such events, if any have happened, must be very rare in history, and therefore one should be extra skeptical of such a claim or of evidence offered for it, and extra evidence is necessary. In the case of the reported Jesus miracles the requirement for extra evidence is met, whereas this requirement is not met for other miracle claims from antiquity, e.g., the pagan myths.
Most of what we know - and keep inadvertently checking every minute we use modern technology - about the world would have to be false for miracles to happen.
No, there is nothing about what we "know" that makes all "miracles" impossible. The miracle acts of Jesus might have happened without negating anything known to science. They were simply acts for which current science has no explanation. There are some events which science cannot yet explain. But that doesn't mean our current knowledge is negated by such events. It only means there's more than what is known by current science.
The example of
savants is a known proved example of something science cannot explain. It is a fact, or a phenomenon experienced in the real world and proved or verified by current repeatable observation, unlike reputed past events which cannot be repeated. But because an event cannot be repeated does not mean it didn't happen. Maybe if everything about the event could be understood, then it would be possible to repeat it, or reproduce a similar event.
But the savants are an example where it can be repeated for observation, and yet these cases run counter to common experience and the explanation of them is not known. If the documented cases of this should disappear -- if savants should disappear, e.g., die off and no new ones replace them -- then future skeptics might look back at the 20th-21st centuries and dispute that these persons ever existed, claiming it was fraud, saying such a phenomenon would make all our science impossible. That's the same as you saying, "Most of what we know . . . about the world would have to be false for miracles to happen." You could say this about the savants phenomenon except for the fact that these cases are repeatable and confirmed by continued observation. But if instead they were a past phenomenon with no present cases to observe, you could claim "most of what we know would be false" if such persons as that really ever existed.
Against that huge pile of facts . . .
What "pile of facts" are you talking about? Much of the accumulated knowledge we have contains error and is tainted. There's much guesswork and conjecture contained in our accumulated "pile" of historical facts. And the natural sciences also contain mistakes or miscalculations which have to be corrected from time to time. So it's not clear what "huge pile of facts" you're drawing a contrast to here.
. . . stands a collection of badly mangled versions of a story from an extremely superstitious age, an age which believed for instance . . .
So then all our recorded history from that "age" must be superstitious and "badly mangled" -- we should toss out all our recorded history from the 1st century?
It's not true that the 1st century AD was more superstitious than the earlier or later periods. The appearance of miracle stories was not typical of the period from 100 BC to 50 or 100 AD. This period saw virtually NO new miracle stories appearing in the literature or popular culture, outside the Jesus miracle stories somewhere between 30 AD - 100 AD. Except for these, there were no new miracle stories or new superstitions popping up.
The Jesus miracle stories pop up from nowhere, with nothing leading up to them. Name anything happening in this period showing a trend toward such claims appearing and increasing and culminating in the ones we see in the gospel accounts. There is nothing showing any such trend. There were thousands of miracle stories, like those of the pagan gods/heroes, all appearing in
earlier centuries, but not in the period leading up to 30 AD. The Jesus miracles appear at a point where there were NOT any new superstitious miracle legends appearing.
But then, after about 100 AD there is a sudden explosion of miracle stories, AFTER the Jesus miracle stories appeared sometime between 30 AD to 100 AD. So the "superstitious" age was the one AFTER the beginning of the Christ cult(s) in the first century. Following upon these first Christ cults there arose this new onrush of miracle stories, mostly about Jesus, but also about various other characters or legendary heroes who suddenly became miracle workers in the new literature appearing after 100 AD.
. . . that salamanders don't burn in fire despite Plinius reporting that he tried it and they do. Imagine what stupidity might those people have believed about stuff they could not have checked, if they believed falsehoods they could have verified easily . . .
But why do the falsehoods suddenly increase from about 100 AD, whereas before that there are none, other than these ones we see in the gospel accounts? By your explanation, there should have been thousands of these new superstitions or falsehoods emerging throughout the period from 100 or 200 BC to 100 AD, and yet there are NONE during this period, except the Jesus miracle stories.
Isn't it odd that during the "superstitious age" you speak of, spanning 2 or 3 or 4 centuries, there is nothing new popping up other than these Jesus miracle stories -- those alone, no others -- between 30 AD and 100 AD? and then suddenly after that we see an unprecedented outburst of new miracle stories way beyond anything that had happened for centuries earlier?
Or are you saying this "superstitious age" spanned only these years of 30-100 AD and refers to the new Jesus miracle stories only, appearing in the mid-late 1st century? The new miracle Christ legend is the sum total of this "superstitious age" with no other new superstitions appearing along with it? What are the others?
Are you saying the salamander superstition was special to the 1st century AD only? that 100-200 years earlier this superstition did not exist? There were no salamanders in 50 BC or 100 BC or 150 BC? If those salamander superstitions caused the Jesus miracle stories, why didn't they spawn any
other miracle legends or new religions/deities during those earlier decades and centuries?
What is the special connection of salamanders to the period of about 30-100 AD, which your theory proposes? Was Pliny part of this salamander conspiracy you have uncovered?
There was nothing about this "age" which can explain why there was this sudden outburst of miracle stories during 30-100 AD,
but nothing earlier, and then the explosion of new miracle stories after 100 AD. Or rather, there is no explanation that makes any sense except that in about 30 AD someone actually did perform those acts -- the starting point -- and word of this spread throughout the region, getting published in multiple accounts, unlike any other miracle cult, and inspiring the new rash of miracle stories, or copycat stories, into the 2nd century and beyond. That's what all the facts indicate.
Whereas your proposed ongoing "superstitious age" over many centuries would inspire repeated new superstitions and miracle claims appearing regularly, spread out through the period, rather than a sudden unpredictable outburst interrupting a long quiet period of inactivity such as the 1st century BC.
Even the Book of Enoch and the Dead Sea Scrolls and others in this pre-Christian period do not contain any new miracle events reportedly happening in history or new miracle heroes, but only heavenly visions and reinterpreting the ancient legends.
If all you mean by "superstitious age" is a period when many new religious writings appear, that description fits, but these new writings contain no new miracle stories other than rehashing those of many centuries earlier, such as the Moses stories, or the Flood, etc. There are no new miracle-working messiahs appearing, or new heroes or cosmic deities appearing in history. Or miracle-working prophets like Elijah.
So it doesn't make sense to characterize this period as a "superstitious age" that was likely to produce miracle claims anything like those of the gospel accounts. There's no sign of any such superstitious activity happening in this period.
