Miracle claims require a HIGHER DEGREE OF EVIDENCE --
-- but still the same kind of evidence as for normal facts of history -- like we have for the Jesus miracle acts.
Josephus ... says that when the walls were finally breached, the first Roman to cross over was Faustus Cornelius, the son of the tyrant Sulla. This is a simple fact which everyone believes because Josephus says it. No other source than Josephus says this.
Your logic is like comparing one guy saying "the brown cow was first through the gate" to five guys saying "the spotted cow leaped over the moon", then proclaiming that the latter has "more evidence" and therefore is reasonable to believe.
No, my point is not that the Jesus miracle story is more reasonable to believe than a Josephus report on a normal detail. It's probably correct to say the Josephus report is more credible, because it's not a miracle claim. Rather, my point is that the Jesus miracle stories are more credible than other miracle claims for which there is no evidence, or virtually none.
Any claim becomes more credible as the number of sources for it increases, and in particular if those sources are reasonably close to the when the alleged event happened, such as the Jesus miracle stories are relatively close to the time when the events reportedly happened, i.e., close to 30 AD. That makes these miracle claims more credible than most or all other miracle claims, such as Apollo shooting arrows into the camp of the Greeks several hundred years earlier (than Homer, the only source), or Prometheus doing heroic deeds 100,000 or a million years earlier.
Can you just recognize that these pagan miracle legends have less evidence for them than we have for the miracles of Jesus? I.e., for the latter we have 4 (5) sources dating from 30-70 years after the alleged events happened. A little closer time-wise to the reported events, perhaps? That shouldn't be so difficult to understand. Some other comparisons not so extreme can also be made and show a similar outcome, which is that for the Jesus miracle events we actually have evidence similar to what we have for normal historical events, even MORE evidence, whereas for other miracle stories there is not such evidence.
So reviewing the earlier post you quoted:
The Jesus miracle stories are more credible because there is more evidence. More evidence = more likely to be true.
But "more likely to be true" means more likely than the pagan myths, or more likely than the Apollonius of Tyana miracle stories, or the Honi the Circle-Drawer miracle stories. It doesn't mean more likely than the normal facts reported in Josephus. Rather, these normal facts are believable because ONE SOURCE ONLY is sufficient for such routine facts, and often this source might be 100 years or more later than when the reported event happened. Even so, it's accepted as true and as part of the historical record. There are maybe even billions of such facts we could use as examples.
Most of the miracle claims from antiquity don't have such evidence for them, i.e., such as is required for normal historical events. Usually there's only one source which is many centuries later, even millennia, than the reported event happened. Then, after about 100 AD or so, we start having some miracle claims which are only 100 or 200 years after the alleged events reportedly happened.
What's with the need to prove your belief is well-reasoned? The junk about "more evidence for the Jesus miracles than we have for many historical facts which we routinely accept because they are reported in the documents" is sophistry.
No, "more evidence" means more sources saying it, or more written documents from the time, or sources closer to the actual events.
I will repeat just one example of a historical fact we know based on ONE SOURCE ONLY, and from a source much farther removed from the actual event than the gospel accounts are removed from the Jesus events of about 30 AD.
Josephus reports on the capture of the Jerusalem temple in 63 BC by General Pompey. He says that when the walls were finally breached, the first Roman to cross over was Faustus Cornelius, the son of the tyrant Sulla. This is a simple fact which everyone believes because Josephus says it. No other source than Josephus says this.
So, we have less evidence for this fact than we have for the miracles of Jesus. MUCH LESS evidence -- just this one source only, and from a writer more than 100 years later than this event.
By contrast, the Jesus miracle acts are reported by 4 (5) writers, dated 30-70 years later than the reported events. So the evidence for the Jesus miracles is much better evidence, being from multiple sources, and these much closer in time to when the reported events happened.
Your logic is like comparing one guy saying "the brown cow was first through the gate" to five guys saying "the spotted cow leaped over the moon", then proclaiming that the latter has "more evidence" and therefore is reasonable to believe.
You're right that the NON-miracle claim is usually more reasonable to believe, regardless if it has fewer sources. My point is that the Jesus miracle events have more evidence for them than a Josephus non-miracle claim, and thus are more credible than other miracle claims for which we have no evidence. And everyone agrees that a miracle claim requires more than the normal amount of evidence in order to be credible. But at some point it becomes credible -- you cannot impose the arbitrary premise that EVERY miracle claim must be rejected no matter how much evidence there is for it.
It is significant that we have so much extra evidence for the Jesus miracle events, well beyond what is required for normal typical facts which are credible even if they are from one source only.
And it's significant that there are NO other examples of miracle claims for which we have such extra evidence. What is another case (other than just citing modern nonsense posted on YouTube etc. for which there might be dozens or hundreds of "sources" because of today's technology which didn't exist even 100 years ago)?
If the Jesus miracle stories are just typical hoax nonsense from antiquity, why don't we have any other example, before 1000 AD or so, for which there is such extra evidence? Why is there only this one case?
Now, about your leaping cow,
. . . like comparing one guy saying "the brown cow was first through the gate" to five guys saying "the spotted cow leaped over the moon", then proclaiming . . .
this doesn't fit here for 2 reasons:
1) There's not even ONE source saying a cow ever did this, and
2) The phrase "cow leaped over the moon" doesn't mean anything, even if some source did report it.
First we have to know what "cow leaped over the moon" means if we're to compare this to some miracle claim such as the Jesus miracles. We know what it means that a blind man or leper was healed. Admittedly the exorcism acts may be more difficult to pin down, but it's clear that the phenomenon was of a person who had been mentally deranged and suddenly returned to a normal state of mind, i.e., a mental illness cure of some kind. But we don't know what "cow leaped over the moon" means.
So, it's "reasonable to believe" a miracle claim -- assuming we know what actually is being claimed -- if witnesses saw the event and there are multiple reports of it. And for a real comparison you need an example from ancient times, before 1000 AD or so, to make your point.
By contrast, for reports of ordinary events there's little or no need for extra sources, as long as the report is not contradicted by other reports.
If you see a flaw in this and want to offer something for comparison to the Jesus miracle claims, how about offering a scenario which makes some sense, an alleged event where we know what is alleged to have happened, as opposed to "cow leaped over the moon," which means nothing. And how about offering something which some source actually did claim. Whether 1 or 3 or 10 sources etc. But to offer something which NO source ever claimed is not helpful as an analogy to actual claims made about either normal events or unusual events like miracles. We have 4 (5) sources saying the miracle acts of Jesus did happen, so give us an example for comparison of something reported as a real event, i.e., from a source saying it really did happen.
Maybe the first guy's report was propaganda (as with Sulla's son), favoring the brown cow because he's from a line of famed cows.
Maybe what you're saying is that since Sulla was famous, it means his son Faustus was a high-profile figure who got special attention in the literature, and the real truth is that some unknown person of no status was really the first to cross that wall. But even so, all that matters is that this Faustus person was there and was one of the first to cross, even if a nobody of low class was actually the very first (and maybe Faustus was 2nd). No point is served in fussing over whether he was literally the very first or might have been 2nd or 3rd. Even if the latter is the case, the basic reported event is still there and is taken as fact.
So, regardless of such detail, the point is that one report of something is basically accepted as true, if it's a normal event. And likewise millions (billions) of historical facts are normally accepted because of one source only. I.e., one claim that it happened is the only "evidence" for the event, so that a document saying something happened is "evidence" that the something did happen. So for the Jesus miracle acts in the gospel accounts we have the same kind of normal evidence we have for millions of our historical facts, and actually more of such evidence than is minimally required for credibility. I.e., a document says it happened, and this saying it happened is in fact evidence that it happened. Otherwise, toss out 90% of our known history!
So these other 5 lies should be accepted too if that one lie is.
But there are no such "lies" as you're describing to be accepted or not accepted.
To make your point (if it's a serious one) you should be able to find a REAL example of 5 sources for a claim we know is a "lie" or fictional event, rather than your cow example. You probably could produce an example of this from modern times, i.e., a "lie" attested to in 5 sources, but for 1000 (2000) years ago probably not, i.e., no lie about an alleged recent event. Not in 5 sources, or even 3 or 4.
You need to find an example of a claimed event which reportedly happened no more than 100 or 200 years before being reported falsely in the 5 sources (the "5 lies") you're saying "should be accepted too if that one lie is." Our 4 (5) sources for the Jesus miracle acts were written less than 100 years after the events reportedly happened (like most normal events in the historical record). So your comparable example could not be, e.g., a reference to Apollo or other ancient gods. Obviously the pagan legends eventually got repeated in "multiple sources" centuries later, or thousands of years later. Instead the "multiple sources" we need as an example would be sources within 200 (300 or 400) years of when the alleged event happened.
There were myths/legends in the making which you might use to make your case. E.g., the St. Nicholas legend was developing by around 500 AD. Can you find 5 sources for this myth ("lie"), i.e., sources from 500 or 600 AD telling about him delivering gifts to children around the world, even from 700 or 800 AD? Today's version of this myth required well over 1000 years to evolve, so the "5 lies" about this legend (our modern version) didn't exist 500 or 1000 years ago.
You cannot debunk the miracles of Jesus (or other historical facts)
by shredding the evidence (documents which say they happened).
Your real point, at best, is that no reports of any historical events are credible, because reports that something happened are not really evidence that it happened, according to you, and thus you throw out most history by eliminating any reliable historical record of what happened 1000 or 2000 years ago. You have not yet advanced beyond this logic which requires us to dismiss ALL sources for any historical events.
We could consider the difference between normal events and miracle claims found in the sources, but your only such comparison is your logic that all non-miracle claims are true and all miracle claims are false, and evidence for the claims never matters. Which is incorrect -- it does matter. Admittedly it also matters if the claim is something miraculous etc. But all that matters about that is that in these cases we require EXTRA evidence, which we do have for the Jesus miracle acts. Why doesn't that suffice to establish the extra standard required for miracle claims?
It's OK to use a cow story to make your point, but you have to identify what the cow reportedly did, which you fail to do with your "leaped over the moon" description. For an animal miracle you might use the talking ass story of Numbers 22 -- i.e., the animal spoke with a human-like voice. In which case, if we had multiple documents saying it happened and these sources were written within 100 (200) years of the alleged event, then it might have some credibility.
Of course for today the number of sources would have to be much greater than is required for 2000 or 3000 years ago. E.g., today's "Francis the Talking Mule" cannot serve as an example for comparison. So it's best to use examples from antiquity for analogies.
With your leaping cow example you're claiming only that we know the truth regardless of any evidence, such as how many sources there are -- whether only 1 or 5 (or 100?). You could try to make such a case using the 2 + 2 = 4 example: We know the truth of this regardless if 100 or 500 or 5000 sources claim 2 + 2 = 5 or 6 etc. Now you just need to find an
empirical fact (rather than a math equation) which we can be sure is true and which is contradicted by 5 (or 4 or 3) sources. But you have to do better than the "cow leaped over the moon" analogy.
(this Wall of Text to be continued)
