The non-miracle part of the Jesus miracle stories is evidence to support the miracle part. In contrast to other miracle legends.
In virtually all these cases (this one excepted) there were disciples AND NON-disciples present. And usually we must conclude (from what's implied in the text) that some of the non-disciples subsequently told others about it.
“we must…” You are funny.
Isn't that the only conclusion to draw, given what we're told in the account? I.e., assuming the general story there is true, while setting aside the particular miracle act as doubtful -- assuming that, then the only conclusion to draw is that some of those non-disciple observers later told others what happened. The text says that word of the event spread throughout the region. But it couldn't have been only the small group of disciples who spread it.
Your only objection is based on your premise that the story is not true -- not any part of it, such as who was present or that the report of it spread. You want to start out with this premise that all these miracle stories must be dismissed totally, in all details, even the non-miracle part.
But a more reasonable premise is to set aside only the particular miracle claim while considering the rest of the story in the account as true. And we do the same with all miracle claims, such as those of Joseph Smith, and then we compare these two.
You don't have to do this comparison if you don't want to, in which case you're just proclaiming your inflexibility to judge the miracle claims by any approach other than that of pronouncing all such stories as totally false, regardless of the particular content of this or that miracle story.
But if we judge the different examples of miracle claims and compare them by allowing the stories as possibly true except for the respective miracle element in each case, which is set aside as doubtful, then this general feature of the Jesus miracle stories is apparent, i.e., that in these
there were non-disciples present, including the victim healed, and some of these later went out and told others what had happened. Whereas in the JS miracle stories there were ONLY JS disciples present, including the victim healed in each case.
Yes, we
MUST conclude this if we take the stories at face value, considering them as true but setting aside the particular miracle part of it as doubtful.
What is "funny" about drawing that conclusion, given the content provided in the text in each case?
This particular account clearly implies no one was present except these disciples. Whereas most/all the other healing stories imply there were non-disciples present.
You almost get close here. You are debating what the characters of a story did outside of said story. Unfortunately, we have nothing outside the Gospels to corroborate these purported side characters.
That's true for virtually all our history.
For virtually all our known historical facts "we have nothing outside" the accounts to corroborate the purported events and characters in those accounts or sources we rely on -- for our mainline history, taught in the history books, or in the schools. Outside the sources or documents which report this history to us, "we have nothing" to corroborate it. So then, why should we expect something "outside the Gospels to corroborate" the Gospel accounts anymore than we expect this in the case of other sources for other historical events? For all of them there are only the accounts telling what happened and nothing outside the accounts to corroborate it.
How
could there be anything "outside" the accounts to corroborate what's in the accounts? Anything that could corroborate it would itself be just another account, and therefore would not be "outside" the accounts.
So your point here is incoherent.
3. Leper healed (plus many cases of "casting out the demons")
Now just who could have been able to record the below sequence? Was a stranger with him in the morning before Jesus and the disciples woke up? Or is it far more likely that this story came right from one of the purported disciples?
Mark 1:35-45 said:
In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there. 36 Simon and his companions searched for Him; 37 they found Him, and said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.” 38 He said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.” 39 And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons.
(The Mt and Lk versions omit any mention of "casting out the demons" at this point.)
The first 4 verses are not the miracle healing story. Vs 39 mentions "casting out" demons in "synagogues throughout all Galilee," which clearly implies that there were non-disciples present (though this text does not narrate a miracle event, but speaks only generally about "casting out" demons).
It's obvious that these ones healed were NON-disciples mainly. It clearly implies that Jesus is encountering a large number of people who are mostly NON-disciples, though maybe some disciples are also there.
It says "He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee . . ." Obviously most of those encountered, according to this text, were NON-disciples. Of course you can just assume the whole story is completely fiction and that no synagogues were entered and no people were encountered to be healed. But if we treat both these and the Joseph Smith miracle stories straightforwardly, believing the general description offered, the Jesus miracle stories obviously have large numbers of NON-disciples present, and non-disciple(s) being healed (or believed to be healed), whereas all the Joseph Smith stories are ones where those present were all JS disciples, including the victims healed.
40 And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and . . .
Here again, it's clearly implied that this was NOT a Jesus disciple. Maybe he subsequently became one -- It doesn't say explicitly. The idea of these stories is that Jesus encounters a great number of new people he hadn't seen before, NON-disciples, who are healed by him. Whereas in the JS miracle stories, all the ones healed were already his disciples.
. . . falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” 41 Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. 43 And He sternly warned him and immediately sent him away, 44 and He said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an extent that . . .
This is one case where it says explicitly that it was the one healed who spread the news about the healing miracle, which isn't to deny that disciples also spread the word -- it's not necessary to insist that it had to be only one or the other reporting the story. And the one healed in this case almost certainly was a NON-disciple, unlike the JS stories, where no one was present other than disciples, including the one healed. So the JS stories did not spread as a result of NON-disciples who were present going out and telling others.
(Disciples: 3; onlookers: 0)
The only logic of your scoreboard is simply that we must totally dismiss the Jesus miracle accounts as false -- period! By starting with that premise, that the stories are totally false, you then proceed to your conclusion that only disciples transmitted the stories and everyone knowing of them were disciples only who fabricated the story.
But the proper premise is to accept the accounts as true except for the specific miracle act itself, which is set aside as doubtful -- for both the Jesus miracles in the gospels, and the 19th-century Joseph Smith miracle stories. It's reasonable to accept the accounts generally, i.e., as reasonably accurate reports of what generally happened, or what the general pattern was for these reported events.
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 your scoreboard assumes the accounts are false, as to the presence of the non-disciples and that in some cases these went out and told others. You assume they did not, and yet the account says they did, or implies it. Obviously you're assuming the accounts are false when you reject this part of the account. Which part itself is not a miracle -- i.e., that a non-disciple is present and later told others what happened is not itself a miracle. But you assume it's false that these non-disciples were there and that they told others. Your "score" is based on rejecting any claim in the accounts that these non-disciples were present or ever told others what happened.
Whereas the premise of my "scoreboard" is just to accept what the accounts say, while setting aside the specific miracle event as doubtful. And by that analysis, most of the stories have non-disciples present (in significant numbers) and some of these later reported to others that a miracle had happened there. While in contrast to this, the Joseph Smith miracle stories always have only JS disciples being present.
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.
And they breathed air. ALL miracle stories have earth and air present, but not ALL miracle stories have non-disciples present, so it is significant that in the Jesus miracle stories it's reported that non-disciples were present and that in the Joseph Smith stories it's reported that only JS disciples were present. This point is not something trivial like the presence of air and ground underneath their feet.
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.
Your view is wrong if you mean the important components of the story were known only to disciples. The accounts we have say there were non-disciples present who witnessed the significant elements of the healing event. That there were other elements possibly known only to disciples is not something essential to the miracle claim. To insist that only the disciples could have known the part reported as a miracle is to presume that the account is false, because the account says the non-disciples were there and saw the essential event.
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.
I only assume that we can take the story in the account as true, and also the Joseph Smith miracle stories, on all points except the particular miracle event itself, which is set aside as doubtful. Whatever really happened -- possibly something was misinterpreted as a miracle act but was really something normal, or explainable -- in any case, we can accept the whole story as possibly true while setting aside only the specific miracle part as doubtful, and we can judge the account as to the credibility, based on the other elements of the story.
And it ought to mean something, if you can think critically, that in the JS miracle stories there were always DISCIPLES ONLY present, while in the Jesus miracle stories there were non-disciples present. You should be able to see the importance of this difference if you understand anything about human psychology and the impact of a guru on his disciples.
The gospel accounts do have those non-disciples present and in some cases have them later reporting the event to others who were not present.
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.
Also nothing outside the Gospels to suggest that disciples were passing the stories or inventing them. But the stories did circulate somehow -- the resurrection story by the 50's AD, and the healing stories before 70 AD (probably earlier, but those are the earliest dates when something appeared in writing and survived).
The Gospel accounts are our only source for these, just as the JS miracle stories, from LDS writings, are our only source for the JS miracle stories. In both cases we can accept these sources to tell us what happened and believe them for everything except the specific miracle claims which are set aside as doubtful. And what they tell us is that the Jesus miracle claims were passed on by non-disciples who were present at the reported miracle events, while the JS events were witnessed by JS disciples only, with no non-disciples being present.
The same pattern is true for the Asclepius miracle healings, which were witnessed only by the victims healed, who were always Asclepius disciples only, and by Asclepius priests. No non-disciples were present at the Asclepius healing events, according to our accounts of those reported miracles.
It's OK to believe the sources we have which report the events. A reasonable approach is to believe the sources for all the normal events, and set aside only the miracle claims per se as doubtful.
While this is clearly a possible explanation, it is hardly a fact, nor is it clearly the most likely explanation.
That the accounts we have say it makes it more likely to be true. Otherwise there is no reason to believe any historical accounts about anything, meaning we'd have no accepted historical record, because all our history is based on accounts which say this or that happened, and without this we have virtually no evidence for any historical events.
It's reasonable to believe the accounts we have as long as they are not contradicted by other accounts, and as long as we put the miracle claims into the doubtful category -- but ONLY the miracle claims, not the normal content such as who was present or who later reported the incident to others. You are arbitrarily deleting this part from the gospel accounts.
What we have are stories that weren’t put into Mark until 3 decades after claimed event . . .
Nothing was put into "Mark" before it was written. But there's reason to believe that these stories existed before the final Mark was written/compiled/edited in about 70 AD. It's clear that all the gospel writers had earlier sources for much/most of their content.
(Note: this doesn’t cover the theorized Q sourcing that could possibly have been written down, but this is something even less known). The other Gospels are even further removed.
By comparison to standard reported historical events, our sources for the Jesus events are closer than normal to the reported events. It is normal, for history 2000 years ago, for the sources to be removed by 100 years from the reported earlier events. For the sources to be closer than 50 years later is the exception. The contemporary and eye-witness accounts are extremely rare cases.
Nor does anything from the stories tell us that these non-disciples were necessarily the ones passing the tales on.
The stories clearly imply that both disciples and non-disciples were passing the stories on widely to others throughout a local region.
Your phrase "the ones passing the tales on" implies an either/or -- that it had to be either disciples or non-disciples and could not have been both. This is an arbitrary imposition of your bias into the evidence. The reasonable conclusion to draw is that both disciples and non-disciples did pass on the stories.
The stories say that non-disciples did pass the stories to others. And especially it
implies it because it says the stories spread far around in a short time, that the "fame" of Jesus spread to the surrounding region, and this could not have been due to only a few disciples in the earlier cases. And it says explicitly that the victims healed in some cases reported it to others.
Just as having Hobbits talking within the Lord of the Rings novel, doesn’t mean that Hobbits talk.
If the source saying they talked was written during the period when these events happened, it is evidence that they talked. You have to tell us when the Hobbit events happened and where, and identify the date of the source as being near to that time.
If you can't identify this, then you're making a false analogy here. This is about possible historical events and about sources for them which are dated near to the time of the events.
What none of the stories have is, the composer of a Gospel stating something to the effect of “Bob and Harry joined our commune and were gracious enough to share the following Jesus healing miracle”.
Virtually no sources for historical events 1000 - 2000 years ago do anything like this. Based on this demand for the source to name its source, you have to toss out most of our historical record for 2000 years ago. Most Roman and Greek history goes out the window. Again, you keep judging the gospel accounts by standards you do not impose onto any other sources.
That would be suggestive of an outside source. But that is not how these novelettes were written.
It's not how our general historical sources were written. Those naming their sources are the rare exception.
And even when the source is named, that doesn't make the content any more credible. E.g., the book of II Maccabees names its source, and yet that book is much less credible than I Maccabees which names no source and is anonymous.
This emergent Christian faith seemed to even have faltered in the stories originating homeland, as it grew in other parts of the Mediterranean.
It's not clear what your "faltered" word means here. But if you mean that we don't see much trace of early Christians there, after 50 or 100 AD, and if it's true that such traces are missing, one obvious explanation for this is that we see a decrease there of Judaism generally in this later period, and the early Christ cults were part of Judaism at that time, being driven away from the region just like other Jewish factions were driven away.
E.g., the several dissident sects like the Essenes decreased or disappeared after 70 AD. And the Sadducees also disappeared entirely. And the Pharisees (rabbis) declined in that region and moved to other locations. So it's not surprising if the Christ cults also declined in that region and increased in other areas of the Mediterranean.
Now this doesn’t prove that there weren’t thousands of people who saw Jesus parlor tricks, but it certainly is suggestive that little of it happened.
No it's not. The spread of the Christ cults and the accounts being copied and copied is suggestive that those events really did happen and were widely believed because of the great number of reports circulating.
The gospel accounts were copied and copied because so many people believed those events did happen, and so it was important that the record of it be preserved. The wide circulation of the accounts indicates that educated persons considered the stories credible and in a different category than miracle claims generally. Most miracle claims were not recorded and copied for future generations because miracle claims were generally rejected which were not part of the ancient pagan traditions. I.e., claims from charlatans or messiah-pretenders or would-be instant miracle-workers.
The example of Simon Magus indicates there may have been some charlatans who got into "the record book" as it were, but the extreme shortage of any accounts about them indicates that they were generally not taken seriously, whereas the Jesus in the gospel accounts was taken very seriously. The reports of his case must have been far greater in number.
It even fits with the pattern of the Yuge parlor tricks that Yahweh purportedly performed where the recalcitrant and stupid Jews quickly switched to being un-impressed. For example, after pillars of fire and smoke, parting the red sea, and many more massive magic tricks, the Jews got bored and smelted themselves a golden calf to worship as Moses was off in the mountain top for just a couple days.
What you're doing here is accepting the account given in the Bible as factual but setting aside the particular miracle claims, such as the "magic tricks" in Exodus. You're accepting that "the Jews got bored and smelted themselves a golden calf to worship as Moses was off in the mountain top for just a couple days." You grant that as really having happened, because it's not a miracle claim, but you're setting aside the miracle part as doubtful. Then you draw a conclusion from this:
How the fuck do people blow off that kind of massive magic so quickly? Ah, those bad stupid humans as the Bible suggests over and over. Or far more likely, the massive magic tricks simply never happened, which solves why the stupid Jews couldn’t stay on the right Yahweh track.
So it's a reasonable approach to accept the story as given in the account, in all the details except the particular miracle claim, which is put into the doubtful category so we can judge whether the miracle claim makes sense in comparison to the non-miracle part. And your conclusion here is that it's "far more likely" that the miracles did not happen, because that explains why the Jews did not stay with their Yahweh faith.
So, what's wrong with applying that same logic to the Jesus miracles? What's wrong with accepting the stories as true in all points other than the doubtful miracle claims, which are set aside in a different category than the normal claims, such as who was present and who reported the stories afterward, which are not miracles?
So, if there were non-disciples present, which the gospel accounts indicate and which was not a miracle, and if some of them went out and told others about it in some cases, as the accounts clearly imply happened several times, and say explicitly in 2 or 3 cases, does this fit well with the alleged miracle events or not? If Jesus actually did perform the miracle act, would the non-disciples present then go out and tell others about it?
Or, if those miracle acts did NOT happen, would non-disciples then go out and tell others about it?
The answer is obvious, and you should not be having so much difficulty understanding why this element in the story is an additional piece of evidence that the miracle acts did really happen. Just as you conclude in the Moses example that the non-miracle facts are a clue that the miracle parts of the story did not really happen. Whereas in the gospel accounts, the non-miracle part about the non-disciples being present gives support to the part about the miracle healings having happened, because this explains the surprise of the non-disciples present and why they later reported the event to others.
Now getting back to why the multitudes seemed to forget all the Jesus parlor tricks…
The evidence says the opposite. Where did the written accounts come from? Why did so many educated persons take the time and effort to write these accounts and copy and copy them for future readers? The existence of these written accounts, so soon after, in extreme contrast to any other miracle claims of the time (e.g., Simon Magus?), give an indication that the Jesus miracle acts were remembered and taken seriously and reported by many observers rather than only 1 or 2 wackos.
(this Wall of Text to be continued)
Maybe you should try taking some Imodium….
No, my problem is constipation. But prune juice every day works fine.
And if you actually added any further thoughts into your pages upon pages of repetitive and meandering blather on this subject of who passed on the miracle healing tales, I wouldn’t know, as just reading one of these text wall posts is bad enough.
On your feet, Soldier! No one promised you a life free of hardship when you took on the role of a courageous truth-seeker-debunker.
