120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Cheerful Charlie]

The resurrection tall tales are so contradictory, none of them can possibly be said to be true or eyewitnessed accounts. So we can reject the heart of the gospels. But if the most important claims are not trustworthy, we can then reject the whole as not trustworthy.

The remarkable claims such as resurrection of saints after the crucifixion would have left quite a mark in history as this remarkable occurrence was related by sober writers. As these resurrected saints told their tales. as the resulting legal claims were argued. If a man died and his wife remarried, and he was resurrected, whose wife was she? If this sort of thing occurred, we would have a lot of legal opinion from that time debating the issue. What happens to that resurrectee's property? Does he regain any property he had owned in life?

Since we have nothing of this sort which MUST have been reported from that time by trustworthy writers of that time, we can disregard it totally as a tall tale. and thus the entire corpus of gospel miracles can be rejected as not trustworthy.

 

[Lion IRC]

(continued from previous Walls of Text)




How close is "close"?

Discussing such a large volume of literature as "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels" would require extensive Walls of Text beyond these, but the following and earlier spews on the lpetrich links will hopefully get it closer to such a discussion.




No such works "considered fictional" are described in these links, because the description given in them fits 90% (95%) of the ancient writers, and it's not true that so many of the ancient writings are "fictional."

There's nothing about the Gospels which puts them into a special "fictional" category or makes them less credible as sources than most other ancient writings. All the ancient writings, including the most "historical" ones, contain both fact and fiction, and so it's always appropriate to read them with skepticism, even the ones we rely on most for our known historical facts. The Gospels are reliable as sources for the events just as most of the ancient writings are, with none of them being totally reliable.

And the "various works from antiquity" cited here as being "in common" with the Gospels all lack a very basic feature the Gospels have and thus disqualify them to be compared to the Gospels: they were all written centuries after the historical events which are their subject matter, making them far less reliable as sources for historical events, whereas the Gospels were written 40-70 years later than the reported events, which is a normal time space between the date of the events and the date of the written record we rely on for historical events 1000-2000 years ago.

These "works from antiquity" have "in common" only this one feature: they are not Thucydides and 1 or 2 other "historians" like him who followed strict critical standards not followed by 99% of the ancient writers.

Even most recognized "historians" (Josephus, Herodotus, and others) belong more correctly in Ferguson's "fictional" category based on his descriptions here, because they mostly do not follow his prescribed strict standards for "historical" works. It's not true that they are "considered fictional" because they are not Thucydides, as lpetrich implies using Ferguson as his authority. An ancient writing does not have to follow the same strict standards of Thucydides or mainline "historians" in order to be credible as a source for historical events.

It is simplistic to say that all the ancient writings are either Thucydides (and a couple other "historians" like him) or they are fiction, as falsely implied here by Ferguson/lpetrich.

There are far more categories of ancient literature than only "historical" and "biographical" and "fiction" -- the Gospels and most other ancient literature do not fit neatly into any of these 3 categories, and any scheme to relegate all writings to only these three categories, as Ferguson/lpetrich pretend to do here, is pseudo-scholarly, by putting 90% of the ancient writings into the "fictional" category, which they are not.

Almost all the ancient writings are non-"historical" in the strict sense, but many contain both history as well as fiction and are reliable sources for historical events they cover even though not being in the strict "historical" category. Whether a document is in the "historical" category of literature does not tell us if something in it is fact or fiction. The notion that it can somehow be categorized into this or that "genre" and thus pronounced as "fiction" is simplistic dogmatism based on ideology rather than scholarship. Genuine scholarship considers each part of the document, or the claims in it, and tries to judge the credibility of each, and admits that in the doubtful cases we just don't know. The doubt is not resolved by simplistically assigning the document to the "fictional" or "historical" category, as Ferguson would have it.

Though you might reasonably judge this or that document to be more "historical" or "fictional" or "biographical" than another, you can't conclude this by simplistically categorizing it into this "genre" or that, and then judging its content to be fact or fiction based on this categorization, as Ferguson pretends to do. Virtually all the ancient writings contained both fact and fiction and so cannot be neatly classified or this or that part judged as fact or fiction based simplistically on how the document is categorized.

Here are some links on . . .
Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament | Κέλσος
The Certamen of Homer and Hesiod and the Gospels: Some Comparanda | Κέλσος
Lawrence Wills: “The Life of Aesop and the Hero Cult Paradigm in the Gospel Tradition” | Κέλσος
Are the Gospels Ancient Biographies?: The Spectrum of Ancient Βίοι | Κέλσος
Greek Popular Biography: Romance, Contest, Gospel | Κέλσος
Patterns of Myth-Making Between the Lives of Alexander the Great and Jesus Christ | Κέλσος
 Ancient Greek novel

There is no ancient literature in these links showing any similarity of the Gospels to fictional writings, other than similarities to Cicero and Pliny the Younger and most other ancient authors who are credible sources even though they are not in the "historical" category.

the bottom line: The Gospel accounts are evidence (not proof) that the miracle acts of Jesus were real historical events, meaning that it's reasonable to believe these particular miracle claims, or that these were real events, even though there is doubt. Doubt does not cancel belief. The evidence for them is the same kind of evidence we rely on for normal historical events, most of which also involves doubt, and the evidence is not negated by placing these writings into some category or "genre" arbitrarily labeled as "fiction" or dismissed as a non-"historical" category .

The degree of evidence varies for different events, so there is more evidence for some events than for others. Most historical "facts" are not established fact proved with certainty (supported by overwhelming evidence) but still are probably true because of adequate evidence -- i.e., it's reasonable to believe them, though there is doubt. There's plenty of doubt about many normal accepted historical facts -- classifying a document into a "historical" or "fiction" or other category does not address these doubts about the claims made in the document, or negate the evidence in it.

This includes the reported miracle acts of Jesus in the Gospels, which are within the category of reported events for which there is evidence, though not proof, like many historical events which are believed because of some evidence. It's reasonable to believe it based on such evidence, though there is still doubt.

It's incorrect to say there is no evidence for the Jesus miracle acts (though it is correct for other miracle claims of antiquity). As with reported normal facts (non-miracle claims), there are varying degrees of evidence, so, when there's more evidence, as in the case of the Jesus miracle acts, the likelihood of it being true is greater.

The above Ferguson links pretend that there are other works of ancient literature, known to be fiction, which are similar to the Gospel accounts, and that the Jesus miracle acts reported in the Gospels are in the same category as these works, thus making them fiction. However, the examples he offers are not really in the same category as the Gospel accounts because they are dissimilar.

lpetrich's summary points of the above links are refuted in

discussion of modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels.

The main points in the first link/Wall-of-Text above (minus the notes) are refuted in these earlier Walls-of-Text:

ten relevant areas of distinction that are helpful for understanding how historical writing is different. . . . 1. Discussion of Methodology and Sources

ten relevant areas . . . 2. Internally Addressed and Analyzed Contradictions among Traditions

ten relevant areas . . . 3. Authorial Presence in the Narrative

ten relevant areas . . . 4. Education Level of the Audience

ten relevant areas . . . 5. Hagiography versus Biography

ten relevant areas . . . 6. Signposts about Authorial Speculation

ten relevant areas . . . 7. A Greater Degree of Authorial License

ten relevant areas . . . 8. Independence versus Interdependence

ten relevant areas . . . 9. Miracles at the Fringe versus the Core of the Narrative

ten relevant areas . . . 10. Important Characters and Events Do Not Disappear from the Narrative

11. Even Good Historical Texts Should Not Always Be Trusted

The above posts cover the first link except the notes. The following Text Walls address the important points in the notes. These are 80% repetitions of Ferguson's classifying obsession ("historical" and "biographical" and "novelistic" and "fictional" and other "genre" jingoism) and his repeated comparison of the Gospels to the Alexander and Aesop romance literature, which constitutes most of what lpetrich calls "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels."

[1] For the purposes of this article, the term “historical writing” can refer to both ancient historiography and historical biography. To be sure, historiography and biography were not the same genre in antiquity, as the former was based on the history of a broader period or event, while the latter was based on the life of an individual. Nevertheless, the two can both be sufficiently described as “historical writing,” especially since many of the narrative conventions between the two are similar. Plutarch in his Parallel Lives, for example, compares his source material and makes historical judgements in a manner very similar to Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his Roman Antiquities, even if Plutarch wrote historical biographies while Dionysius wrote a Roman history.

The Gospel writings, along with 90% of the ancient literature, are in neither the "historical" or the "biographical" category. But it's not therefore "fictional" -- as though only these 3 categories exist, as Ferguson implies. There are probably several dozen distinct categories, and it is pseudo-scholarly to put the Gospels into a "fiction" category simply because they do not fit the above Plutarch-Dionysius categories.

The Gospel accounts cannot be compared to the above, as if somehow they are not credible unless they follow the same standards as these. The Gospels are much shorter and never claimed to be "historical" writings. They can be credible, just like Cicero and Pliny the Younger and many others are credible, even though they are not in the strict "historical" category (which is also tainted with some fiction) and contain fiction along with fact and do not follow the strict standards of the mainline historians.


Are the Gospels in the "BIOGRAPHICAL" category?

The best answer to this is NO.

But rather than insist on this and condemn every effort to attach the "biographical" label to the Gospels, the right approach is to

Get beyond the categorizing or classifying or "genre" obsession, and instead identify certain specific works of ancient literature which are similar to the Gospels and legitimate as comparisons to them. Name the particular literary work and let's compare them. This is what Ferguson has NOT done. He has NOT given examples which are comparable to the Gospels. Rather, his examples are significantly different and cannot be used as some kind of standard for judging the credibility of the Gospel accounts. He appears unable to offer a genuine example for comparison, offering instead only the Alexander Romance and the Life of Aesop, but these are significantly different than the Gospels and thus not in the same category.

It should be noted, however, that not all Greco-Roman biographies in antiquity were historical biographies–of the sort of Plutarch and Suetonius–since there were also many less critical biographical texts–such as the Alexander Romance and the Life of Aesop–which would include far more novelistic and mythical elements.

Constantly hammering home buzz-words like "novelistic" and "mythical" means nothing if the literature in question is not in the same category as the Gospels, as these are not.

It's not the "biographical" element which is significant, but the dating or chronology of the literature relative to the events reported in them. To compare any ancient literature to the Gospels, as a "genre" or category, that literature must meet the following criteria:

What "GENRE" of ancient literature do the Gospels really belong to?

1) A document of this "genre" presents events, reported as factual (whether they really are fact or not) or narrated likewise as events which really happened, and which are placed into a historical setting, into the events of that time and location, despite whether intermixed with fictional or religious or propaganda elements.

2) The document was written near to the time of the historical events in question, not several centuries later.

3) The document is short, by comparison to mainline historical writings, and focused on one particular event as special, rather than a broad view of the history.

The Alexander Romance and the Life of Aesop don't fit the above 2) and 3) descriptions and so are not in this category, because these were not written near to the historical time of the reported events which are their subject matter, and they are not focused on one particular event but on the broad history of the period.

The Gospels are about a particular historical event happening 40-70 years before the date these were written. Whereas the Alexander Romance and Life of Aesop (or Aesop Romance) writings, which are biographical, date from several centuries later than the time of the reported historical persons.

Also, the Gospels are different because they focus on one very limited event only, covering 3 years at the most, and possibly less than one year of the life of Jesus. Thus they are not biographical like the Alexander and Aesop romances.

Alternatively, you might claim there's a "biographical" category which concentrates on a short time period, like the Gospels. But then for the comparison you must find a similar ancient biographical writing which focuses on a short time in the historical person's life, unlike the Alexander and Aesop romances.

A typical "biography" which covers the entirety of the character's life is not in the same category as the Gospels, even if the latter are categorized as "biographical," because these cover only a short space of the life of Jesus, not his entire life. The birth stories are missing from John and Mark and are not basically part of these writings. And, even if these are jammed in as part of this "biographical" writing, they add only a short space of time to it, while the entire "biography" still omits more than 90% of his life. So these are not in the same category as a "biography" which relates the whole life of the historical character.


Are the Gospels in the "Biography" category, like the Alexander Romance? Are these in the same "genre"?

Here is an online text of the Alexander Romance: http://www.attalus.org/info/alexander.html

Ferguson cites this repeatedly as some kind of parallel or same "genre" along with the Gospel accounts. The truth is that this "biography" is mostly factual, while containing some fiction, so it hardly proves anything to cite it as a "fiction" example. Virtually every ancient writing was a mixture of fact and fiction.

There is really nothing in it analogous to the miracle acts of Jesus in the Gospels. Possibly some of the spectacular battle victories might be described as superhuman feats by Alexander, and yet there are surely other battle scenes in the literature where one army seems to have the gods on their side and destroys a larger enemy force and maybe is favored by weather conditions or by a lightning bolt from Zeus or Whatever to strike down the enemy.

Are the Gospel writings in this same category with the battlefield miracles and omens and portents? We see a bit of this in Josephus and Herodotus, where battles are reported. The most bizarre scenes in the Alexander stories have some weird freakish creatures popping up, some human, having no heads or other parts, or having extra parts, extra legs, etc. This is comparable to something in the Gospels? One has to be pretty sick to think this kind of mindset is the same as that which drove the Gospel writers in their description of Jesus performing the miracle acts.

There's nothing in this "novel" or "biography" a sane person could say provides any resemblance to the Jesus miracle-worker described in the Gospel accounts. That someone would be so desperate to find a Jesus counterpart in the literature as to drag up something like this really tells us more about the mindset of the debunker than about the origin of the Gospel accounts and Jesus miracle claims.

It's mostly the late date of these accounts which forces us to place them in the likely-fiction category. Except for that, there's no reason to reject them as fiction, other than to discount the bizarre elements and exaggerations. So even if these romance writings were in the same category as the Gospel accounts, it still doesn't tell us that the Gospel accounts are fiction. We can set aside some dubious parts in the Gospels without thereby consigning them to the "fiction" category in general. And since the miracle stories are attested to in all four accounts, they have the extra weight of evidence, with multiple sources instead of only one.

On this point, see my essay “Greek Popular Biography: Romance, Contest, Gospel,” in addition to my essay “Are the Gospels Ancient Biographies?: The Spectrum of . . .

It's pointless to get bogged down on whether they are "biographies" -- even if you insist on calling them "biographical" in some sense, they are a totally different kind of "biography" than these examples Ferguson compares them to. Much more pertinent to the question of the credibility is the proximity of the writings to the historical period written about.

Ferguson's point is his obsession with categorizing the Gospels as something pretending to be "historical" or "biographical" but not in line with Thucydides or Suetonius/Plutarch and then concluding from this that they must be "fiction" and thus unreliable as sources for the reported events. But that they are not properly "historical" or "biographical" does not put them into a "fiction" or non-credible category anymore than it puts Cicero and Pliny the Younger into such a category.

We must get beyond this obsession with simplistically categorizing the document and pretending that your categorizing it then determines its credibility as a source for historical events. There are many writings not in the "historical" or "biographical" categories (actually the vast majority are not in either category), and yet they are generally reliable sources for the historical events and cannot be discarded into a convenient "fictional" category.

Ferguson's ideological impulse to put the Gospel writings into this forbidden taboo category is not sufficient reason to discard them as unreliable sources for the historical facts. We need more than just an impulse or dogmatic obsession to condemn them out of a hatred for their content in order to judge that the reported events have to be fiction.

What would we say of a scholar who hates Cicero and so condemns everything in Cicero as "fiction" because Cicero is not classified as a "historical" writer? Would this scholar's hate for Cicero require us to reject everything in Cicero as "fiction" because he proves that Cicero was not a strict "historian" like Thucydides? or "biographer" like Suetonius?

Such a mindless crusade of hate against certain writings is not a legitimate reason to reject them as "fictional" and unreliable as sources for the events they report.

Of course writings are criticized for real mistakes or discrepancies or flaws in them, but you cannot judge the fact vs. fiction based on simplistic CATEGORIZING, imposing a scheme of "historical" and "biographical" and "fictional" as the only "genres" of literature, and then trashing the Gospels (and 90% of all the ancient literature) into the "novelistic" or "fiction" category and pretending that such categorizing is "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels." It's no such thing.

This categorizing impulse is not a legitimate critique for condemning the Gospels or any other writings as "fictional" or deficient as a source for historical events 2000 years ago.

It's one thing to praise Thucydides and some others for their extra zeal to investigate and be more critical, but it's moronic to imply that others not following the same strict rules have no credibility and that all our history must be based on only a tiny elitist class of historical writings like those of Thucydides.

[3] The comparison of the Gospels and Acts (along with other early Christian and Jewish literature) to the ancient novel has been made by . . .

But this is false comparison, because the Acts and the Gospels and other Christian and Jewish literature cannot all be pounded into the same category like this. These are different categories, not all the same.

The Acts is more properly in a different category than the Gospels, because it covers a much wider time span than the Gospels which are limited to a space of 3 years or less.

You cannot lump all the New Testament books together into the same literature type simply because they were combined into this collection, or canon, by the Church, or simply because they're all "Christian" in belief. E.g., the Apocalypse of St. John is a different type and the epistles are a different type than the Gospels.

And the term "the ancient novel" is sloppy language presuming to include a wide variety of works which are not done justice by this categorizing. Comparing anything to "the ancient novel" -- especially all the "early Christian and Jewish literature" -- and other such language is pretense, not scholarship. These Ferguson Walls-of-Text links are filled with this kind of phony non-specific jingoism, to give the false impression of something scientific or scholarly taking place. There is no agreed meaning of "the ancient novel" established by scholars and denoting a list of works agreed by all and agreeing which ones are excluded from the list.

The comparison of the Gospels and Acts (along with other early Christian and Jewish literature) to the ancient novel has been made by several NT scholars, including Ronald Hock (ed.) in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, Jo-Ann Brant (ed.) in Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative, Marília Pinheiro (ed.) in The Ancient Novel and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative: Fictional Intersections, and Richard Pervo in Profit With Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles.

This false comparison, and the phony categorizing and jargon ("the ancient novel" etc.), is not made legitimate by running out a long list of titles and authors, which is 90% of Ferguson's presentation, without giving any example of an ancient document in the "fiction" category and similar to the Gospels.

Ferguson cannot be taken seriously until he gets beyond this artificial categorizing and jingoism and instead names particular examples of the literature which are the same category as the Gospels, or gets beyond the 2 or 3 examples he falsely names as being in this category.

Michael Vines has also compared the Gospel of Mark specifically with the genre of the Jewish novel in The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel.

The term "the genre of the Jewish novel" is more phony jargon. Is the Book of Genesis in this category? The Book of Ruth? I and II Chronicles? I Maccabees? stories in the Talmud, like Honi the Circle-Drawer and others? The Wisdom of Sirach? Philo's In Flaccum? Daniel? David & Goliath? There is no general agreement which are in "the Jewish novel" category and which are not. And much of the Jewish literature is history, not fiction, despite the dishonest term "novel" and other jargon used to disparage the writings into a fictional category and thus to be dismissed as of no historical credibility.

There is a premise here that you can prove your point by running out the longest list of titles, especially containing buzz-words like "novel" and "fictional" and so on. Also the word "genre" sounds very high-class and impressive, but it's pretense, not fact or objective analysis of the literature. For a real analysis you need more than just the jingo and a long fancy list of names and titles and credentials of supposed expert-authority figures.

Instead of the jingoism, what Ferguson needs to offer us is an example of an ancient writing which is similar to the Gospels. He has no point if he can't give us one legitimate example. His only examples so far are not acceptable because they were written several centuries later than the time of the events in question.

Nevermind abstractions like "the ancient novel" or "the Jewish novel" etc. -- rather, name an ancient novel to be compared to the Gospels. Give us a concrete example for comparison, and let's do the comparison and judge whether certain stories in it are fact or fiction, and likewise the reported events in the Gospel accounts.

But Ferguson's repeated categorizing and jingoism and long lists of titles and names of expert scholar-authority figures is a smokescreen to hide this important reality: in the case of the Jesus miracle acts we have real evidence, from historical documents of the time, which we do not have with other miracle claims from antiquity. This evidence is not refuted by the pretentious categorizing jingo and long lists of names and titles, phony terms like "the ancient novel" or "the Jewish novel" etc., or by comparison to ancient writings that are dissimilar to the Gospels.

Yep

 

[Lion IRC]

How close is "close"?

Discussing such a large volume of literature as "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels" would require extensive Walls of Text beyond these, but the following and earlier spews on the lpetrich links will hopefully get it closer to such a discussion.




Resuming the notes to this link:

The comparison of the Gospels to the ancient novel is often contrasted with the comparison to Greco-Roman biographies. The Gospels have been compared to Greco-Roman biographies by Richard Burridge in What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography and Dirk Frickenschmidt in Evangelium als Biographie: die vier Evangelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst.

This is all the Ferguson links are -- nothing but jingo and titles of works containing the same jingo, but no concrete examples of ancient literature similar to the Gospels, and no arguments why the miracle stories must be fiction.

Again and again Ferguson is caught up in the categorizing. He pretends to prove the Gospels are "fiction" by proving that they are pseudo-biographies (not Real-McCoy "biographies") -- when this actually does not matter if he can't offer us one ancient example of another pseudo-biography or "fiction" writing comparable to the Gospel accounts. There are other categories of literature than these three he's obsessed with.

The Gospels are about a very specific event, which happened at around 30 AD, over a period of 3 years maximum (probably less), so they are not "historical" and probably not "biographical" either. So find something they really are comparable to. Find something about a limited event, covering a short time span rather than that of a person's entire life, and something written less than 100 years from the time of that event.

There are such examples.

It should be noted, however, that there was a great diversity of biographical literature in antiquity, which means that not all Greco-Roman biographies are similar in terms of their style and methodology. As Tomas Hägg (The Art of Biography in Antiquity, pg. 155) argues, regarding Burridge’s study (which compares the Gospels to a canon of ten ancient biographical texts) . . .

No one can seriously compare the Gospel accounts to these "biographical" writings of Xenophon or Plato (on Socrates) or Sophocles or Isocrates and others referred to here. No one seriously suggests that the Gospels are "biographical" in the same sense as these authors who wrote about famous celebrities who had long careers and wide influence and status during their lives.

Even if we suppose that Socrates was similar to Jesus in some sense, as if such a comparison is plausible, an obvious major difference here which makes the comparison impossible is that Plato and Xenophon never depict Socrates as a miracle-worker or a "messiah" or "Son of God" or "the Logos" and other such titles.

Why is Socrates never portrayed as doing miracles? Maybe it's because he didn't do any such acts -- whereas Jesus is described as doing such acts because he actually did them. So there's the main difference.

You can't summarily rule out that possibility and call yourself a true skeptic.

Or, if you prefer, there were claims that Jesus did such acts, and the writers believed it, whereas there were no such claims about Socrates. Even if the two great Teachers are similar in many ways, one of them did something the other did not, and so the reports about them are different on this major point.

So, even if Socrates in Plato and Xenophon is similar to Jesus in the Gospels (which he's really not, for various reasons), the "ten" texts referred to are of a totally different category than the Gospels belong to and can have no relevance to anything about the credibility of the Gospel accounts.

. . . Burridge’s study (which compares the Gospels to a canon of ten ancient biographical texts):

There is a great diversity within each of the two groups, the four gospels and the ten ancient biographies; and it is this very diversity, we should note, that makes it possible always to find a parallel in one or several of the ten Lives for each feature occurring in one or more of the gospels. What is proven is that the investigated features of the gospels are not unique in ancient biographical literature;

So there's other "biographical" literature having the same features as the gospels? OK then, lets have it. Name an example. It has to

1--describe its historical character as a miracle-worker who

2--lived less than 100 (200) years earlier than the biographer/writer and who

3--had no wide fame or celebrity status during his lifetime. So give us an example of such a "biography" for comparison to the gospel accounts. And it also should be one which

4--focuses on a short period of the historical character's life rather than his whole life.

Even a "biography" having 2 of the above 4 features might be close to a legitimate comparison. And yet Ferguson's examples have none of the above features to make them comparable to the Gospel accounts. The above 4 features are important characteristics of the Gospels as literature -- to present us with something lacking all 4 and pretending they are analogous or comparable to the Gospels is irresponsible and pseudo-scholarly.

Ferguson's only examples are NOT similar to the Gospels. He persistently gives no serious examples, but just keeps repeating the jingo over and over, and keeps repeating the dissimilar examples of the Alexander and Aesop romances, apparently because he can find no others.

but no control group is established to show which features may be regarded as significantly typical of this literature.

This article does not dispute the comparison of the Gospels to Greco-Roman biographies, due to the fact that there were many novelistic biographies in antiquity–such as the Alexander Romance and the Life of Aesop—which overlapped with both the ancient novel and the Greco-Roman bios. Because of this, the Gospels can still be categorized as novelistic writing while still having biographical elements.

The categorizing is phony unless an example of another such writing in the same category is offered for comparison. Ferguson offers none -- The Alexander and Aesop romances are a separate category, i.e., works written centuries later than the historical period of the reported events (whether these are fact or fiction).

Is it true that "there were many novelistic biographies" in antiquity? Then stop the phony repetition over and over of only the Alexander and Aesop romances. These are dissimilar to the Gospels -- give us an example of a "novelistic biography" which is truly in the same category as the Gospel writings, if there are "many" such examples.

Note the constant "novelistic" and "biographical" jingo, and no example of any document similar to the Gospels for comparison -- only the same repetition of the Alexander and Aesop romances, because he can't name any others.

The Burridge study may be an honest attempt to classify the Gospels into the "biographical" category, but it's a needless exercise, which can easily be avoided by recognizing separate "biographical" categories, and then using for comparison a "biography" of the same category as the Gospels, which Ferguson fails to do with his Alexander Romance and Life of Aesop examples, which are false comparisons to the Gospels, as has been shown.

Until a true comparison to the Gospels is offered, all comparisons are false and explain nothing about whether the miracle stories in the Gospels are fact or fiction. We can look at the individual reported events in the Gospels and conclude that there are elements of both fact and fiction, and we can try to separate these. And when we do this, no reason is found for judging the Jesus miracle acts as fiction or putting the Gospels into this or that abstract category. If they really have to go into some such "fictional" category, then give us a real example of something in that category which is similar to the Gospels.

Failing to do this, Ferguson is really offering no scholarship on the fact vs. fiction, but is only falling back on the worn-out ideological doctrine that ALL miracle claims have to be fiction, which is not scholarship or science or logic or history, but just ideology. Ferguson offers nothing from the evidence to move beyond just that ideological premise or fallback dogma of denying any possibility of miracle events, which of course any fanatic debunker crusader can offer without all the pretense that it's based on "scholarship" or the latest findings on "the origins of the gospels."

In fact, the genre of the Gospels has been compared to the novelistic Life of Aesop by Lawrence Wills in “The Life of Aesop and the Hero Cult Paradigm in the Gospel Tradition” . . . as well as Whitney Shiner in “Creating Plot in Episodic Narratives: The Life of Aesop and the Gospel of Mark” . . .

Still no substance, but only pretense and laundry lists of titles and authors offering nothing but the same jargon. The Aesop romance is not in the same category as the Gospels but was written several centuries later than the historical period of the reported events. It's very important how much separation there is between the event reported and the date of the writing which reports it.

That Ferguson can do nothing but just keep repeating the Alexander and Aesop examples indicates that there are no ancient fictional works comparable to the Gospels, meaning these must be in a unique one-of-a-kind category -- or, there are works comparable to them which are NON-fiction, which Ferguson cannot admit without choking on his ideological premise that the miracle stories must be fiction.

I have also made a similar comparison to another ancient novelistic biography–The Certamen of Homer and Hesiod–in my essay “The Certamen of Homer and Hesiod and the Gospels: Some Comparanda.”

Same thing, same fallacy. Again, this is written much later than the alleged event, at least 400 years. The reported event is an encounter between Homer and Hesiod and so would have happened around 700 BC (though this obviously was not intended by the author as a real event).

The known Certamen documents are 2nd century AD, about 800 years later ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_of_Homer_and_Hesiod ) but with a few earlier fragments showing some of the story dating to around 200 BC, or about 500 years after Homer and Hesiod.

In any case, we have written reports of the Jesus miracles in documents 40-70 years from the reported events, and for the Jesus resurrection as early as 25 years later (I Corinthians 15), so these reported events are not in the same category as the Homer-Hesiod Certamen, just as they are not in the same category as the Alexander and Aesop romances.

Why can't Ferguson find one example of such literature written near to the time of the reported events? Why do his examples always have to be something written several centuries later?

He says above that "there were many novelistic biographies in antiquity" -- OK fine, so there must be far more examples than the Alexander and Aesop romances which he keeps mentioning over and over again. So what's the problem with giving us an example which is in the same category as the Gospels? i.e., an example of a "romance" or "novella" or "biography" written near to the historical period of the reported events or reported historical character?

In the above notes and the remaining links he keeps repeating these two examples over and over, and also the Homer-Hesiod Certamen. Why is this? Why does he keep repeating and repeating endlessly, in Walls of Text 10 times longer than any of my posts, these same titles, when there are so many other examples, he claims, and yet the only ones he cites are NOT in the same category as the Gospel accounts?

Even if you mistakenly think a document written 500 years later than the reported events is the same type as one written only 50 years after the events, still you have to wonder why he can give NO EXAMPLE of another "fictional" or "novelistic" or "biographical"-type document written less than 100 years after the period of the reported event (or even 200, or 300 years after).

For the purposes of this article, therefore, I classify the Gospels as novelistic biographies distinct from historical biographies, . . .

"classify" -- "genre" -- "novelistic" -- "biographies" -- "historical" etc. -- more and more "genre" jingo. Again the obsession with categorizing and jingoism. Regardless whether they are biographies or "novelistic" or "historical" biographies, etc. etc., the Gospels are not in any category of writing about earlier events unless those writings are dated close to the time of the earlier reported events. Either find a category they really belong to, or put them in a unique one-of-a-kind category, and stop pretending you prove something by putting them into some category they don't belong to.

There is nothing wrong with a one-of-a-kind category. There are probably dozens of such categories. Not all literature has to go into a "genre" having many other examples of the same type. Why can't some of them be in a singular unique category with no other examples of the same kind? What do you prove by force-jamming them into a "fictional" category they don't belong to, other than to get an orgasm at being able to put that "fiction" label on them to score some debunking points and win disciples to your crusade? This is not "scholarship" and proves nothing about whether the reported Jesus miracle acts are fact or fiction.

It matters what the date of the document is.

2000 years ago it was normal for historical events to be reported in documents 50-100 years later than the event happened. That is reasonably close as a credible source for the reported event. But 400 or 500 years is too long, and hardly any of our reliable historical facts are from a source that far removed. As an example for comparison, we're entitled to something written less than 100 years after the reported event. Or certainly less than 200 years, to be generous.

There is something very suspicious about a scholar continuing to give us examples for comparison where the source always has to be 400 years or more removed from the events reported. Isn't it strange that he cannot supply us with at least ONE example of a source closer to the reported event than this? The Gospels are an example. Is there any other example or not? Why is there nothing closer than 100 or 200 years?

. . . which allows for the Gospels to make use of many biographical conventions, while still lacking critical and historical inquiry.

Of course, like 98% of all the ancient documents are lacking critical and historical inquiry. I.e., they are not Thucydides and Suetonius and Plutarch. But they are Cicero and Pliny the Younger and Philo the Alexandrian and many other non-"historians" who are reliable sources for the historical events.

Ferguson seemingly cannot perform the legitimate task of coming up with one example of any ancient literature comparable to the Gospel accounts. So instead of this, and instead of concluding that these must be in a NON-fiction category, or in a unique one-of-kind category, he illegitimately obsesses on their not being the "critical and historical" type of Thucydides etc., and so thrusts them into the "fictional" category, which makes no sense because 98% of all the ancient literature would also have to go into this category, which is nonsense.

^this^

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Do the Gospels belong in a "GENRE" of literature which makes them necessarily "FICTION"?

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

I'm not impressed by Lumpenproletariat's spews. I haven't seen in them anything close to a discussion of modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels.

How close is "close"?

Discussing such a large volume of literature as "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels" would require extensive Walls of Text beyond these, but the following and earlier spews on the lpetrich links will hopefully get it closer to such a discussion.

Here are some links on what the Gospels have in common with various works from antiquity nowadays considered fictional.

Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament | Κέλσος . . .

Resuming notes to the 1st link:

[4] For problems relating to the authorship of John, including discussion of the anonymous “beloved disciple” in Jn. 21:24-25, see my article “Why Scholars Doubt the Traditional Authors of the Gospels,” . . .

It's reasonable to believe the Gospel accounts generally without needing to believe every tradition about who wrote John or the other Gospels. Christ belief, or believing the Gospels generally, does not include a requirement to identify who each Gospel author was, or to subscribe to this or that ancient tradition about authorship.

[5] When ancient historical authors do not cite or discuss their sources at the beginning of their works, they frequently cite and discuss them elsewhere in the text.

Or they exclude them altogether. And yet those authors are still credible for the reported facts, even if they are our only source and fail to give us their source. There is no purpose served in pounding away on whether the authors include discussion of the sources, which some authors do and some do not. And the vast majority of the ancient authors do not -- i.e., legitimate writers we can believe, non-"historians" in the strict sense but also some "historians" who exclude sources most of the time. That doesn't disqualify them as legitimate sources for the historical facts.

For example, Plutarch’s Life of Alexander does not [include] a list of sources at the beginning of the biography; however, as J. Powell in “The Sources of Plutarch’s Alexander” (pg. 229) explains, “Plutarch cites by name no fewer than twenty-four authorities” elsewhere in the text. Furthermore, Plutarch also cites named authorities in his other biographies. As Maria Schettino (“The Use of Historical Sources,” pg. 417) explains, “In the Lives, Plutarch cites a large number of historians, around 135, of which one hundred write in Greek.” Nevertheless, none of the NT Gospels cite any of their written sources by name, . . .

Nor do most of the ancient writers who mention historical events. Not all the ancient writers had to do the same as Plutarch in order to be credible sources. They mostly did not. This specialized "historical" category is limited to a small fraction of all the ancient writers who reported events. Even most of the "historians" usually give no source for particular facts, even if they offer them in a few cases or cite general sources. For any specific fact there is usually no source given.

The sources given by "historians" are usually established authorities with a reputation, so it is a mark of distinction for the author to name them, enhancing his own status and recognition by connecting himself to this authority. But the events in the Gospel accounts did not originate from anyone of status, so there was no motive for naming particular persons as the sources, as these persons were unknowns.

. . . besides books of the Old Testament, . . .

The OT books were recognized authorities for readers of the Gospels, so it's easily explained why they are quoted so much. But the sources for the 1st-century Jesus events were not recognized authorities and so are not cited by the Gospel writers. Citing sources serves little purpose if those sources are unknown persons of no status. The earliest sources/witnesses for the Jesus miracle acts were unknowns, but that doesn't cancel the credibility of the reports. What is significant is that we have 4 (5) sources for these events, making them more credible, with greater attestation than many accepted historical facts.

. . . books of the Old Testament, which are literary and not historical sources.

They're both, but more importantly, they were recognized as authoritative, which is why the Gospel writers quote from them -- not for the reported facts, but just to gain recognition from the readers. The Gospel writers didn't give any sources for their reported facts (the Jesus events), like most ancient writers did not, and there's no reason we should expect them to do something that was not the norm for writers, even though "historical" writers deviated from the norm by sometimes giving their sources.

Likewise, even when ancient historians do not identify many of their written sources by name, they often discuss their sources anonymously. For example, the historian Tacitus identifies few of his written sources by name in his Annals, with the notable exception of Pliny the Elder in Ann. 1.67; however, Tacitus still engages many of his written sources anonymously in ways that are atypical of the canonical Gospels.

And also atypical of most of the ancient writers, who are still legitimate sources for the historical events they report. The Gospel writers are in the mainstream of the ancient writers in not discussing the sources. It is dishonest to imply that the Gospel writers are peculiar in not discussing the sources. They are the norm. Most ancient writers who mention historical events did not discuss their sources. Tacitus usually does not identify them or discuss them. But in his many hundreds of pages he devotes some limited space to this -- unlike the Gospels and most ancient writings which did not.

For example, Tacitus uses formulas like quidam tradidere (“some have related,” Ann. 1.13), diversa apud auctores (“conflicting accounts among historians,” Ann. 1.81), and secutus plurimos auctorum (“having followed the accounts of most historians,” Ann. 4.57). In Tacitus’ Histories, as well, the author cites several contradicting opinions, about events which had taken place only 30 years prior to the text’s composition (c. 109 CE).

Even though he doesn't name these sources, still he identifies them as "historians" or established authors and thus persons of status. But the sources for the Jesus events were not established authors or "historians" having recognized status, and so they are not mentioned, and it's nutty to imply that they should have been mentioned.

Most of the ancient writers never engage in such technical criticism or in comparing different conflicting sources. That some "historians" did this does not mean that therefore ALL ancient writings must contain such critical analysis in order to be a reliable source for the reported facts. The vast majority do not contain such analysis. Even most of the "historians" do not do such analysis at many/most points when they could have. So the Gospels are within the mainstream of ancient writings, most of which are reliable sources for historical events, though not in the strict "historical" category.

As Classicist Clarence Mendell (Tacitus: The Man And His Work, pg. 201) explains:

In the Histories there are sixty-eight instances in which Tacitus indicates either a recorded statement or a belief on someone’s part with regard to something which he himself is unwilling to assert as a fact; in other words, he cites divergent authority for some fact or motive. Such methodological statements are virtually absent from the canonical Gospels, . . .

And from virtually all the ancient writings.

In these cases Tacitus cited the sources because he was uncertain of the particular facts. But the Gospel writers, by comparison, were certain of the Jesus miracle acts, and so had no need to leave open alternate possibilities from various sources. There were no other sources saying alternate possibilities (about anything other than minor details).

Just because an elitist group of specialist historians devoted extra pages to methodology, as part of their function, does not mean all writers are expected to do the same. The vast majority did not. The Gospel writers take their place alongside the mainstream of the ancient writers who were not strict "historians" and whose purpose would have been defeated by devoting extra space to such unnecessary methodology and critique and analysis of sources.

Even most "historical" writings contain very little of such methodology and critique and analysis, and when it's absent it does not diminish their credibility. It is an extra feature which might be helpful in many cases but is seldom a requirement. When the mainline "historical" writers fail to do this, it does not mean they are remiss, and even these "historians" usually do not make such "methodological" statements.

. . . with the exception of the first few lines of Luke (1:1-4). Likewise, the Oxford Annotated Bible (pg. 1827) notes that these few lines are atypical of the style elsewhere in Luke’s gospel: “The initial four verses of the book are a single Greek sentence that forms a highly stylized introductory statement typical of ancient historical writings.

But it actually contributes nothing essential to Luke and arguably should have been omitted. It is style only, with no substance, no necessary information, no verification of anything. There's no reason to suggest that this intro adds any extra credibility which the account otherwise would be lacking.

After this distinctive preface, however, the narrative shifts into a style of Greek reminiscent of the Septuagint.”

I.e., after the superfluous intro, which is ornamental only, the writer gets down to business.

Just because the intro is "typical of ancient historical writings" does not make it more credible. It does? How? If there's nothing to show any extra source or attestation to the reported facts, then how are those reported facts made any more credible by the fancy intro text? regardless whether it resembles some "ancient historical writings"?

The source criterion should furthermore not be interpreted as meaning that ancient historians always cited their sources in every instance. Very frequently they do not, . . .

Almost always they do not. Nor should they. Almost all the ancient writings generally avoid discussion of sources, and in most cases it's best that they avoided it. Including when they discuss historical events. For a tiny few "historians" it is an added luxury which may have been appropriate but usually not essential.

. . . and there were no footnotes in antiquity. Nevertheless, the critical analysis of sources was a key feature of historical prose that goes all the way back to Herodotus, who was the first to introduce the genre.

And who very seldom gives sources for individual historical facts he reports.

As Irene de Jong (Narratology & Classics, pg. 172) explains about the difference between Herodotus and the epic poetry that preceded him:

[T]he Herodotean narrator is clearly indebted to the Homeric narrator. But unlike that narrator, the Herodotean narrator has no Muses to help him, and at times he admits that he does not know something, gives more than one motive for a character’s actions, and reaches the ‘borders’ of his story and is unable to tell what lies outside them … [H]e is present in his own text as a person who travels and talks with informants and, as a historian, compares and weighs sources.

Only rarely. He usually gives no source or comparison of sources.

As such, discussion of sources and methodology is considerably more present in ancient historical works, . . .

Yes, in the mainline "historical" works, though in most particular instances they do not give the source. And the majority of the ancient writers generally don't give their sources, even though we do rely on them for historical facts. So the Gospel writers are the norm for ancient writers, while the strict "historians" are the exception, devoting a few of their extra hundreds of pages to discussion of their sources.

. . . who owe their influence to Herodotus, . . .

Who usually does not discuss sources and methodology. If his History had actually been much shorter, like the length of Matthew or Mark, Herodotus probably would have excluded all discussion of sources and methodology. Such discussions are appropriate to much longer works, but not something shorter like the Gospel accounts, and limited to a very short time period.

. . . compared to the canonical Gospels in which it is virtually absent, . . .

As it is virtually absent in 99% of the ancient writings, and is rare even in most of the "historical" writings. Why does Ferguson keep insinuating that the Gospel accounts are remiss by omitting something which 99% of the ancient writings omitted?

. . . reflecting a difference in style and genre.

There are differences, but nothing pertaining to whether certain content is fact or fiction. The main difference is:

• The Gospel writers give us information about a very specific event, which they were certain did happen, with some difficulty only on minor details which were overshadowed by the importance and urgency of the unique event they were reporting, which was unusually important and consequential and essential for people to know about. The issue for them was how to get this particular information to people, not teach general history or resolve disputes or issues or details. Whereas

• The historians give information about general events, and were UNcertain about many of them, and their issue was to do the best job possible in providing readers with an overview of all the significant events of the historical period, whatever those events might be, and to address points in dispute. They had to do much investigation first in order to find all the facts, with the result that much of their eventual narrative was not known to them originally when they set out to determine their subject matter.

So it makes sense for the strict historians to devote some space to explaining their sources, because of the many uncertainties, so that this effort to find the facts became part of their story in some cases. Whereas the Gospel writers knew their story at the outset, before writing it down, so that their personal effort to find facts was not part of the story, and devoting space to this would only have interfered with their main goal of presenting to readers the specific important event they wanted the world to know about.

To dogmatically insist that the Gospel writers are supposed to follow the same conventions as the "historical" and "biographical" writers disregards the author's intentions in writing his document as well as the document's content. In disregarding both the content and the author's intended purpose, Ferguson nullifies any legitimacy to his scheme for classifying the literature types.


(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[DBT]

Ancient documents may not be 100% reliable, or even close, but if ancient documents relate to personages who have references from several independent sources it is far more likely that these people existed. Plus supernatural claims shift ancient documents into a whole different category because they make claims that are not only impossible to verify but contradict other works and other supernatural claims and religions, Hindu gods in comparison to the god of the bible, for example.....which makes these claims highly unlikely to be true.

 

[Politesse]

If only there were 1700 reasons. I usually deconvert at 1700.

 

[Keith&Co.]

If only there were 1700 reasons. I usually deconvert at 1700.

check back in a week, then. Im sure he'll be able to reach that number,,,, technically.

Kyroot is far more interested in amassing entries than in rigorous efforts to isolate duplication, overlap, or withstanding scrutiny.

 

[Politesse]

If only there were 1700 reasons. I usually deconvert at 1700.

check back in a week, then. Im sure he'll be able to reach that number,,,, technically.

Kyroot is far more interested in amassing entries than in rigorous efforts to isolate duplication, overlap, or withstanding scrutiny.

This tends to be the case with "mega-lists" of any sort.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

So, which historical figures must be erased from our history books? How many thousands blotted out?

Ancient documents may not be 100% reliable, or even close, but if ancient documents relate to personages who have references from several independent sources it is . . .

Sources from when? dated how much later than the personage in question? It is normal for many personages to go unmentioned until 100 years after they lived. I.e., mentioned in no sources earlier, and only 1 or 2 sources until 200 years later.

. . . from several independent sources it is far more likely that these people existed.

"independent" of what?

Who are you saying must not have existed, by this rule? There are many characters who go unmentioned in the "independent sources" which should have mentioned them. If I were an historian I could probably name 100 of them. Off hand there are the 2 great rabbis, Hillel and Shammai who are not mentioned until 200 years after they lived.

Is the Talmud, which finally mentions them, an "independent source"? What is an "independent source"?

Almost certainly these two famous rabbis did exist. Yet what source do we have? Why didn't Josephus mention them, or Philo the Alexandrian?

You're in real trouble if you're claiming no historical figure existed unless he was mentioned in "independent sources" within 100 years of his life. Even 200.

(For the historical Jesus we have 5 sources, dated 25-70 years of his life, which mention the Resurrection.)

Plus supernatural claims shift ancient documents into a whole different category because they make claims that are not only impossible to verify but . . .

How are historical facts from 2000 years ago verified?

The only possible way is by corroboration from other documents making the same claim(s). What historical events that long ago are verified other than from other writings which also say the events happened?

The miracles of Jesus are corroborated in 4 documents, and the Resurrection in 5. There are millions of recognized historical facts having less corroboration than that (and millions having more corroboration).

. . . make claims that are not only impossible to verify but contradict other works and other supernatural claims and religions, . . .

No they don't. The supernatural claims in one do not contradict those in another.

. . . but contradict other works and other supernatural claims and religions, Hindu gods in comparison to the god of the bible, for example.

No, the Hindu gods and scriptures do not contradict any supernatural claims of the Bible. Nor do any others contradict them. There are reasons to disbelieve many miracle claims, including some in the Bible. But not because they are contradicted by Hindu gods or writings or claims.

. . . which makes these claims highly unlikely to be true.

What have you been smoking? The Eastern religions generally allow that the Bible miracles may have really happened, especially the miracles of Jesus. And even individual Hindus and others who reject the Bible miracles have nothing in their ancient scriptures which contradicts Bible miracles.

The reason to believe some miracle claims is that there is evidence for them, so they are possibly true. While the reason to disbelieve most miracle claims is that there is no evidence for them. For the miracle claim to be true, there must be some evidence from near to the time of the miracle event. I.e., such as the Gospel accounts which attest to the miracle acts of Jesus. This is evidence -- documents saying it happened, and dated near to the time of the event.

We don't have such evidence for any of the miracle claims of antiquity, outside those of Jesus, which is the only example from the ancient world of miracle acts attested to in (multiple) writings near the time when the miracle allegedly happened.

 

[Learner]

 

[Keith&Co.]

For the miracle claim to be true, there must be some evidence from near to the time of the miracle event.

Um, no. Documentation doesn't MAKE the claim true. For the claim to be true, the event must be historical.
For distant researchers to ACCEPT that the claim is true, there must be SUFFICIENT evidence supporting the claim. 'Some' evidence is not sufficient, not for miracles.
Miracles are not possible without the direct intervention of supernatural forces. That's what the word means AND it's how you're using them, supporting your shallow Christainity by selected miracle stories as evidence Jesus had access to supernatural powers.

You go to GREAT effort to manufacture iinsanely self-serving requirements for accepting the gospels, but historians do NOT accept anonymous, non-eyewitness claims for impossible things.

YOU can accept them, but don't pretend that anyone else is under some burden to accept these stories as anything more than stories. Just like any other myth out there...

 

[Jobar]

It is normal for many personages to go unmentioned until 100 years after they lived. I.e., mentioned in no sources earlier, and only 1 or 2 sources until 200 years later.

Really? You should have no problem naming us several, then.

In particular, can you name us some that are widely agreed to be actual, historical personages, not mythical/fictional ones?

The most ancient sources are few, and many of them have been copied over and over and over, so the oldest copies we have are still from long after the work was first written. That isn't what I'm asking for.

I don't say it's impossible that Homer, for instance, or even Odysseus, were historical, or at least based on once-living men; but even if that were so, we can truly know only a very few things about them. And the myths that accreted about them are still myths, even if there was a grain of sand of truth at the heart of those tales.

I'm not one to post walls of text, but let me introduce you to Kenneth Humphreys, and his Jesus Never Existed website. I trust you will find plenty of things there to write further walls, answering his arguments!

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Christ belief is based on evidence, i.e., written documents from the time which say the events happened.

For the miracle claim to be true, there must be some evidence from near to the time of the miracle event.

Um, no. Documentation doesn't MAKE the claim true.

Each additional piece of documentation increases the probability.

[tautology]For the claim to be true, the event must be historical.[/tautology] For distant researchers to ACCEPT that the claim is true, there must be SUFFICIENT evidence supporting the claim.

There is no agreed measure of the evidence accepted by all researchers as the "sufficient" amount. Most historical "facts" are disputable, or reasonable to be doubted, though true, or probably true.

'Some' evidence is not sufficient, not for miracles.

It's a subjective judgment how much evidence is "sufficient." For any claims.

Among all the miracle claims of antiquity, the miracle acts of Jesus are the only ones for which there is more evidence (from multiple sources) than is required for normal events.

(In the above, the phrase ("from multiple sources") could be omitted except for the claimed miracles attributed to Asclepius in temple inscriptions. Each of these miracle claims is attested to in one source only, i.e., the respective inscription, meaning each of those miracles is supported by one source only. Other than to take this one exception into account, my statement above could be "the miracle acts of Jesus are the only ones for which there is more evidence than is required for normal events." I.e., there are many sources for the Asclepius miracle claims, but only one source for each claimed miracle -- no 2nd source for any of them. While there are 2 or 3 or 4 sources for several of the Jesus miracle acts. 5 for the Resurrection.)

Miracles are not possible without the direct intervention of supernatural forces.

We don't need the term "supernatural forces" here. A healing act such as described in the Gospels, like healing the blind and lepers and raising the dead, is something documented and made more probable by the evidence, regardless whether "supernatural forces" are claimed as the cause. There has to be a power source causing it. But "supernatural" is not strictly necessary. Not everyone agrees on what "supernatural" means.

That's what the word means . . .

We have evidence that Jesus did those acts, regardless of your theories about what "supernatural" means.

. . . AND it's how you're using them, supporting your . . .

There must be a source of the power, or something somewhere somehow causing it to happen. But it's not necessary for this to fit someone's theory about what "supernatural" means.

. . . your shallow Christainity by selected miracle stories . . .

If the power to produce those results -- great enough to produce eternal life and well-being -- is "shallow," then, LET'S HEAR IT FOR "SHALLOW"NESS!

. . . by selected miracle stories as evidence Jesus had access to supernatural powers.

There are alternative miracle stories I could select? What are the examples of them? Lightning bolts from Zeus and other pagan legends for which there is no written report until 1000+ years after the alleged event? the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, which are copycat stories based on the Jesus miracles in the Gospels, and for which there is only one source, dated 150 years later than the alleged events?

What are the other examples which I could have selected?

You go to GREAT effort to manufacture insanely self-serving requirements for accepting the gospels, but . . .

One requirement is that there should be more than only one source. Another is that the source should be dated near to the alleged event rather than several centuries later. What is insane or self-serving about these requirements?

. . . but historians do NOT accept anonymous, non-eyewitness claims . . .

Much of the ancient history record is based on anonymous sources. If all anonymous sources were tossed out as not credible, many accepted history books would have to be rewritten.

. . . anonymous, non-eyewitness claims for . . .

99% (98%) of recognized ancient history is based on non-eyewitness sources.

. . . claims for impossible things.

I.e., miracle claims. They do not accept miracle claims because there is usually less evidence for such claims than the minimum required for normal events.

In the few cases where there is evidence, historians remain neutral and do not make pronouncements that the claims are true or false, except when it's clear that this is only their private personal opinion.

E.g., historians do not make pronouncements that the Rasputin miracle claims are false (i.e., the claim that he was able to cure the child of the Czar).

For the miracle acts of Jesus there is more evidence than is required for normal events.

YOU can accept them, but don't pretend that anyone else is under some burden to accept these stories as anything more than stories. Just like any other myth out there...

We agree. There is nothing unreasonable about believing it happened, given the evidence. But one can reasonably demand more evidence and so not believe it.

And for most miracle claims there is a lack of evidence, making it unreasonable to believe them.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Each additional piece of documentation increases the probability.

No, it does not.

To repeat a point made a long time ago in this thread, there is LOTS of documentation for the story about a young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and self-incriminating himself. The existence of all that documentation, including some history books, did not change the probability of the story being true once actual historians actually investigated the story in an attempt to find evidence for it.
It doesn't matter how many books a myth turns up in, if it's just people parroting a myth.
Actual evidence is what's needed. Not anonymous tales cribbed from anonymous tales...

[tautology]For the claim to be true, the event must be historical.[/tautology] For distant researchers to ACCEPT that the claim is true, there must be SUFFICIENT evidence supporting the claim.

Yes, you identified a tautology, which at least is more accurate than what you were saying. You were misstating facts, Lumpy.

There is no agreed measure of the evidence accepted by all researchers as the "sufficient" amount. Most historical "facts" are disputable, or reasonable to be doubted, though true, or probably true.

Maybe not. But your statement was that ANY documentation helped prove something to be true. That's just a lie.

'Some' evidence is not sufficient, not for miracles.

It's a subjective judgment how much evidence is "sufficient." For any claims.

No. 'Some' is not in any way sufficient. Miracle claims of impossible events need a butt-ton of evidence to support them. Your attempt to downplay the threshold needed for supporting evidence is transparent and futile.

Among all the miracle claims of antiquity, the miracle acts of Jesus are the only ones for which there is more evidence (from multiple sources) than is required for normal events.

Back to this lie... People copying from a source are not multiple sources, Lumpy.

Miracles are not possible without the direct intervention of supernatural forces.

We don't need the term "supernatural forces" here.

Yes, you do.
THAT is EXACTLY why you're flogging the miracle healing stories.
Not because you find Jesus a fascinating character in history, but because you are trying to support Christainity and the promise of eternal life through accepting Jesus into your heart. To get to eternal life, you MUST have a way to get on God's good side, so you MUST have evidence of God, so you MUST find that Jesus' promise of EL is credible.

Rasputin does not offer eternal life, so conflating any other tales of miraculous healing does nothing for your actual agenda.

We have evidence that Jesus did those acts,

No, you do not.

. . . your shallow Christainity by selected miracle stories . . .

If the power to produce those results -- great enough to produce eternal life and well-being -- is "shallow," then, LET'S HEAR IT FOR "SHALLOW"NESS!

Well, first off, that does reinforce my interpretation of your whole agenda. To prove that God exists, because of Jesus' healing.
Second, I refer to your faith as shallow because you feel that you only have to believe in Jesus, you feel free to reject any of his instructions about how to live a virtuous life being a requirement for salvation.
You look for the minimum effort path to get to eternal life.

. . . by selected miracle stories as evidence Jesus had access to supernatural powers.

There are alternative miracle stories I could select? What are the examples of them?

You concentrate on Jesus healing and raising the dead, not walking on water or throwing demons into pigs.

You go to GREAT effort to manufacture insanely self-serving requirements for accepting the gospels, but . . .

One requirement is that there should be more than only one source.

Yeah, pretending that Xeroxed gospels are separate sources is one...

Another is that the source should be dated near to the alleged event rather than several centuries later.

Which you changed to once you had to accept that they aren't direct eyewitness testimonies. There's no historical requirement for 'near' an event. There are eyewitness and there are later recorders, and historically that's about it.

What is insane or self-serving about these requirements?

That you're rejecting actual historians' rules for evaluating ancient testimony.

. . . but historians do NOT accept anonymous, non-eyewitness claims . . .

Much of the ancient history record is based on anonymous sources. If all anonymous sources were tossed out as not credible, many accepted history books would have to be rewritten.

Prove it.
Find three anonymous sources for miracles that are accepted as history in the history books?

Name three professional historians who present anonymous reports of miracles as uncontested reports of historical events?

I.e., miracle claims. They do not accept miracle claims because there is usually less evidence for such claims than the minimum required for normal events.

Really? So by 'less,' you mean there ARE acceptable levels of evidence for miracle events?
You're contradicting yourself.

For the miracle acts of Jesus there is more evidence than is required for normal events.

No, there really isn't, despite your efforts to pretend otherwise. [

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_of_Abonoteichus

...
Alexander of Abonoteichus (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἀβωνοτειχίτης Alexandros ho Abonoteichites), also called Alexander the Paphlagonian (c. 105 – c. 170 CE), was a Greek mystic and oracle, and the founder of the Glycon cult that briefly achieved wide popularity in the Roman world. The contemporary writer Lucian reports that he was an utter fraud – the god Glycon was supposedly constructed out of a glove puppet. The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be taken as fictitious but for the corroboration of certain coins of the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius^[1] and of a statue of Alexander, said by Athenagoras to have stood in the forum of Parium.^[2][3]. There is further evidence from inscriptions^[4].
...
Scholars have described Alexander as an oracle who perpetrated a hoax to deceive gullible citizens,^[13][14] or as a false prophet and charlatan who played on the hopes of simple people. He was said to have "made predictions, discovered fugitive slaves, detected thieves and robbers, caused treasures to be dug up, healed the sick, and in some cases actually raised the dead".
...

Alexander was a fraud who supposedly worked miracles, was believed by many in his time to do so and was honored in his life by his dupes who left evidence of him.

....

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/lucian_alexander.htm

Lucian of Samosata : ALEXANDER THE FALSE PROPHET

 

[lpetrich]

Here are two translations of LoS's account of him:
Alexander, the Oracle Monger, the False Prophet | Alexander | The Lucian of Samosata Project
Lucian of Samosata : Alexander the False Prophet

At one point, LoS asks where Homer was born, a murky issue even in antiquity. He never got an answer.

My favorite part is where Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius asked what to do about some Germanic tribes called Marcomanni and the Quadi. Their armies were on the opposite side of the Danube River from MA's armies. Here are the two translations:

To rolling Ister, swoln with Heaven’s rain,
Of Cybelean thralls, those mountain beasts,
Fling ye a pair; therewith all flowers and herbs
Of savour sweet that Indian air doth breed.
Hence victory, and fame, and lovely peace.

Into the pools of the Ister, the stream that from Zeus taketh issue,
Hurl, I command you, a pair of Cybele’s faithful attendants,
Beasts that dwell on the mountains, and all that the Indian climate
Yieldeth of flower and herb that is fragrant; amain there shall follow
Victory and great glory, and welcome peace in their footsteps.

In less flowery language, throw two lions into the Danube, and a great victory will result. MA ordered that, the lions swam across, and the Marcomanni clubbed them to death.

The Marcomanni won a great victory, and they almost conquered the city of Aquileia, near what is now Venice. When AoA was asked about that, he responded that the god did not tell him who would have the great victory. As LoS himself noted, this was much like what the Oracle of Delphi once stated about a similar prediction.


LoS also wrote a book, The Passing of Peregrinus, in which he described some followers of a "crucified sophist", some early Christians. They came across in that book as hopelessly gullible.


Those scientific skeptics among us may recognize in LoS a kindred spirit.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Alexander the Miracle Monger would make for a good cheap to make movie. Done right it could rank right up there with Life of Brian.

 

[Learner]

Jesus warned us about people like Alexander. Good show boys!

 

[Learner]

People copying from a source are not multiple sources, Lumpy.

The various biblical books / texts : Dead sea scrolls ,Ethiopian bible, Septuagint to the KJV are practically identical - give of take a few spelling errors or a missing verse (masorectic text in comparison to the Septuagint). Regardless of this very minor difference ; as these copies go... they are the same and in sync. This would seem pretty much important for those who are translating and copying to make sure the whole "inspired" word of God in conceptual context be as acurate as possible . As copying experts do, so to speak.

Incredibly ...not quite the same though as the; "four gospels" (Mathew ,Mark,Luke and John), that seem to be far less in sync between each other, as compared with the various bible copies. Now of course you could say they were altered to make them seem different but not so different that it would cause some serious controversy , giving the impression of contradictions and doubt as it does.

There must of been a lack of concentration (over gulps of wine.. I jest) or they were indeed ...four different accounts from four different sources.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

How we can distinguish the fraud from the real McCoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_of_Abonoteichus

...
Alexander of Abonoteichus (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἀβωνοτειχίτης Alexandros ho Abonoteichites), also called Alexander the Paphlagonian (c. 105 – c. 170 CE), was a Greek mystic and oracle, and the founder of the Glycon cult that briefly achieved wide popularity in the Roman world. The contemporary writer Lucian reports that he was an utter fraud – the god Glycon was supposedly constructed out of a glove puppet. The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be taken as fictitious but for the corroboration of certain coins of the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius^[1] and of a statue of Alexander, said by Athenagoras to have stood in the forum of Parium.^[2][3]. There is further evidence from inscriptions^[4].
...
Scholars have described Alexander as an oracle who perpetrated a hoax to deceive gullible citizens,^[13][14] or as a false prophet and charlatan who played on the hopes of simple people. He was said to have "made predictions, discovered fugitive slaves, detected thieves and robbers, caused treasures to be dug up, healed the sick, and in some cases actually raised the dead".
...

Alexander was a fraud who supposedly worked miracles, was believed by many in his time to do so and was honored in his life by his dupes who left evidence of him.

....

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/lucian_alexander.htm

Lucian of Samosata : ALEXANDER THE FALSE PROPHET

There are no documents attesting to his alleged miracle acts -- only documents denouncing him as a fraud. That's the evidence that he was a fraud.

Whereas documents saying miracle acts did happen are evidence (not proof) that they did happen, because educated persons took them seriously and recorded them.

You need to explain why we have several cases of miracle frauds reported to us in the ancient literature, but only one case of a miracle-worker who is attested to as genuine in the documents of the time, and none denouncing him as a fraud until centuries later. Also, why virtually all the reported miracle frauds appeared after 100 AD.

Also note that in this period, 100 AD and later, there emerged numerous miracle legends which resemble in some ways that of Jesus in the Gospels (all in one source only and dating 100+ years later than the alleged event). BUT, prior to 100 AD we have NO such miracle legends in the literature. Why would that be? There are easily a dozen such stories or reports appearing in a variety of different sources. By a stretch, maybe a little of it around 80 or 90 AD. At most you can find (earlier) a goofy battle-scene omen/portent here and there in some writings. Laughable stuff compared to Jesus healing the lepers and raising the dead.

Yet nothing earlier in the literature. Why this coincidence? What happened in the early 1st century to cause this strange unprecedented explosion of new miracle stories, which were virtually non-existent earlier?