For much of the historical record there is less evidence than there is for the miracles of Jesus.
In any case, we know for sure that no miracles were attributed to John the Baptist. No one believed he did such acts. And yet, if the two were of equal importance, and if the miracle acts attributed to Jesus did not really happen, then we have to ask: Why were no miracle acts attributed to John the Baptist?
The best answer is: Because he didn't do any such acts. Whereas Jesus did.
No? Then what would be a better answer?
So since the Roman emperor Vespasian was reported to do miracles and Claudius (who preceded him) performed no miracles the only reasonable explanation is that Vespasian did, in fact perform miracles.
No, the accounts of Vespasian's miracles are less credible than those of Jesus in the gospels.
However, there are two sources for the Vespasian miracles, and these date from about 50-60 years after the alleged miracle events, which means that these miracle accounts have more credibility than those of Horus or Asclepius or Hercules and other classic mythological heroes/deities, for whom there is no evidence or sources near to the time of the alleged miracles. Also the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana are less credible, as there is only one source, and this is dated about 150 years after the alleged miracle events.
So the correct conclusion to draw is that we have more evidence for the alleged Vespasian miracles than for most other reputed miracle-workers, but still less evidence than we have for the miracles of Jesus, for which the sources are more numerous and are in closer proximity to the reported events.
And there is this further consideration: We can easily explain how the reported miracles of Vespasian could be a product of mythologizing, as he was a famous celebrity at the time, with a long distinguished career and wielding much power, which greatly increased his public reputation and made him a topic for gossip and "tabloid" journalism, whereas the public career of Jesus lasted 3 years or less, and he had no widespread recognition before his death but became famous only decades later.
So we can explain how the miracle accounts of Vespasian came about, through a normal process of mythologizing, whereas the miracle accounts of Jesus cannot be explained this way.
You've been presented with better answers numerous times now in this thread.
Here is a link to one in which I've thoroughly treated every argument you've presented along with all available evidence in what I believe is a rational and sensible manner.
OK, let's go over those points again:
Atheos:Why does it matter when the miracle stories came out?"
You know why. Perhaps you are disturbed that in virtually all the other cases of miracle stories, prior to the invention of printing, the time difference between the actual alleged events and the reports of them is more than 100 years, and often several centuries, as in the case of Gautama.
There's one alleged miracle worker, the emperor Vespasian, for whom the miracle reports are contemporary. However, in this case the one being mythologized is someone who was deified and was famous BEFORE the reported miracle event(s) happened.
So in the very few cases where the event is close to the reports of it, the one reportedly doing the acts is already famous or has a long reputation going back over several decades and the miracle stories are added onto an already colorful career.
But in one case only this pattern is broken. The Christ miracles are reported only a few decades later, in documents (and we don't know how much earlier in oral reports), and the one being mythologized is an unknown (unless you rely on a few gospel reports which say his fame spread widely in the region, in which case you're relying on reports which give these miracle events as the reason for his fame).
So Jesus is the ONLY reputed case of a miracle worker who had no previous reputation to which miracle stories could be added and the written accounts of whom appear within only a few decades after the events.
You cannot deny the uniqueness of this one case. Can you explain it? Doesn't there have to be an explanation for this?
Without more data it is impossible to ascertain
exactly what happened. So what sensible historians do is look at what is more likely.
It's exactly like mom walking in on her kids with cookies in their mouths and an open cookie jar nearby. Usually the cookie jar sits on a high shelf but now it's on the counter. One kid says that Jesus miraculously appeared, levitated up to the cookie jar, floated back down with it in his hands, handed one to each child and said, "Take, eat, for this is my body which is broken for you." The kid explains that it would be a sin not to finish eating the cookie.
Another kid says, "No, what happened was that Brian climbed up on the counter, got the cookie jar down off the shelf and put it down here where we could get to the cookies."
One explanation involves the miraculous. The other does not.
"explanation"? What has to be explained? In both cases something happens that requires an explanation. In the cookie caper all that needs to be explained is how the cookie jar was reached. The answer is so obvious that it's hard to see how this can be analogous to the miracles of Jesus.
What is the explanation for the reported miracles of Jesus? In this case the explanation that "involves the miraculous" does explain what happened, whereas any other explanation does not. No one has given any that makes sense. There is no precedent in legend or mythology that is comparable, to explain the miracle accounts, whereas there is abundant precedent for cases of someone climbing up on something to reach an object.
All other miracle stories have an easy explanation: mythologizing took place in the case of a high-profile celebrity who had a reputation, and especially over many centuries, as in the case of Asclepius, where a normal human who had some accomplishments evolved into a folk hero over a long time span.
Likewise in the case of a cookie jar being taken down there are literally millions of earlier cases of a cookie jar being reached by someone who climbed up to it. So the explanation is laughably simple, and any mom being told a miracle story would know that it's only a joke, and the kid claiming this could not be taken seriously.
But there are not any precedents for the Jesus miracle accounts. There are no previous examples of miracle stories where the hero figure had no reputation or fame or recognized status as a widely-recognized public figure.
Without this high-profile celebrity status, it is impossible to find any previous example of someone being mythologized into a god or a miracle-worker, as the case of Jesus would have to be. So we don't have any easy explanation for how he obtained this status.
Mother refuses to believe the levitating cookie thief story for the exact same reason sensible people are skeptical about the Jesus myths.
No, it's for a much different reason, i.e., there is a very simple obvious explanation how the cookie jar was reached, for there are thousands of previous examples of objects being reached by someone climbing up on something to reach them.
But there is no such obvious explanation how the Jesus miracle reports originated. No one can explain how these accounts came about. There are no previous examples of this. I.e., no previous examples of an unrecognized person, or person of no status, being mythologized into a miracle-worker.
The status, or the high-profile public reputation, or widespread fame, is a primary factor or characteristic that is necessary in order for a person to gain the necessary widespread attention that then enables the mythologizing process to get started. This widespread fame either exists at the time that the legendary hero lived, or it evolves over many generations or even centuries, as in the case of the gods like Asclepius or Apollo or Horus. It never pops up suddenly in less than 50 years as happened in the case of Jesus.
So in the case of the reported miracles of Jesus we have no ready explanation, whereas for the cookie jar event we have an obvious explanation, such that it is ludicrous to think there is any analogy between the two scenarios.
Now let's say that the first kid whips out his Android smartphone and says, "But mom, I got it all on video! Watch!"
He then plays a video, in which it is clear that her kitchen is visited by this apparition as her other child stares open-mouthed the whole time.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
No they don't. They only require extra evidence. We don't have to produce videos of Jesus performing miracles in order to have good reason to believe that these events happened.
Unusual events do happen -- it's just that they are so rare. When there are extra reports, or extra sources, attesting to the unusual events, then we have more reason to believe it really happened. There may still be doubt, but the doubt is reduced by having the additional evidence. Just as extra witnesses to an event, in a court, provide extra credibility to the reported event. If there's only one witness, it's less credible than if there are 2 or 3.
Provide the extraordinary evidence and we've got something to talk about.
We have the necessary extra evidence. For many events in history, that are taught in history classes and are contained in the history books, there is only one source, and sometimes this is separated by 100 years or longer from the actual reported event. If these are believable, then the miracles of Jesus are also believable, being reported by at least 4 sources, and these being separated by 50 years or less from the events.
That extra evidence is sufficient.
The very earliest that we can date "Mark" is around 65AD. It's more likely that it was written around 75AD. Either way we're looking at a minimum of 30-40 years of myth development, an eternity when playing the gossip game.
No, it's a very short time span, by comparison to myth development generally and to other accounts of reputed miracle events.
Also, the miracle reports of Jesus are actually earlier than 65 AD, because the Q document reports them, which is earlier. Even though we don't have the Q document, we know it existed and was used by Matthew and Luke as a source, so we know there was written attestation to the miracles of Jesus in the 50's at the latest, or 20-30 years after the reported events. Of course the reports at that time probably go back to the events, about 30 AD, mostly oral. What has survived to us are the accounts from 20-40 years later.
This is actually a very short time span, if you compare to other reported events and especially to other reported miracle stories.
Even worse, you've already been told (by me) that other gospels (non canonical) have Jesus living at different time frames or not giving any time frame at all, something you'd know if you'd bother to do a little non-apologetic research into this subject matter.
Once again, there is no basis for this claim, as there is no canonical gospel you can quote which says this. You earlier said it was the Gospel of Peter making this claim, which was false, as this later gospel has Jesus being crucified during the time of Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas.
The notion that Jesus was crucified 100 or 200 years earlier is nonsense and based on very reckless misinterpretations of some Talmudic references that have nothing to do with the Jesus of Galilee crucified in Jerusalem according to the gospel accounts.
So what evidence do we have to fill in the gap?
Well... we have the authentic Pauline epistles. These are books that talk about Jesus. They talk about him a lot, and they talk about him precisely during the gap between when the canonical gospels having him living and when they start being produced. What does that evidence say?
Not once - not once does Paul ever mention even a hint that Jesus performed miracles.
Except for the resurrection, which is the most important miracle of Jesus.
But he omits virtually everything else about the background of Jesus, or his biographical details. Virtually all of it is omitted, which tells us nothing except that it was not Paul's function to provide this, and he assumed that his readers were already familiar with it. It's not just the miracles of Jesus that he omits, but virtually everything of the deeds and sayings of Jesus.
This does not mean that Jesus had no background or biography or deeds that could have been reported. He had to have come from somewhere and to have done something.
Most of the early Christian theologians, into the 2nd and 3rd centuries, played down the miracles of Jesus or even ignored them totally. And yet it's clear they were aware of the gospel accounts of these miracle acts of Jesus.
He doesn't say anything about Jesus confounding the Jewish leaders with his wisdom when he was only 12 years of age. He never mentions turning water into wine, healing blindness, paralysis, leprosy or deformities. He never talks of Jesus confronting the money changers at the temple. He doesn't even mention Jesus bringing two different people back to life. Paul never mentions Jesus being in Jerusalem, Galilee, Nazareth, Bethlehem or any other physical location. The Jesus about which Paul wrote for decades could have lived 200 years before Paul was born for all intents and purposes.
No he could not have. He had to be the same Jesus mentioned in the gospels because there is no one else he could have been. The Jesus Paul talks about was "handed over" or "delivered" to someone. What did Paul mean when he said this about Jesus? How was Jesus "handed over" if his Jesus was not the same Jesus, mentioned in the gospels, who was betrayed by Judas?
Paul also gets the timing of this "handing over" exactly in agreement with the gospel accounts, saying that it happened on the same night as the "Lord's Supper" which Paul describes in the same language as we have in the gospel accounts.
It is ludicrous to suggest that Paul's Jesus could have been any other than the same Jesus figure described in the gospel accounts.
The Jesus about which Paul wrote for decades could have not lived on earth at all.
But then where was Jesus "handed over" if not on earth somewhere? And where was he when he served the wine and bread? Paul said these details about Jesus, so how did Jesus have these experiences if not on earth?
He also says Jesus was the brother of James, which is also mentioned in Josephus. How could they have thought he had a brother James, who was an earthly human, unless they thought Jesus too was an earthly human?
All this could have taken place in some spiritual frame.
No, not if you can't explain how he was "handed over" in some spiritual frame. Or how he was said to have a brother James, an earthly human, without himself also being an earthly human. How could Jesus have been a non-physical being, "spiritual" only, but also be "handed over" on the night that he observed the Passover meal and also have a brother James who was an earthly human?
The evidence we have available strongly suggests that the miracle tales developed decades later.
No, there's no evidence suggesting that. The evidence is that the miracle accounts existed no later than the 50s AD, and there's no explanation where they came from other than from earlier oral and written reports. No other explanation has been presented how these accounts popped up in such a short period of time after the reported events, and no one can give any other case from that time, earlier than 1500 or 1000 AD, of such miracle accounts popping up in such a short time frame after the alleged events.
The closest similar case would be Vespasian, for which there are only two sources, 2 or 3 decades farther removed from the events, and for whose case we have the obvious explanation that he was a famous celebrity with a widespread reputation, so that the mythologizing process is easily explained.
So, the evidence in this case suggests that the miracle events in question actually did take place, unlike other cases of reputed miracle events.
A plausible scenario has already been presented, but you've ignored it.
Less plausible than that the events actually did happen.
Most likely scenario is that as the Jesus myth became more and more popular . . .
No, you're ignoring the most important point:
HOW did the myth get started in the first place? What "myth"? Explain how this myth got started. Don't begin your explanation AFTER the myth has already begun. That's no "explanation" at all.
Your explanation has to provide for the ORIGIN of the myth. How did the first miracle tale get created and attributed to him? Why? Why did they attribute miracles to him when in ALL other cases of attributing miracles to some hero it was always the case that the hero in question was already a recognized public figure with a widespread reputation?
Remember that in 30 AD Jesus was not yet the reputed Son of God and did not have any widespread reputation or status as a god.
. . . it suffered from its dearth of the miraculous. Other popular gods could turn water into wine, . . .
No they could not. It is not true that Bacchus turned water into wine, i.e., that people believed he did. You cannot find any ancient text making this claim. This is just popular Jesus-debunking fiction.
Why do you say "Other popular gods"? "Other" than what? You're implying Jesus was a popular god as they were attributing the miracles to him -- but how do you account for that? Why were they making this person of no significance into a "god"? You have to answer this before your explanation can claim to be "plausible."
. . . heal people of disease . . .
Actually there's very little of this, other than inscriptions on temple walls and monuments dedicated to traditional invisible gods from 1000+ years earlier. Other than worshipers who prayed at these statues and temples, there are very few healing stories. Virtually no stories of a person who performed healings and to whom the sick were brought.
The real "dearth" here is the dearth of healing miracle stories from prior to the Jesus miracle accounts in the gospels. If you think there were lots of such stories, give an example. Quote the text. The number is extremely low. The best you can find are inscriptions from worshipers praying to statues, not examples of an historical person who performed healing acts.
. . . and tame fierce denizens of the underworld. It would only take one unscrupulous Jesus salesman to begin assuaging his customers with a new version of Jesus . . .
"a new version"? What is the old version? What is the original version of Jesus to which the later changes are added? You haven't explained what the original version was. You can't hypothesize new versions of something previous unless you explain what the previous version was. What was the original version of Jesus, and why did they add the new part? If they wanted something new, why didn't they use someone more widely-known, or someone of higher status, to whom to add their new "version"?
Since Jesus was not anything special, if he did no miracles, why would anyone offer a "new version" of him?
. . . who did all these things (and more) to have the entire audience eagerly lapping up these new and much more captivating details about Jesus with gusto.
No, if it could happen this easily, we should have hundreds of other Jesus-like miracle healers that would be eagerly lapped up. Why is there only one historical figure for whom we have such "captivating details," written near to the time of the reported events? There were many charlatans and salesmen and propagandists and cultists of one kind or another who would have exploited the gullible public, not just one.
It's not true that people eagerly lap up such stories about miracle-workers. If it were so, we would have many more such reported miracle heroes from that time, with multiple sources reporting on them, and yet there are no others. If you think there are, name them. Let's look at the individual cases and the documents telling about them.
A quick trip to Snopes dot com is all it takes to come face to face with the incredible proliferation of hoaxes people have created even in modern times and which gullible people believe.
I acknowledge that the time lapse between the reports and the actual events becomes a different matter in modern times, even before the Internet, because of the vast new means of communication, beginning with the invention of printing. Every reported case has to be considered one at a time.
Also, my point is not that there are absolutely no legitimate miracle events other than those of Jesus. If the evidence is there, in a few cases, then there may be some truth to it.
The historical record shows that the mad monk Rasputin had some kind of strange power to heal at least one child of an apparent blood disease. But it's clear that Rasputin's power was very limited.
And the real cases, the ones that can be documented, are a tiny minority of the many cases, most of which are probably hoaxes. Every case has to be considered individually.
It is not "gullible" to believe what the evidence shows.
It is every bit as gullible to believe the Jesus miracle stories based only on their existence in tales . . .
The reports of events are the evidence that the events took place. We know much of our historical facts based on "tales" told by someone. If you eliminate all the facts we have that are based on "tales" told by someone, probably most of the historical record would have to be scrapped. Are historians and history students "gullible" to believe all those facts in the history books that are based mostly on "tales" people told?
. . . as it is to believe everything you read in emails about black market kidney heists and gang initiations involving flashing headlights.
Basically you're making an argument why we should not believe anything reported in any ancient documents. And you are insisting on the dogmatic premise that no miracle event can ever happen, no matter how much evidence there is. By your logic you could dismiss all historical facts, and certainly all facts that are unusual in some way, as just "tales" that have no credibility.
But the insistence that nothing unusual reported can ever be believed is an unnecessary dogma that a reasonable or scientific person is not required to adopt as a premise. Rather, it is more reasonable to leave open the possibility of something unusual, or something contrary to normal experience or to current known science. Rather than dismissing all such claims as absolutely false no matter what, it is more reasonable to leave such things open as possibilities and consider the evidence for them.
The crap they write about in National Enquirer is every bit as credible as the crap contained in the canonical gospels and the people who wrote it can be identified and their sources can be interrogated.
So you lump them all together and just assume they are all hoaxes and disregard the evidence, no matter what?
There can't be a few exceptions where the reported event really did happen? or is at least partly true?
Is there a miracle-worker reported in the National Enquirer who has or had similar power to heal as Jesus described in the gospel accounts? And is the evidence just as credible? You have examined that evidence and have found that there are no reported cases of this healer being unable to heal someone who was brought to him? I.e., there are no reported cases of "misses" but only "hits"?
Which case is that? Can you name who this healer was? Or did he do other "miracles" that are of a similar nature, i.e., showing a super-human power of some kind? What is the best case of this? You say there are others just as credible as the Jesus accounts. So give an example of one. Which is the best example?
I'm not sure if the quote feature has removed some text at this point that would help explain what it is you're going on about. Find me some extraordinary evidence corroborating these fantastic claims in the National Enquirer and I'll give it more consideration.
You declared above: "The crap they write about in National Enquirer is every bit as credible as the crap contained in the canonical gospels . . ."
You've identified some "crap" in the National Enquirer that is just as credible as the "crap" in the gospels, so can you give an example of that or not? What "crap" in the National Enquirer are you talking about? Give an example of this. If there's evidence so that it's "credible," then why not believe it? If it's not "credible," then you can't compare it to the gospel accounts, because the gospels are "credible" as to the miracle healings of Jesus.
The gospels are probably wrong on some details, but considering that we have at least four sources, it is "credible" that these events did happen. Now if there's something analogous in the National Enquirer which sheds light on this, then give us the example. If there's evidence and it's "credible," or "just as credible" as the gospels, then why not believe it, or leave open the possibility that it's true? Is there some law or Papal Bull condemning everything in the National Enquirer as fiction, even if there's evidence that it's true and it's "credible"?
Why do you think you can disprove something by just comparing it to the National Enquirer and claiming that the latter is just as "credible"?
It's clear that all you're doing is just imposing your dogmatic premise that no miracle event can ever happen. This is the beginning and end of your argument. On this one premise alone you base your entire argument. And yet this dogma is not one that a rational person must accept as a premise. An agnostic or skeptic can leave open the question whether a miracle event might sometimes happen. To dogmatically shut out this possibility is not required in order for a person to be rational or scientific.
Meanwhile I'm not swallowing these fantastic claims just because someone saw fit to put them down on paper.
That the event is reported by someone is evidence that it happened. However, it's not proof, and one can reasonably ask for additional evidence. Many historical facts are accepted on the report from one source only. For something unusual it's reasonable to ask for more than just one source.
You keep trying to "special plead" your Jesus myth as if somehow the unique elements of it are evidence that it happened.
No, the reports are evidence. One report is evidence. Two reports are more evidence. And if the reports are near to the event, that makes the evidence stronger.
Also, if the reports are false, there must be an explanation how such reports arose in the first place. If it's easy to explain how the reports came about, even if they're false, then it's easier to dismiss them as false. But if it's difficult to explain how the reports could exist if the events reported are fiction, then it's more likely that the reports are true.
The "unique element" of the gospel accounts, or of the Jesus miracle reports, is that it is difficult to expain where the reports came from, or why they were written, unless the reports are true.
Whereas in the case of other miracle stories from the ancient world, it is easy to explain the stories even if they are fiction. We can explain how mythologizing takes place, in the case of popular hero myths or legendary figures who became mythologized over a long time span, or as a result of their high-profile status.
So in this sense the "unique element" is something that strengthens the credibility of the Jesus miracle accounts. But this does not mean that uniqueness per se is evidence of something being true, or that it's more credible just because of the uniqueness per se. Rather, its greater credibility is due to the greater difficulty of explaining how the reports came to exist if they are not true.
Unique elements do not make a story more plausible than other stories because every freaking story has unique elements.
Correct. It's not the unique elements per se that make the miracle acts of Jesus more plausible. Rather, it's the greater difficulty of explaining how these reports came about if those events did not actually happen.
E.g., if the gospel accounts had been written in 1000 AD, then they would be easier to explain as fictional, and they'd be less credible. As a result of mythologizing over that long period it would be easy to explain the accounts. But having been written in 70-100 AD they are more difficult to explain this way. So it's the closer time proximity, not the "unique elements" per se, that increases their credibility.
However, you've been presented with the fact that there really is nothing unique in your Jesus myths. Asclepius could heal the sick.
There's no evidence of Asclepius healing anyone. But there are inscription testimonials from worshippers who prayed at statues or temples of Asclepius. This was a deity that evolved over many centuries and gained a widespread reputation, so that millions of people believed and prayed to him, and in the small percentage of cases where they had a good result afterward, they inscribed their testimony, claiming the god healed them, whereas if there was no good result, then nothing was recorded.
The main difference is that, while the Asclepius cult required at least 1000 years to emerge, the Jesus miracle healing cult emerged suddenly, within a few years, possibly 30-40 years at most, probably sooner, such that prior to him there was no such healing cult, whereas within about 50-60 years he was the most widely-reputed healer ever, and after him an unprecedented sudden rash of new miracle stories emerged, first centered on him, and then creating some other healing figures, mostly fictional, e.g., the Apollonius of Tyana cult.
Bacchus could turn water into wine.
No he could not. This was not part of the Bacchus myth.
Everything your Jesus did was something some other Greek, Roman, Assyrian or Egyptian god had done centuries before.
No, they did none of the same things.
The "gods" reportedly did various miracles, but there's virtually nothing in all the myths that resembles the healing miracles of Jesus. And, though the stories are there, there is no evidence that those earlier miracle events actually did happen. Whereas the Jesus miracles are recorded in documents near to the time when they reportedly happened.
So we have credible evidence that these events did happen, at a particular time and place, performed by a particular historical person, whereas there is no such evidence that the "gods" of mythology actually did perform any such acts.
The entire life of Jesus is nothing more than a warmed over "Hero-God" epic myth that follows the story of Perseus so perfectly that . . .
No, there's no comparison. Find the text of the Perseus story and show us the similarities. You can't.
. . . the only remaining miracle is how Christians continue to ignore this critical bit of evidence.
No, what's strange is why it has become such a fad to make these phony comparisons between Jesus and the pagan gods when there is no comparison. These are taken exclusively on the authority of the latest Jesus-debunker celebrities and never from the actual documents or texts that describe the pagan gods and their deeds. When the actual sources of the myths are opened up and read, it becomes clear that there is no serious comparison. No analogy to show any connection.
There are a few symbols that are of trivial importance, such as certain numbers like 7 or 12, and the date December 25, which 99% of Christians know is not the real birthdate of Jesus, and other pointless comparisons. It is not true that there is any serious comparison to Horus or Perseus and the others. If there really was any serious comparison, the ones claiming this would cite the texts in question and quote to us to show the connection. But when they try to do this and look up the sources, they are embarrassed to find so little.
The fact that people believed these bullshit stories offers absolutely nothing of value when it comes to determining whether or not the stories were true.
Wrong, it does offer value. Our historical record comes from witnesses who report the events and believed them. There is very little in the historical record that does not come from someone who reported the events because they believed they happened. The reported events, in documents (which is what the "gospel" accounts are), are accompanied also by archaeological finds, but these latter are few by comparison and tell us much less about the actual events than the documents tell us.
Wow. Seriously? Evidently you've never been to a museum filled with bracelets, pottery, paintings, arrowheads and other artifacts that contain evidence to corroborate (or gainsay) historical documents.
Only a tiny miserable percent, less than 1%, of all the historical facts are verified or corroborated by such artifacts.
Get out your history book, and note down all the facts one by one. Then go and seek the archaeological evidence for each of those facts. Virtually none of it is corroborated by the artifacts. The latter add to the total knowledge, but virtually none of the written evidence from the texts is corroborated by those finds.
Some facts are corroborated, and these are sensationalized, and they're important, but they are a tiny infinitesimally small percentage of all the recorded facts.
There is an old saying, one you'd be well served to apply: "The victors write the history books."
Yes, and those victors in the period 0-300 AD were not Christians or the "Church." The history we have, the gospel writings and other related documents, were not written by the "victors" of this time, but by the new squabbling Christian cults which could not mount a campaign to rewrite history because they had no power and no unity to be able to create any crusade to promote anything. The record we have emerging from this period was not guided by any unified established "Church" or other institution, but emerged out of a chaos of incohesive disunited confused forces bumping against each other at every turn.
Yes, rational historians understand that written documentation is always to be taken with skepticism, especially when it presents too much of a one-sided perspective or contains things unlikely to have happened. The one-sidedness of the gospel narratives, combined with their inclusion of things unlikely to have happened give sensible people good cause to treat them with skepticism.
Yes, but skepticism does not require a dogmatic premise that no miracle event can ever happen. A true skeptic leaves open the possibility of something highly unusual or contrary to normal experience, if this is what the evidence indicates. Evidence is not dismissed as "tales" simply because it's unprecedented or difficult to explain.
It's OK to say that we need extra evidence or testimony in the case of something weird or super-normal, but it's not OK to say that any such reports as these are automatically rejected as false, regardless if anyone believed them. That is arbitrary and dogmatic and unscientific.
It is neither arbitrary, dogmatic nor unscientific. The scientific method involves observation, experimentation, hypothesis, testing and conclusion. Observation of blind people reveals that the chances of them gaining their sight instantly is inductively at or near zero.
The same could be said of all other kinds of reported miracle events. Such an event is one which is not likely to happen, or is not normal, or involves the use of super-human power.
The unusual acts performed by savants, who have power which ordinary humans do not, can be shown to be "impossible" and yet are still performed by this very tiny group.
That's the main point of a "miracle" or act of power, or
dunamis or
semeion, in the gospel accounts. It's ordinarily something impossible, i.e., impossible for an ordinary human to perform.
So we don't need any special research or scientific "observation" to tell us that the chance of such an event is near zero. Obviously such events generally don't happen and so are extremely improbable. The question is whether the power to perform such acts has happened or does happen in some exceptional cases.
Saying the probability is near-zero tells us nothing new. That low probability is precisely the point.
Experiments can be conducted for as long as resources allow without a single blind person recovering sight in this manner.
The same could be said about the ability to perform the acts that some savants are able to do. E.g., experiments with professional pianists would show that a pianist cannot spontaneously transcribe a complicated Chopin Etude into any of the other 11 different keys. But there is a tiny number of savants who can do this. It is simply something "impossible" and yet which a few unusual persons have the power to do.
So doing these experiments showing something to be "impossible" does not prove that it can never be done or never was done. It proves only that it is impossible for normal humans to do it.
Hypothesis would definitely not favor "Therefore it is possible that someone can cure blindness with a touch."
Not if that "someone" is an ordinary human with normal human limitations. Of course we know it's not possible.
Further testing would fail to verify this hypothesis and the conclusion would be that this is an impossibility.
For a normal human with normal limitations. The question though is whether such an act was ever performed by someone who possessed super-human power. That cannot be determined by testing.
Reading that someone did so in a story that looks for all intents and purposes like historical fiction would not be sufficient evidence to contradict the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
That's why more than one source is needed, and also sources near to the time that the event reportedly happened.
And again, there is a "mountain of evidence" that some of the acts done by a tiny group of people called "savants" are impossible. I.e., for 99.99999% of humans they are impossible. If you test these on people generally, such acts will be found to be impossible. And yet that does not change the fact that such acts are done by certain persons who have the power for some reason that is unexplainable.
Here's how real historical criticism works:
The more fantastic the claim the more physical evidence it takes to make it credible.
We don't have any "physical evidence" for most historical events. Unless you mean documents that are discovered. We do have more of this documentary evidence for the miracle acts of Jesus than we have for many of the recognized historical events.
So you've never seen a minie ball or a tabloon? You've never been exposed to the wealth of information we've been able to discover through artifacts about ancient civilizations who had not invented writing? You've never seen a fossil?
None of this changes the fact that the vast majority of our recorded history is not supported by any such physical evidence. Virtually all of our recorded history comes from documents written by someone who claims the event happened, and this is how we know it. Remove all the history that we know from such documents, and only a tiny percent of our knowledge of history is left.
Nevertheless, I agree that extra evidence is required for such events as this. So for normal events, one source alone is often sufficient. While for miracle acts it requires more than one source, or more than two.
There is no scientific or objective criterion for prescribing the exact number of sources that is required.
If you maintain that the evidence for these events is not sufficient to be included as facts of history in standard history textbooks, I don't disagree. These unusual events in the N.T. belong in a category of many historical events that are reported as doubtful, or events that cannot be verified sufficiently as proven facts, but which nevertheless may be actual historical events -- and they are put into the unknown category, as possibly true but doubtful.
Much of the historical events are in this category. Was King Arthur a real king? Are the exploits of William Tell for real? How much of the Rienzi character is real, and how much imaginary? etc. Obviously there are many legends and fictional elements mixed in with the facts, but also normal events which cannot be verified with certainty, where some details, even important ones, are in doubt.
Why do you exclude your Jesus myth from these, pray tell?
He's not excluded. All the above characters probably existed, but it's difficult to separate the fact from fiction. That's also true of Jesus. There is some fact and some fiction. There is good reason to believe that the miracle healing acts are fact. But some other parts of the biblical account are probably fiction. E.g., the corpses rising from the graves in Mt. 27:52-53, maybe the star over Bethlehem, and Jesus quoted as telling the disciples they could drink poison without being harmed (Mk. 16:18). There are reasons why the miracle healing accounts are credible, but not every recorded event.
The more a story disagrees with the historical record the less likely it is to be credible.
Of course. But "the historical record" is simply the entire collection of all the reported events in all the documents. The N.T. is included as part of these documents, or as part of the historical record. You cannot arbitrarily exclude any documents from the historical record. You can say some are more reliable than others, but you have to include them all.
Ah, except as I've mentioned above, for non-document artifacts, of which there is quite a bit.
No, there's very little compared to the written documents. Again, the vast majority of all the history you believe is from written accounts in documents, not from artifacts.
And why this obsession with artifacts? Do these really prove anything? The documents are actually more reliable. The artifacts are much more subject to interpretation. And also, without written documents, there'd be no way to place much of the artifacts into any historical chronology. And if those artifacts are inscriptions, as many are, they are really written documents and just as unreliable as anything from scrolls.
E.g., that "House of David" inscription that was found is just as unreliable as anything in the Bible about King David. Its only advantage is not that it is an "artifact" instead of a written document, but simply that it is EARLIER DATED. It's only the earlier date that gives it extra importance, not that it's an "artifact" or an archaeological find.
The more the perpetrators of a story have an obvious political or religious agenda the more skeptical one should be in accepting the story at face value.
Of course. And virtually all of them do have such an agenda, and the more this agenda shows itself, the more skeptical we should be. However, even in a biased source we can read between the lines and glean the truth, or make a good speculation. So you cannot exclude a source even if it is very biased. Rather, you take into account this bias and still look for what truth we can get from it that would not be tainted, or is less tainted, by that bias.
Which is why sensible people would conclude that perhaps an itinerant non-miracle-working preacher named Jesus may have lived around the time frame in question, pissed off some important people and gotten his ass crucified for his efforts. His followers, living in denial as grieving people often do, refused to believe he was dead.
Why didn't the "followers" of hundreds of other cult leaders also refuse to believe their leader was dead? Why didn't the followers of John the Baptist refuse to believe he was dead, and then invent a resurrection story and other miracle stories about John the Baptist? And there were many other cult leaders who also should have been deified by their followers who refused to believe they were dead. So, why don't we have many other similar accounts of these others? How was Jesus different than so many others who were just as significant as he was?
The rest, as they say is ... sort of ... history. Fits all the evidence, . . .
No, this does not fit the evidence. If your explanation was correct, we would have written accounts of many additional cults similar to the Jesus cult. The absence of any such accounts is evidence that this is not what happened. The evidence is that Jesus had to be more than "an itinerant non-miracle-working preacher" who "pissed off some important people" and got killed, because there were hundreds such persons and yet none of them got deified into a miracle-working savior.
. . . jettisons all the miraculous BS . . .
That's the only purpose of your scenario. Not to determine what really happened, based on the evidence, but to find a way to weed out the miracle element because it contradicts your dogmatic premise.
. . . and leaves us with a plausible scenario.
No, it's less plausible if it leaves the questions unanswered. The more plausible scenario is that Jesus did perform the miracle acts, because this explains why he's the only one who was made into a deity in such a short time after the events, even though he was not a famous celebrity and had no reputation or standing as a public figure, outside his reported fame as a miracle-worker (e.g., Mt. 4:24).
Your "plausible scenario" has to explain these things, which it does not do. How does this Jesus figure become the only reputed miracle-worker for whom we have written reports near to the time of the miracle events? Your scenario is not "plausible" if it does not answer this.
The more independently a story is corroborated the better a chance the story has credibility.
It depends on what you mean by "independently." There is nothing wrong with a source relying partly on earlier sources. This actually increases the reliability. It makes it more certain that this source is not inventing its own private version of the facts, but is trying to stay in keeping with the earlier reports.
There is nothing less credible about a source which relies partly on earlier sources while also adding its own unique contribution that is separate from the other sources.
But that is not what happened, is it? Matthew didn't simply "add more unique contributions." Matthew directly contradicted Mark in many places.
Some places. The credibility is not undermined by some variant versions of what happened. Extreme blatant contradiction is rare.
Luke and John directly contradicts the others in places.
But it's normal for witnesses to contradict each other. This doesn't mean the events in question never happened. When there's confusion and something unusual happened, it's normal for the accounts to conflict with one another. It isn't necessary for a believer to insist that every sentence in the gospel accounts is precisely accurate. That there is some inconsistency actually supports the overall veracity of the general narrative presented, while the details are made less certain.
This is consistent with myth development over large areas where people spread out and add more details independently to their myth.
There cannot be "myth development" unless there is an origin to the myth, from which it then develops. Until you explain how the "myth" originated, your explanation is not plausible. You have to explain what the "myth" was at the beginning before you can hypothesize its "development" into something further.
That Jesus actually performed the miracle acts explains what the origin was. Then from that point there was some mythologizing that took place, and some "development" from that origin. But to just say that a myth is developing does not explain the origin of the "myth" and so is not plausible.
Any mythologizing has to develop from a mythic hero figure which had an identifiable origin, like Gautama or Socrates, or from a figure that had been around for many centuries going back to an unknown origin, like Apollo or Zeus. All the examples that can be offered were of someone who was important in some way, with an established reputation.
Until you explain the original Jesus figure in this way, your scenario is not plausible, because it fails to fit the pattern of all mythic figures. So your "myth development" scenario is not plausible until you explain how it originated or where the original myth figure comes from or how it became the object of this myth development.
The gospels themselves are evidence that most of what happened in them is made-up.
No, you don't draw this conclusion from anything in the gospels, unless you start out from the dogmatic premise that no miracle events can ever happen. Only by imposing this dogmatic premise can you see any "evidence" of something being made-up. Outside this dogmatic premise there is no evidence of any such thing.
Rather, the evidence is that something real happened, something unusual, and then to this original core event there is some myth development and interpretation and probably some fiction that became added to the original real event(s). And it's impossible to place a percentage of how much is authentically accurate as to the real events and how much diverges off into myth development. But there has to be the real part, which is the actual historical events that happened.
The gospel narratives contain extremely extraordinary claims backed up by absolutely no physical evidence.
Again, there are many facts of history for which there is no "physical evidence" other than the documents that report these facts.
Since the claims are extraordinary it is reasonable to require additional sources. But to require "physical evidence" which is not required for other historical events is an unreasonable demand based only on a dogmatic prejudice against such events being possible. You cannot reasonably require a higher quality of evidence. Rather, you can demand some extra evidence that is the same kind or the same quality of evidence as is required for the ordinary events or claims.
Extraordinary evidence is required for extraordinary claims.
No, just extra evidence is required. The same kind of evidence as for ordinary claims. We just need one or two extra sources. Especially sources near to the time of the reported event(s). This is why the miracle acts of Jesus in the gospel accounts are more credible than other miracle claims from antiquity.
Don't know how many times this must be said but it obviously isn't sinking in.
You have to do more than just keep repeating this slogan. Extra evidence is what is required. Unusual events do happen. When there is the extra evidence, the claim becomes more credible.
Mythic stories are not extraordinary evidence as there are thousands of such mythic stories and not one piece of extraordinary evidence backing any of them up.
Usually there is only one source, and usually any source is far removed in time from the reported event(s). This is why they are not credible, not because they lack "extraordinary" evidence.
However, you cannot rule out the possibility that some miracle claims might actually be true. Perhaps there really is evidence in some rare cases. There are varying levels of "credibility."
I've already mentioned the sort of evidence one would expect to find had Jesus performed such incredible miracles in a highly populated area such as Jerusalem. There would be some evidence contemporary to the events that would survive.
It's a good possibility that very few miracles of Jesus were performed in Jerusalem. The Synoptic Gospels report none in Jerusalem. Probably a few near Jerusalem, outside, as he approached the city.
However, there's no reason to say there would have to be more evidence than we have, of those he did in Jerusalem. They did not have newscasters and journalists covering all the events. We can't copy and paste our current culture onto the events of that time.
We have mundane letters written in that area about trivial crap from that time period.
Only from famous celebrities, like Cicero and Pliny and Philo. 99.99999999% of the trivial crap was not recorded. What little was written down obviously rotted and did not survive.
We have absolutely nothing documenting this incredible person's activities.
We have absolutely nothing documenting anyone's activities other than those of a few rich and powerful persons, less than 1/100 of 1% of the population. And even most of these are undocumented.
Which is why that person's activities reported 40 years after the fact lack credibility.
A vast amount of our historical knowledge is from documents longer than 40 years distant from the events reported.
The gospel narratives disagree in many places with known information about the times and places uncovered over the years through scientific disciplines.
Usually on minor details only. Most of the accepted histories of the period also contain disagreements or discrepancies. There are contradictions even within the writings of the same historian.
There are a few major details in the gospel accounts where there is a discrepancy problem. But these are generally found in only one of the gospel accounts. Such as the star over Bethlehem. This does not undermine the credibility of Matthew generally, for the general account of what happened.
You need to give us 1 or 2 of the best examples of these disagreements with known information. You're probably thinking of some minor detail that is not important. Give an example.
Okay, how's this:
"John" has Mary showing up at a desolate scene on resurrection morning. No guards, nobody around, just an empty tomb. She runs to Peter and tells him "They have taken his body and we don't know what they've done with it!" Peter and John rush back, investigate and leave. Mary hangs around after they leave, gets talked to by angels and then turns around and there is Jesus standing right there.
"Matthew" has Mary and Mary showing up at an incredible scene involving an earthquake, an angel triumphantly sitting on the stone rolled away from the tomb, and at least two guards laying on the ground petrified with fear. The angel tells the ladies that Jesus has risen and that they need to go tell his disciples to meet him in Galilee. The ladies actually bump into Jesus himself before they get to the disciples.
"Luke" has at least 5 women showing up at the tomb which is open but no angels are outside. They go inside the tomb and suddenly the angels appear and start talking to them. They go tell the disciples, who didn't believe them. Yada yada yada... Jesus miraculously appears inside a locked room with the disciples. There he tells them to stay in Jerusalem until they have been endued with power from on high.
John's desolate scene is the direct opposite of Matthew's dramatic one. Luke's angels appear
inside the tomb after the ladies get there but Matthew and Mark have their messengers outside the tomb. In one version Mary has no clue what happened to Jesus when she reaches Peter, but in others she has not only been told what happened but she's talked to Jesus himself.
All the above are just minor details which require no explanation. Either there's no real contradiction, or it's just a minor discrepancy which proves nothing, no different than the minor discrepancies from witnesses or reports of any actual events that were unusual or jarring in some way. It is not important if some of the details in the accounts are inaccurate. There are usually some inaccurate versions of the details with any unusual event that is reported. This in no way undermines the truth of the overall event.
Matthew's version has the disciples meeting Jesus in Galilee, at least 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Luke/Acts leaves absolutely no room for a journey to Galilee and is very specific that everything that happened between resurrection Sunday and Pentecost happened in Jerusalem.
This can easily be explained: The ones who saw Jesus in Galilee were different disciples than the ones who saw him in Jerusalem.
The only identification of them is Matthew's term "the eleven" -- i.e., The Twelve Disciples minus Judas. This is the only error. They were just a group of disciples who had remained back in Galilee rather than traveling with Jesus to Jerusalem.
The term "The Twelve Disciples" might not have existed in 30 AD at the time of the crucifixion and resurrection. Matthew does not name Peter as one of them. Later John elaborates on the Galilee encounters with Jesus, which may be mostly fiction.
Just because there is a fictional element does not falsify the whole account. Overall the gospels give a true account of what happened, but there is the fictional element with the details. It's not necessary for all the details to be accurate.
Most of the post-resurrection events were in or near Jerusalem, but Jesus also met some of the earlier disciples who had remained in Galilee. This is the best explanation. It's only a minor discrepancy with a simple explanation. There is an error in saying it was "the eleven" or that Peter was one of those who saw him in Galilee. This is a minor detail.
None of this undermines the general credibility of the gospel accounts.
They are right as to the general account of what happened. Matthew and John are incorrect to suggest it was the same disciples who saw him both in Jerusalem and in Galilee.
The total number of "disciples" was greater than just 12, and sometimes the gospel accounts speak of "the disciples" as if they were this one small group alone who experienced all these encounters with him. Whereas the truth is that they were not such a small cohesive group with Jesus all the time, and in some cases "the disciples" may be a mostly different group than at other times.
That's just for starters. Rationalize all you want. These are direct contradictions. There are many more.
It doesn't matter that there are some discrepancies. True accounts of true historical events usually contain some discrepancies. If all historical accounts with discrepancies have to be discounted, then virtually all of our recorded history would have to be scrapped.
Jesus is not mentioned at all in the established history record.
He is mentioned by Tacitus and Josephus. These are authentic quotes, not including the famous controversial quote in Josephus which is dismissed as an interpolation.
He is mentioned in myths that clearly developed over a period of decades, settling into a time frame and geographic location 40 years after the alleged events took place.
There's no basis for any doubt about the geographic location. This is established in the Q document, which existed in the 50s AD and places Jesus in the area governed by Herod Antipas. So the geographical location is definitely fixed within 20-30 years after the events.
This record is more established and fixed historically than that for many events which we believe took place and are part of the historical record and for which there is less evidence than that which we have for the words and deeds of Jesus in the gospel accounts.
A great amount of the accepted historical record took longer than 40 years to become established and settled into a time frame and geographic location.
The nebulous nature of the earliest depictions of Jesus have no time frame or location, making it impossible for people to gainsay the myth.
No, the earliest depictions of Jesus include the Q document, which is contemporaneous with St. Paul, and clearly places him in the region governed by Herod Antipas at the same time period as John the Baptist, and also when Pontius Pilate governed Judea.
Though Paul omits the biographical elements, his presentation of Jesus clearly conforms to that of the gospel accounts. There is some overlap of events, mainly that of the arrest and other events that night, also the appearances after the resurrection, proving that the person Paul wrote of was the same person described in the gospel accounts.
As actual people who might have been alive at the time began to die off, the details start appearing.
Whatever new details may have emerged, this happened in the same way as with all historical events of the time, before events were recorded for mass distribution. The full picture emerges later, after more is learned by those who record it for later generations. The record of what happened here is as reliable as that of most historical events of the time. The accounts of any event were mainly those which developed several decades later after many who witnessed the events were dying off. Typical process of historical events getting recorded for later generations. If you reject this process as not reliable, then you have to toss out most of our historical record for the period, for any events.
It is as blatant a case of myth building as one could present.
Only if you mean that most of the historical record from this time period is myth.
But the fact remains that you don't get to hide a miracle worker behind decades of cloud and smoke and then pretend that somehow the myths written about him 40 years later are evidence that he worked the miracles.
Again, this means you have to throw out most of our historical record for this time period. Most of it relies on records from more than 40 years after the reported events.
This is not responsible historical critique. It is religion, pure and simple.
So then our historical record is mostly religion. The events you read about in your history book were not recorded on the spot when the events took place. Most of them don't appear in documents until decades after the events took place.
And it is religion, not science, that is dogmatic and oftentimes arbitrary.
Yes, like the arbitrary dogma that miracle events can never happen, even when there is evidence that they did.
Ignoring the magnitude of counter-evidence and the strength of the opposing arguments isn't going to make them go away.
You're right -- the continued ignoring of the evidence that Jesus performed miracle healing acts is not going to make that evidence go away.
Also, the repeated claim that there were other reported miracle-workers for whom there is evidence does not make it so. Still no one can name who these other reported miracle-workers were and quote the documents telling us of their miracle acts.
Anywho, thanks for the Readers Digest version.
