120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[bilby]

Yesterday Keith and I watched a fully grown elephant climb to the top of a 50 foot coconut tree, hang by his tail from one of the branches and trumpet the melody of "In a Gadda Da Vida." There were five other witnesses who frequent this thread. So what you're saying is that so long as they all chime in and attest that this is what they saw you will believe it without any doubt.

There is no agreed standard on how much extra evidence is required for someone to believe a story like this, but if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I'd personally find it a bit hard to swallow. Not as hard to swallow as a dude healing blind people with a touch, raising dead people back to life or floating unassisted off into the sky, but I'd still be plenty skeptical, of that I am sure. But I saw it with my own eyes. Add to that nearly everyone has seen elephants and heard them make that trumpeting sound. Climbing elephants are rare, and coconut tree branches strong enough to support the weight of a fully grown elephant are probably even rarer. But with five or six moderately anonymous witnesses what's to doubt?

That story or whatever the story will be exaggerated into will become undeniable if it is spread by word of mouth from person to person for fifty years to be finally written down by four anonymous people who have no knowledge of you or Keith and who have never seen an elephant or palm tree.

ETA:
By the way, I must have had a better vantage point. I saw four elephants in that palm and they were trumpeting "In a Gadda Da Vida" in four part harmony.

Of course, some will say 'Palm trees don't have branches"; but as many gutless apologists serious scholars can attest, the word 'Branch' here is derived from the ancient Aramaic word 'Douchenozzle' (/dʌkˈnɒzel/), meaning both 'Branch' and 'Frond'.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Joseph Smith miracles are based on the Christ miracles. Christ miracles are based on reports of unknown origin.

You are humorous in your quixotic attempt to justify believing anonymous writers, that may have not even met your demigod, while trying to dis Joseph Smith’s (JS) paper trail.

What's important is that the writer/source should not just be someone who was a direct devotee of the demigod or healer, especially not someone under the spell of the guru's charisma for several years.

If the writer is a believer in the healer's cause, it should not be due to his having been a member of his flock and having a personal attachment to him.

And knowing the writer's name is of little importance.

You cannot demand that we have people not connected with the prophet JS for evidence, as all you have is assumed people who may have known your demigod.

The writers almost surely were not in direct contact with him. The crowds who gathered around Jesus were surely not literate. It almost surely began with ORAL REPORTS ONLY. These were eventually put into writing, a few years later.

The accounts in the gospels all suggest that the ones who started the oral reports were the victims who were healed, or their family members, or onlookers. It was not the disciples or direct admirers of him who started the rumors.

And it's obvious that the gospel compilers from 65 AD and later were not direct personal followers of Jesus. All the writers were using reports which they thought were reliable.

Paul admits he never met your demigod. I'd be quite content with comparing outside sources for both your demigod and for JS and his miracle, as you have none.

You're saying there are "outside sources" for the JS miracles? I'll check for that. So far I think the most comprehensive presentation of the JS miracles is http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Healings_and_miracles which seems to have only sources which were his disciples. But I'll check further. What is an example of a source who was not one of his disciples?

It is not difficult. Just spend 10% of the time, you do regurgitating the 739th variant of your vacuous claims, to googling the information. And you would find out that 1895 is simply a later publishing of 7 volumes, not the oldest copy of said documents. We actually have the LDS 1839-1843 originals available online as images.

The original manuscript was written between June 1839–24 Aug. 1843, which is available via scanned images here:

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperS...56-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834

It has the Wilford Woodruff quote which is the strongest claim of miracles by Joseph Smith. It seems to claim Smith cured a huge number in some kind of mass healing jamboree on one day. Plus there are many other healing stories which are not too convincing.

Yeah, I don't find your miracle claims very convincing either...but that is sort of beside the point.

I'm convinced partly by the fact that the Jesus miracles seem to originate from sources who were not his disciples. Also the later writers were not his direct followers. This makes them more objective. Also the victims he healed were not his direct disciples. None of these had been under the influence of his charisma. I plead guilty to being suspicious of testimony favorable to a guru which comes only from his personal followers who had been under the spell of his charisma.

The below are just from one of the original sources that are available from the above link:

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperS...ume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834&p=159

About this time, Ezra Booth came out as an apostate. He came into the church upon seeing a person healed of an infirmity of many year’s standing. He had been a methodist priest for some <time> previous to his embracing the fulness of the gospel, as developed in the book of Mormon,

Is this the best quote you can find? the best example of a miracle healing by Joseph Smith? The text does not even say it was JS who did this healing. And this source appears to be from a direct personal follower of Smith. Or was this a believer from many years later, or someone separate from the Prophet's charisma? He doesn't say he witnessed the miracle himself. And was the one healed a personal follower of Joseph Smith?

What's more believable would be a report from someone who knew the one healed but not the healer. Or who had reports of this, and maybe some other similar reports, and who decided there must be something to the claims, because there were different stories like this coming from separate witnesses, and after several of these, the reports start to become credible.

But the source should at least be one which says it was Smith who did the healing. If it doesn't even say that, then it's not clear what's going on. You need a better example than this one.

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperS...mber-1805-30-august-1834?p=561&highlight=heal

David <W.> Pattin [Patten] has just returned from his tour to the East, and gives us great satisfaction as to his ministry, he has raised up a church of about eighty-three members in that part of the Country, where his friends live, in the State of New York; many were healed through his instrumentality, several cripples were restored, as many as twelve that were afflicted came at a time from a distance to be healed; he and others administered in the name of Jesus, and they were made whole,

But who is the miracle healer? It's not Joseph Smith, but David Pattin who is healing them. This shows that we're talking not about Joseph Smith per se having any special or unique power, but just the usual faith-healing claims within a faith community, where "brother so-and-so" prayed for "sister so-and-so" who then recovered.

This is not what the "Jesus myth" is about. It's about a unique person in history who had singular power to heal that is not evident with any other reported healer. Where is the evidence or the accounts of another similar case? There are better examples than this of other reputed healers. Is this the best you can find?

And here is the image for the original source of the one I already provided:
http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperS...mber-1805-30-august-1834?p=221&highlight=heal

Anecdotes like these are very common among many religions. People within the church saying brother so-and-so healed someone, or they prayed and sister so-and-so recovered, and so on -- and meetings or a faith healing rally etc. These are all worshipers within the church family supporting each other and re-assuring each other that God is taking care of them, and so on.

All this is inspired from their belief in the Bible accounts, the Jesus miracles, which is a centuries-old tradition that inspires them and leads to these stories.

These are not analogous to the Jesus healing events, which came not from any religious tradition or anecdotes of the disciples, which kind are discounted by everyone who isn't a member of the religious group in question.

Sure they are analogous. The Jesus cult was constructed within the confines of the Roman Empire with Yahweh, Mithras, and Orisis floating around, with their followers with healing claims.

No, there are no healing miracle events within this environment, other than the following:

• from Jewish scripture containing hundreds of miracles, 3 healings by Elisha and Elijah: 1 Kings 17:22, 2 Kings 4:34, 2 Kings 5:14); and
  
  
• thousands of inscriptions on temple walls and statues of Asclepius and some other "gods" where a worshiper had come to pray to their healing god.

There was no claim by Jesus or the disciples or anyone of devotion to Elisha or any of these healing deities, or that he was healing in their name, or that he had any connection to these healing traditions.

By contrast it is absolutely clear that Joseph Smith did all his reported miracles in the name of Jesus Christ, as well as any alleged miracles by his followers. Everything Joseph Smith did was rooted in the earlier Christ belief going back 1800 years earlier.

All miracle healings or faith healing crusades are done in the name of a previous healing deity and tradition dating back many centuries. I.e., all except the Jesus Christ healings of the 1st century. This one healing tradition only had its beginning without any apparent attachment to a previous healing tradition or healing god or deity.

I assume that you are at least familiar with Yahweh miracle healing claims, . . .

In the Hebrew Scriptures there are endless miracles on page after page, like a never-ending train that keeps coming and coming, and you could take a nap while the cars go by and wake up hours later and it's still going on and on with no end. Yes, within this endless train of miracle stories there are three -- count 'em -- three miracle healing events. It should be extremely obvious that miracle healings were not something of much interest to the Jewish prophets or the Yahweh tradition.

And those 3 healing miracles are confined to the period around 600-700 BC, with nothing similar appearing in the centuries leading up to the arrival of Jesus in the early 1st century. Jewish thought and theology were in no way heading toward the direction of anything like miracle healing stories in the Hellenistic and Roman period.

. . . even if you want to discount the more vague histories of Mithras and Osiris?

They are so vague that I doubt you can find one miracle healing involving those gods, other than people praying at temples and statues. I don't think you can find any similarity of the Jesus healing stories to those pagan worshiping practices. Other than the simple description that there were healing claims.

There was no such thing as a healer who arrived in the town or village and then the sick were brought in large numbers to be healed. Nothing remotely similar to this. You cannot explain where such stories originated.

Nor in the Hebrew Scriptures. If Elisha and Elijah were miracle healers of some kind, why didn't they attract crowds who came to them or brought the sick to them to be healed?

No, the miracle healing phenomenon of the gospel accounts has no precedent and no antecedent to be found anywhere in the cultural environment of the period. It popped up out of nowhere without any explanation that anyone can provide.

Whereas the Joseph Smith healings obviously are dependent entirely on the earlier Jesus Christ healing tradition, and Joseph Smith acknowledged this repeatedly. The Mormon religion bases all its belief and tradition on the Jesus gospel and could not have existed without this earlier background from which it evolved.

JS was constructing his new religion to compete with Christianity, . . .

With the existing Christian denominations, yes. But entirely based on the earlier Christian scriptures and Christ belief.

. . . just as Paul and his chipmunks were constructing their new religion to compete with Judaism.

But more precisely, they were trying to make the new Christ belief into something that would extend also to Gentiles so that it would not be limited to Jews only, or would become free from the Jewish legalistic obstacles which prevented many Gentiles from converting to this new Jewish cult. I.e., trying to make Christ available to Gentiles who would not have to become circumcised and do other Jewish rituals in order to adopt the new Christ belief.

I.e., Paul wanted to create a Gentile or non-Jewish branch of the new Christ cult, which started out as Jewish only.

Not amazingly, both groups most probably felt compelled to make their god-system competitive with the older one(s).

No, what Judaism felt compelled to do was to establish its independent Jewish nation ruled by God only, or by the Mosaic Law, with a Jewish king. And partly to purge out some non-Jewish elements, to make the nation pure.

And what Paul and his Christian "chipmunks" felt compelled to do was to spread the "gospel" and to struggle against some other Christ cults which were defining the Christ belief differently than he was defining it, including their continued idol-worshiping practices they had inherited and from which Paul wanted to purge them after their having converted from paganism.

But neither Judaism nor Paul and the new Christ cults had any compulsion to make their god-system more "competitive" with something.

Rather, the Jesus accounts are of people who came from outside the circle of his disciples and were healed and then left to tell others what had happened.

WTF? The Gospel accounts come from the circle of believers within this new Christ cult.

No, you mean the new Christ cults -- PLURAL. It's impossible to determine which of the many new Christ cults or Christ communities the Gospel accounts emerged from.

And there was no single "circle" of believers, but several circles, each one pursuing the new Christ faith according to its interpretation. And often even condemning the other circles for their false teachings.

But originally, the ones healed were generally not from among the disciples of Jesus but were outsiders who came or had an encounter with him, not having known him or followed him before, in contrast to those who worshiped at pagan statues and reported being healed, who went there as worshipers of their healing god and long-time members of the healing cult. But the ones healed by Jesus had not worshiped him earlier.

There are NO outside accounts.

You mean the earliest Jesus healing accounts? miracle stories? If you're assuming the actual events never happened, then ALL these accounts, written or oral, were "outside accounts" because each one came from ONLY ONE of the many Christ cults, meaning they were "outside" all the other Christ cults. There was NO single Christ cult or "inner circle" of Christ believers, but several cults from which the stories emerged throughout the 1st century.

There was no single clique of believers who originated the stories or controlled them. All these cults created their own stories independently of each other -- if the events never really happened -- and they all turned their Christ into a magic healer, even though there was no previous culture of healing stories from which such legends could have been borrowed. They just all did this each cult on its own, each one fabricating its own Christ miracle healer within a social and religious environment which had no such healing stories in it previously.

The Jesus accounts were believed by writers hundreds of miles away from where the events happened, not part of his group, and who had enough reports that they were credible, having originated not from the direct disciples, but apparently from the ones healed or their family or from onlookers who went out and reported what happened. Or from indirect witnesses who had heard it from a direct witness.

The Jesus reports did not originate from the disciples, like the J. Smith stories originated only from his direct disciples having been under the influence of his charisma over many years.

Do you enjoy making shit up? There are NO outside accounts.

There's nothing BUT outside accounts. True, maybe each miracle story originated from one of the many Christ cults, but still each such story was "outside" all the other Christ cults. If the miracle events never really happened, then the stories were made up somewhere. So it must have been from within the various cults, but each cult is creating its own Christ, without any one cult dictating to all the others.

None of these cults had any power over the others to force them to accept its particular version of the Christ entity. So each one invented its own Christ miracles independently of the others.

The Gospels come from within the Christ cult.

No, cults, PLURAL. There were MANY Christ cults, not only one, and no single one had power to impose anything onto the others. Even if they wanted to and tried to. It's clear from reading Paul's epistles and the other epistles and Revelation that there were extreme divisions between them and each one accused the others of being apostates.

So yes, you can say the gospels came from among the Christ cults, but whichever ones they came from, they were "outside" all the other Christ cults. These cults did not hold an ecumenical council to decide to publish any "gospel" accounts.

Moreover, it's unlikely that even just one of these cults could have produced any of the gospel accounts, because how could any one of them agree to everything contained in any one of the gospels? These were not considered divinely inspired scripture at that time, so anyone reading something in the gospel account would surely see something offensive in it and would object to it.

So it's more likely that each "gospel" is the creation of a very tiny clique or even just one person, who collected the pieces together (for the synoptics) and satisfied himself that it was the best combination of the pieces that was possible in order to accurately present the Jesus events.

And surely the individual pieces must have each been produced by one person only. Any collusion between the editors/compilers/writers is impossible to imagine. It could not have been any central authority that produced these writings.

And the motive of the final redactor of each gospel must have been to produce what he thought was the most accurate account of what happened, and perhaps also the most inspiring version possible, or edifying in terms of having a good impact on readers.

We need something from someone other than Joseph Smith himself. And we need something originating from someone other than his direct disciples.

ROTFLMAO So straight from the horse's mouth isn't any good, . . .

Not from the founder of the new religion, an aggressive charismatic trying to establish his authority as a source of revelation; nor from one of his devoted followers having been under the spell of his charisma for many years. It is so easy to see how mythologizing arises from this.

. . . but anonymous gospels written by people within the Christ cult is good?

No, the Christ cults, plural.

Yes, this is better because the reports are not tainted by personal contact from the charisma of the Prophet or Teacher, which leads to mythologizing by the devoted follower. Something put together by someone more distant, who maybe became convinced, or "converted" into a believer from the numerous reports, oral and written, which came before him. As long as it's within a reasonable time frame, early enough that there are still some original witnesses left. And if we can assume some of his reports are very early, or originate from the very beginning, back to the actual events.

This would not exclude reports from original disciples, but the later compiler knows to be suspicious of reports from hardcore devotees and uses critical judgment as to selecting what is reliable.

Nevermind that the JS volumes are known to have been compiled by known people who are known to have known JS.

We should consider them. It's still not clear what they're claiming. Your above examples are still not adequate. There was no story saying that some sick people were brought to Joseph Smith and he healed them, etc.

Presumably there is something like that, but it hasn't been produced yet. I will check http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Healings_and_miracles further. If you come up with something more straightforward, saying explicitly that JS healed the person who had been ill a long time or blind or lame from birth, etc., maybe saying something about where it happened, etc., then post it here so it can be taken seriously.

But there should be something from an outsider attesting to a healing. Someone who was not a Joseph Smith devotee. If there is no such source, it's much less credible. Also we need a victim healed who was not a devotee.

Notice the difference? In one case we know who wrote the documents, in what years they were written, and we know that the compilers knew the prophet in question.

Yes, but if these witnesses were all close devotees of JS who were influenced by his charismatic personality, and there's no source other than these, then it's less credible than an outsider, including someone later who collected earlier reports, and who became convinced by the numerous reports but was unaffected by the guru's charisma.

In the other case, we can only assume that some of the writers knew their demigod, . . .

In AD 30 we might not assume this. So few people could write, it's unlikely any of the direct witnesses wrote anything down. But oral reports and later written reports can be trusted if there's enough of them and they seem to have originated from something other than only the guru's charisma. Obviously there's no certainty here, but only reasonable conjecture.

. . . but we really aren't positive as the first document came at least 3 decades after the end of the events, but the years are super fuzzy.

The first documents which survived and which we now have, yes -- those are not until at least 30 years later (or 20 for Paul's epistles, who attested to the resurrection). But there obviously were some documents prior to Mark and the Q document which have not survived. So it's not like 30 years are nothing but oral accounts. Rather, there were some written accounts which no doubt preserved some of the earliest reports, so that we can be confident that there was some preservation of the earliest accounts.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What do all mythic heroes other than Jesus Christ have in common? -- There's NO REASON TO BELIEVE their alleged miracles.

(continued)

And it did not take any sort of divine intervention to make one religion more appealing than another either.

What it took to make the Jesus "good news" more appealing than other beliefs or ideas floating around was that in this case there were actual miracle events or acts of power that took place which made a unique impact on people, which persuaded many who saw it or heard of it that here was a superhuman power source, maybe from "God" and/or offering hope for eternal life -- whatever it was, there was real evidence this time, as opposed to the pagan myths, so that they adapted their religious beliefs to this "good news" of a real connection to something "divine" or beyond the normal human limitations.

There was real evidence, from reports or witnesses, so that in this unique case there was actually reason to believe that such a power existed, unlike the various pagan mythologies and religions which offered no evidence of such a power. So the Christ belief had more appeal, based on evidence, than all the others, and so some writers recorded this unique event.

No one has offered any better explanation how an instant miracle-worker could pop up like this.

Whether it's called "divine intervention" or some other phrase, this explains why the new cult(s) spread so fast without the usual mythologizing that takes place over many centuries in the pagan religions, or the mythologizing that accompanies a famous or popular public celebrity, or that of a prophet/guru who earns his deity status over a long career of enchanting his disciples with his amazing charisma. These were less appealing and less noteworthy than the real power Jesus showed in his short public career.

Why is it that the Mormons are now the fastest growing non-catholic christian denomination? Is it because God is with them? Is the spread of Islam, second only to Catholicism as an organized religion, evidence that Allah is real and approves of that religion? What, exactly, is your point in pursuing this line of argument?

There's probably a reason in each case why this religion succeeded more than that one. Or why anything happens, why this thing succeeded and another failed. It's good to ask why, or seek the reason or cause. And saying "God did it" is hardly an answer. But there does have to be an answer. And even if "we don't know" is the best we can do, it is also appropriate to consider all the possible answers other than "we don't know" and ask which of these possibilities is most likely.

And of all the explanations for the Jesus hero phenomenon, the best one, other than "we don't know," is that he must have actually performed those miracle healing acts, because this solves the mystery of how he got mythologized even though he failed to meet the requirements a hero figure always has to meet in order to become transformed from a normal human into a god.

No, the best one is the one I've already offered. Itinerant cult leader pisses off the ruling class, gets his ass crucified and his zealous devotees refuse to believe he's dead.

But there were thousands of such itinerant cult leaders. In many cases some disciples refuse to believe their hero is really dead, and maybe think he's still alive spiritually. Where are the hundreds more of such cults whose leader pissed off the ruling class and got executed and had zealous devotees who refused to believe he was dead?

No, any cult leader having a uniquely strong impact must have had a long career of leading them and impressing them with his charisma if many of them hold on to this belief into the future. It's not normal to obsess on the guru, his charisma, rather than the religious philosophy or practice, if this guru was an overnighter who disappeared in a short time. Promoting the guru as still alive cannot happen unless most of the devotees have an extraordinary attachment to him and he becomes the central object of their belief, and such attachment requires more than only 1-3 years to establish in them, or in a significant number of them.


It could not have been his CHARISMA which inspired the early Christ believers.

The vast majority of Christ believers in those early years, from 40 or 50 AD onward, who promoted the Christ resurrection belief, were ones who did NOT witness his charisma, because they joined AFTER his death and were not original witnesses or hearers of his words. So, how could such ones as these be so impressed that they would "refuse to believe he's dead"? This could describe only followers who experienced his charisma directly, not later ones who never saw or heard him.

I.e., at some early point, the ones who never saw him outnumbered the original ones, the first disciples, who had witnessed him directly.

If they are this obsessed with him, you have to explain what was unusual about this particular guru that impacted also the later ones who never witnessed him directly. Absent anything especially unusual about him, they would not have such delusions as this, or such thoughts would not persist but would decrease as a new guru steps in to replace the one who was martyred, and also as the original direct disciples fade from the scene and the believers are comprised more of those who never even saw the guru himself. Thus it cannot be the charisma of Jesus such that they "refuse to believe he's dead" which can explain the resurrection story and fast spread of the "gospel" in the 1st century.

You can't just casually say they "refuse to believe he's dead" as if this is a common occurrence from which there is a sudden flurry of miracle stories that pop up and get published and spark a new religious cult. If that could happen, then, once again, we'd have dozens or hundreds of miracle-worker Jesus-like cults springing up during these centuries, each with its own "gospel" accounts.

They start off with tales of him visiting them in visions. As time passes they add tales of him healing sick people and performing other miracles.

But where are all the other cults who were also adding tales of their own charismatic hero performing miracles? If they can so easily "start off" with such a hoax, why don't we have other cultists saying the same about their itinerant preacher guru and spreading their own "gospel" and getting published? There's not even one?

The reason there were no such cults that "start off with tales" etc. is that no one believed such tales about instant miracle-workers. Even if they humor the ones saying it, no one would take it seriously and repeat the tales to others, and they would never be written down by anyone. The stories would not spread beyond the tiny few who originated the tales. You can't name any case of this ever happening, where the hero figure had only a short career and the stories are published in multiple documents less than 50 years later.

Such miracle tales cannot be routinely invented and attributed to just anyone. It has to be someone important who did something highly unique. You cannot name any other example of such miracle stories being made up in a few years and being attributed to someone of no importance or status and being believed and spreading and getting published.

You first have to tell us what was important about the hero figure who is being uniquely mythologized by means of these tales. It has to be unique, because this is a singular case to which there is no other comparable mythic hero suddenly popping up out of nowhere.

Eventually his spiritual resurrection turns into a physical one and the miracle pericopes continue to develop to encompass nearly every power once attributed to some Greek, Roman or previous god-myth.

No, the people of the 1st century were not the brainless idiots you are describing here. Nothing like this has ever happened in world history, at any time or place. No cult ever got tales like this circulating within 30 years, unless it's only a half dozen idiots who believed it (in which case no one would have recorded it in writing). You can't name anything before modern times that has any resemblance to this.

Miracles and resurrection myths cannot emerge, in written documents, in only a few decades unless the miracle hero figure was someone of high repute or high celebrity status who had a long career probably as a prophet or maybe someone in a high position of power.

Your speculation might just as well be that a whole village was drugged by a chemical which made the whole village start having these hallucinations. That would be just as plausible. There's absolutely no case where a miracle legend developed, in only 30 years, around a figure who had no status or long career.

Your tales of how this happened are even more unlikely than that the hero figure actually did perform miracles.

Finally the movement is popular enough . . .

No it's not. You can pretend anything you want, but you're failing to explain how any of this happened or how it became popular.

You might just as well say that it became widely popular right from the beginning, on the first day. Instant miracle hero! Why not make it instantaneous? It's all fiction anyway. You're not explaining how this cult began -- you're just inventing a fiction tale saying it happened, but not answering how it happened contrary to all historical precedent.

You're answering how this happened by just saying that it happened.

You can hypothesize any nonsensical scenario you wish, but you've not shown anything plausible about it. No new hero legend can become "popular enough" in only a few decades unless that real person being mythologized was someone special.

You could apply this to Apollonius of Tyana who had a long career, more than 50 years, and probably did many good deeds that impressed people. But you can't apply it to Jesus who passed from the scene in less than 3 years. (And yet even for Apollonius we have no record of his deeds until 150 years later.)

. . . that they've even converted some Jewish scribes whose job is to write things down.

What? How did they convert them to something so anti-Jewish? It's virtually antisemitic to accuse Jewish scribes of being this stupid -- it's an insult to all Jews and to all scribes and everyone who writes anything down.

No one would write down these tales that make no sense, attributing superhuman power to an instant mythic hero who did nothing but impress a few listeners with his charisma and then disappeared. You can't name any case in history where people believed in such an instant fly-by-night superhuman. In modern times only might you uncover such a hoax using the Internet to recruit idiots, or maybe pranksters, or some college fraternity drunks.

Odd or goofy hoaxes may be possible today, but no such cult as this was ever written about by any scribes or writers in times past when publishing was costly and was not wasted on anything so spurious or delusionary. As always, you can't give any example of such a thing.

The scribes start writing down the stories, which first appear as "Mark."

No they don't. Stop insulting Jewish scribes by saying they would write down such rubbish. They don't write down instant miracle fictions and claim they actually happened. Why would a cabal of Jewish scribes suddenly do something so demented and anti-Jewish? They never did before. Why would they suddenly break all historical precedent and do something so mindless, and do it ONLY THIS ONE TIME and never any other time before or since?

The legends continue to grow, "gospels" abound.

What are you smoking? You're supposed to explain HOW this happened, or WHY the ones doing this would act this way? not just keep repeating that it happened.

To say the legends "grow" and "gospels abound" is like explaining how the cow jumped over the moon by saying "it made a big leap and bounded high up over the moon" -- you're just saying it happened without explaining HOW or WHY people would do such a thing. It's not true that people are stupid as you're describing here. Why in all history was it only in this one place at this one time that people behaved so stupidly?

What prevented the same thing from happening many more times than this once only?

It would be just as plausible to say that suddenly several hundred or thousand humans were replaced by seed pods, like in "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and the new aliens were implanted with memories of events that did not really happen, and they spread this new "gospel" about the miracle hero who resurrected. That is just as plausible as your instant miracle hero cult where suddenly "legends grow" and "gospels abound" out of nowhere, totally unlike anything that ever happened in history.

No, you need the real historical person who did something unusual and around whom the legends gradually emerged, over centuries, or at least over decades as he impressed thousands with his personality and charisma.

Eventually (325 AD) the council of Nicea decides what the official teachings of Christianity are going to be, . . .

You're jumping ahead far beyond the part you're supposed to explain, i.e., HOW the new cult(s) got started and proliferated.

Yes, this Council tried later to bring together the diverse cults popping up and to force some agreement among them, to reduce the divisiveness and impose some unity or control over this clutter of new cults arising out from the "Jesus myth" which no one knew what to do with. This proves that the original movement was not artificially planned but happened spontaneously, because some unusual event sparked the new odd cults into existence, each having its own interpretation of the original unusual event.

That a "Council" had to be convened to bring order out of this chaos of cults, with their conflicting interpretations, is evidence that something highly irregular must have happened originally to inspire these new cults into existence, something unplanned and out of control.

You have to explain what this original event was, which you have not done. You've given no explanation why it was necessary for a "Council" to intervene in this chaos of cults which seem to have sprung up out of nowhere for no apparent reason and with no common element other than a connection to this "Jesus myth" or this Jesus character of about 30 AD.

Why should so many conflicting crusader cults all be identifying with this one single character when they had nothing else in common? Why did they need a central authority entity to intervene and impose a common unifying doctrine upon them?

. . . launches a campaign to destroy competing pagan religions (both those that use a variant of Jesus and those that don't) . . .

No, that Council chose to destroy one major version of the "Jesus myth," which was Arianism. There was no decision at this council to destroy any competing "pagan" religions, but only the Arian version of the "Jesus myth."

The point was to bring unity, or a single doctrine into the Christ belief movement (the existence of which you fail to explain), to create the unified "Church" out of the many cults which were so divided. Unifying the Christ cults was the object, not the destruction of "pagan" cults or beliefs. Also not the destruction of obscure Christ cults like the gnostics, who predated Christ and used him as a mouthpiece for their Platonist philosophy.

Some persecutions of others also began happening later, but nothing ordered by the Council of Nicea.


(to be continued)

 

[Keith&Co.]

Yes. For the purpose of historical research, being able to identify the author helps determine if the author even COULD have been an eyewitness.

But why does that matter?

If you're still asking this question, you have no intention of understanding the answer. You want your favorite miracles to be evidenced, but not certain others, so you're going to weight all evidence to that desired conclusion.

That's not how it works.

 

[Veritass]

What do all mythic heroes other than Jesus Christ have in common? -- There's NO REASON TO BELIEVE their alleged miracles.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

Corrected quote: What do all mythic heroes including Jesus Christ have in common? -- There's NO REASON TO BELIEVE their alleged miracles.

No one has offered any better explanation how an instant miracle-worker could pop up like this.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

No one has offered any better explanation how an instant miracle-worker could pop up like this.

Through the middle ages, tales of miracle working saints and monks were a dime a dozen. This sort of stuff was rampant and miracle workers popped up all the time. Fraudulent 'relics' worked miracles all over Europe. Such miracle mongering is still around in primitivist Christian religious sects world wide. Faith healing is big business today.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Jesus Christ is the only "instant miracle-worker" -- the only one who was not a product of mythologizing.

There was real evidence, from reports or witnesses, so that in this unique case there was actually reason to believe that such a power existed, unlike the various pagan mythologies and religions which offered no evidence of such a power. So the Christ belief had more appeal, based on evidence, than all the others, and so some writers recorded this unique event.

No one has offered any better explanation how an instant miracle-worker could pop up like this.

No one has offered any better explanation how an instant miracle-worker could pop up like this.

Through the middle ages, tales of miracle working saints and monks were a dime a dozen.

No instant miracle-workers popped up.

DEFINITION OF "INSTANT MIRACLE-WORKER"

This refers to a character of the following description:

1. Someone who was a real historical person, someone who really existed at a particular time and place -- e.g. Confucius, Zoroaster, etc. -- whose existence is attested to in written sources.

2. Someone about whom it is said in the sources that he performed miracle acts (not just that someone believed it but that he really did do those acts), and the belief that he did such acts became widespread in less than 100 years from the time that he lived.

3. Someone about whom there's more than one such source saying he performed those acts, and these sources were written less than 100 years from when he lived.

4. Someone who had a short public career. Less than 10 years, or less than 20 years.

5. Optional feature: Someone who was not a "card-carrying" member of an established recognized religious institution or tradition or priesthood. Or, more generally, someone who became popularized as a miracle-worker outside of any normal mythologizing process that can be easily recognized.

Jesus Christ is the only example of such an "instant miracle-worker"

point 5 could be left off the list. However, it's important to take account of how a noteworthy person can easily become mythologized into a miracle-worker as a result of a long-standing religious tradition which might easily create miracle stories for him. If his "miracles" are clearly fixed within that tradition and follow a pattern of such miracle stories within which the religious tradition evolved over many centuries, then this can easily be the source for the stories and can easily explain how the stories emerged and were readily believed.

So, the "instant miracle-worker" is one for whom an obvious mythologizing process cannot be identified as the origin of the miracle stories attributed to him in the sources.

This is partly what "instant" means. I.e., there is no environment of miracle stories within which the miracles of the "instant miracle-worker" can be explained. It is clear that devotees of the religious tradition help to create the miracle stories by their readiness to accept whatever suggestion is made.

Nevertheless, the existence of this environment, such as an established religious tradition or institution, does not necessarily disprove the miracle claims. Maybe some of the alleged miracles did really happen -- St. Francis and others, etc. -- we don't know. But if they did really happen, it's because the miracles somehow grew out of this religious tradition in accordance with expectation and are not "instant" as in the case of someone who does such acts outside of such expectation, i.e., who "popped up" from nowhere.



Did St. Francis of Assisi do miracle acts?


There may be some credibility to this legend. The sources for it appear to be reasonably close, and St. Francis apparently had a short career compared to other famous "saints" and alleged miracle-workers. And he had no official position in the Church hierarchy as his starting point, so there was little or no power or status which propped him up like most charismatic myth heroes. And it's not clear if charisma played a role. So what made him turn into a miracle-worker?

So it's easier to believe there is some truth to the miracle claims about St. Francis than to totally dismiss them. If he had some unusual power, perhaps a psychic ability to communicate to animals, or other unusual ability, this sets him apart from other "saints" for whom the miracle stories can easily be explained as due to mythologizing.

Perhaps St. Francis is in a similar category to Rasputin the mad monk (without the sordid elements) for whom there is evidence that he possessed some limited miracle power. It's more difficult to explain what caused him to become a revered or widely recognized folk hero, so that limited possession of real psychic power may partly explain it.

This sort of stuff was rampant and miracle workers popped up all the time.

Even without point 5 above, you're mostly wrong here, because most of them had a long career as a prophet/saint/guru who won followers over several decades of preaching and influencing the worshipers with their charisma.

But even if some of them had a short career, you're referring to cases where the practitioner was involved with an established religious institution. In these cases there is a ready audience for such miracle claims and the believers are present, ready to "witness" the miracles and swear that they really happened. These are not "instant" miracles but ones which are already believed in by those who report them.

There were no miracle workers who gained this recognition without using the religious institution as the basis for their deeds and relying on the faith of the believers in advance of the acts being performed. So, these miracle workers did not "pop up" suddenly but evolved gradually into the life of the believing community without any surprises.

Of course in most cases they had long careers first, to establish their reputation. But maybe there were some cases of one who had a short public life, though this must be very rare.

Fraudulent 'relics' worked miracles all over Europe.

No they didn't.

We need more than one source attesting to the miracle acts that were performed using the particular "relic" -- and these cannot just say that someone believed it, but that the miracle events really happened. And we need an indication that the miracle events became widely believed and recognized by more than only one family or clan or small circle of believers.

Such miracle mongering is still around in primitivist Christian religious sects world wide.

We need sources attesting to the miracle acts that are performed. In some cases today there might be oddball websites or blogs making wild claims, and perhaps a few of them agree on the same miracle act done somewhere.

So to define "instant miracle-worker" for modern times is more complicated.

Still, we could eliminate these modern examples because of the very tiny percentage of the population who believe in those miracle acts.

But to keep this simple, let's just say there was no "instant miracle-worker" prior to about 1600 or 1700 AD. With Christ being the sole exception to this.

The "relics" are disqualified because there was no wide recognition of any of these miracle acts, or attestation to them, other than one source only. To be an "instant miracle" or "instant miracle-worker" there must be some wide belief in the miracle events taking place.

Faith healing is big business today.

It all began with Jesus Christ, who did the real healing acts, and since then there have been millions of believers who have tried to duplicate his miracles. So the faith healers are part of a long religious tradition, in which they are rooted. Without that long established tradition, or institution, they would not have gained any following or recognition or reputation.

So they are not "instant miracle-workers" but are part of an on-going gradual mythologizing process that is predictable and easily recognized and skillfully used by those with certain talents or instincts to be able to manipulate that process.

Nothing they are doing casts doubt on the facts of the Jesus miracles which happened 2000 years ago and provide the framework in which today's practitioners operate, for good or ill.

Even faith healers in non-Christian traditions are rooted ultimately in the Jesus miracle healings as the origin or prototype from which their own practices evolved.

 

[Keith&Co.]

3. Someone about whom there's more than one such source saying he performed those acts, and these sources were written less than 100 years from when he lived.

I think you're fucking it up, there.
For it to be instant, to be sure there was no mythologizing process, they would AT LEAST have to have been eyewitness accounts. Once it's hearsay, it's no longer acceptable. Except, of course, if you craft your criteria in order to make it acceptable.

People still DO make up tales about people who are still alive, though. So that's not going to perfectly insulate a historical character from mythologizing.

As a quick take, look at the recent shooting in Bend, Oregon. A guy charged police officers, reached towards a weapon and got shot.

His friends started circulating a tale about how he had his hands in the air and was down on his knees, surrendering, when the police executed him.

This MYTHICAL ACCOUNT was made up inside of 24 hours of the event.

Your oft-repeated maxim that it takes decades or centuries for people to make shit up, it absolutely bullshit.

And it has nothing to do with the media. Someone heard that a friend was dead, IMMEDIATELY made up his own account of what had happened. Youtube just spreads the myth faster these days, it has no bearing on how long it takes to make it mythical.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

http://spot.colorado.edu/~tooley/DebatewithCraig.html

The basic point I want to make in the time remaining is that there have been many studies of how, given a situation in which nothing exciting happens, where nothing really has taken place, fabulous stories gradually develop which are elaborated over time with the introduction of more detail, and with descriptions of events that are ever more miraculous.

One of the more scholarly accounts is that of A.D. White’s classic book, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology within Christendom, in a chapter entitled “The Growth of Healing Legends” where he’s discussing the miracles attributed to St. Francis Xavier. [2a150] What White shows is that, if you look at the writings of St. Francis Xavier and his contemporaries, there are no references to miraculous events. But when you look at Xavier's early biographers, you start seeing some minor miraculous events coming in. You look further along, at the accounts offered by later biographers, and eventually you have accounts of St. Francis Xavier raising people from the dead, with complete details of the names, the towns and so on where these events supposedly took place.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What do all mythic heroes other than Jesus Christ have in common? -- There's NO REASON TO BELIEVE their alleged miracles.

(continued)

Eventually (325 AD) the council of Nicea decides what the official teachings of Christianity are going to be, launches a campaign to destroy competing pagan religions (both those that use a variant of Jesus and those that don't) . . .

No, that Council chose to destroy one major version of the "Jesus myth," which was Arianism. There was no decision at this council to destroy any competing "pagan" religions, but only the Arian version of the "Jesus myth."

Some persecutions of others also began happening later, but nothing ordered by the Council of Nicea.

. . . and burns all the books they can get their hands on to destroy the evidence.

But there's no evidence of any such thing. All claims of this are lies. The only bookburnings known or alleged to have happened up into the 6th century are the following (this list of "bookburning" events is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents ):

• Arianism: The Council of Nicea is alleged to have ordered destruction of Arian books, but all that's mentioned in the record is the condemnation and suppression of Arian teaching, practices, worship, public meetings, but not their books. No teachings were eradicated by any "bookburnings" -- that's all fiction. You can cite no evidence for it. And only Arianism was targeted, nothing else.
  
  
• Library of Antioch: It's alleged that the Christian emperor Jovian burned the pagan library of his predecessor Julian, upon assuming power in 364. All these claims are based on an entry in a Byzantine encyclopedic document of about 1100 or 1200 AD, called Suda. Whoever wrote this entry is believed to be quoting from a Christian scribe/chronicler John of Antioch, who wrote sometime in the period 600-650 AD.
  
  The burning of this library might have really happened, but it's more likely the action of an angry mob demonstrating against the new emperor rather than being led by him. The mob was probably also expressing anger at Julian the dead emperor, not only because he was pagan, but also because of some unpopular actions he did a few months earlier when he first arrived in Antioch, which was a second capital of the Eastern Empire and where several thousand excess government workers were effectively fired by Julian.
  
  Nothing about this singular library-burning event suggests any crusade by the Church to burn books. And there's not one other event in the historical record about any "bookburning" activity by early Christians against pagan or gnostic beliefs or heresies.
  
  The account of Julian's short stay in Antioch, and then his military campaign into Persia and eventual death, is all related in Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and he says nothing at all about the burning of the library, which means it either didn't happen, or it was a minor event.
  
  Another comprehensive series on this period, Thomas Hodgkin, The Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire, also completely omits any mention of this fire. This work is more detailed than Gibbon, for this period, and covers Julian and Jovian in Volume I, The Visigothic Invasion, where the incident should have been mentioned if it was important.
  
  The account in the Suda document from centuries later is best understood as a scene of angry mob violence. The whole text follows below. Note the following points:
  
  The time point is that of a transition back to a Christian ruler and away from the previous pagan Julian, who had held power and angered many Christians by converting some churches back to pagan temples such as they had been decades earlier before Constantine.
  
  The people gathered are angry over the recent losses in the Persian campaign -- they're opposing and mocking Jovian, not being led by him to attack the pagan temple. Also the writer of this, probably a Christian, is angry at Jovian and might be trying to blame this incident on him.
  
  Maybe Jovian's wife encouraged the rioters, but Jovian had been loyal to the military general Julian and had no motive to do anything disrespectful toward his predecessor who died bravely in battle.
  
  This mob hates Jovian at this point more than the pagan emperor Julian and so they are not likely taking orders from Jovian.
  
  The target for the burning is not the "library" but the pagan "temple." Though it says it was "converted to a library," this building was clearly understood to be a pagan "temple" rather than a library. It had been a "temple" at that location for more than 200 years and only a year and a half earlier "converted to a library," so the mob perceived it as a pagan "temple" with statues that they were targeting.
  
  The actual setting of the fire is not by soldiers of Jovian -- there's no mention of any soldiers -- but by Jovian's concubines, whatever that might imply. An official act to destroy this site would be carried out by soldiers. It would be fair to call this a Christian mob, with the concubines there, but not ordered by Jovian to set the fire.
  
  "The Antiochenes" (the mob) removed books as the fire was being set, which probably means they were trying to rescue those items, which were not the real target. (These were mostly philosophy books, Plato, Aristotle, etc., not religious books about Mithras or Asclepius etc. And not later gnostic or heretical writings.)
  
  The event is called a "disturbance" -- I.e., more likely a riot out of control rather than an organized attack on this temple/library.
  
  In ALL the ancient literature, this is the ONLY text ever to suggest any burning of pagan books by early Christians. There's no evidence, outside this, of any such Christian bookburnings.
  
  Here's the text (you might skip down to the 2nd or 3rd paragraph):
  
  

  Orthodox emperor of [the] Romans, who displayed great care and attention for the churches and recalled all the bishops in exile. And he wrote to St. Athanasius to indicate to him the strictness of his blameless faith. And he sent a letter full of orthodoxy. This man ruled after Julian: when this Julian gave his soldiers the choice to sacrifice or be discharged, Jovian preferred to remove his military belt. And, going to the well-populated city of Nisibis, and spending only two days here, he spent as much money as he had—sharing nothing with the inhabitants, not a generous word nor a good deed. A man who had advanced to such a point of power not through his own virtue but through his father's reputation—for he was not altogether physically weak or unexercised in the deeds of war; but, being a man who lacked training and who had not tasted education, he dimmed and disfigured even what natural ability he had through laziness.
  
  This man, who gained control of the Roman empire after Julian, as has been said, disdained all and was eager to reap the benefit of the honor that had come to him, and, fleeing from Persia, he hurried to get within the Roman provinces to display his good fortune, and he turns over Nisibis, a city long subject to the Romans, to the Persians. Therefore, they mocked him in song and in burlesques and the so-called 'lampoons' because of [his] betrayal of Nisibis.
  
  And Jovian, set in motion by his wife, burned down a very elegant temple built by the emperor Hadrian for the deification of his father Trajan. This temple, by command of Julian, had been converted to a library by a eunuch named Theophilus, but Jovian burnt it down along with all its books, and the concubines themselves, while laughing, set the fire. The Antiochenes became upset with the emperor and threw out some of the books onto the ground, so that whoever wanted could pick one up and read it, and they stuck others to the walls. And they were this sort of thing: "You came from war; O, that you had died there." And "You damned Paris, so very good-looking...." etc. And "If I don’t grab you and take off your fine clothes, your chlaina and chiton, which cover your shame, and swiftly send you yourself weeping to the Persians."
  
  And an old woman who had seen that he was big and handsome and recognized that he was an idiot declared: "As long and deep as folly!" Another private citizen dared to shout in a loud voice at the racetrack and afforded laughter to everyone [by] saying empty, insipid [words] to his comrades. And monstrous things would have happened, if a certain Sallustius had not ended the disturbance.
  
  http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin/search.pl (To bring up the page with this text, you click the link, then scroll down to "Using this website" and enter "Jovian" into the empty box at "or find" and then click the "and click to search" box. (There's no direct link to the page.))

  
  The mob was upset largely because of the recent major Roman losses in Persia, where everyone expected victories which would have brought much new territory to the Empire -- but instead the opposite outcome occurred. It's more likely that the burning of the temple was part of this "disturbance" or a mob violence act rather than something ordered by Jovian, who had announced a policy of tolerance toward the pagan practices, in accordance with the official policy for a long time, with only Arianism being persecuted as illegal.
  
  This is the only reported case of any possible "bookburning" by Christians, up to the period of the Reformation. Something probably happened and the "library" was destroyed, but the account is probably biased when it says "Jovian burnt it down along with all its books," because it was the mob which did it, not directed by Jovian but opposing him, and it was a "temple" that was targeted, not a "library."
  
  In any case, this is the ONLY example that can be cited of any such bookburnings.
  
  Alleged "bookburnings" cannot explain the conspicuous absence of any literature on alternative Jesus-like cults or beliefs or the disappearance of "apocryphal gospels" or Gnostic books. There were no such "bookburning" acts.
  
  
• "Unacceptable writings" (by Athanasius) -- "Elaine Pagels claims that in 367, Athanasius ordered monks in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria in his role as bishop of Alexandria to destroy all 'unacceptable writings' in Egypt, the list of writings to be saved constituting the New Testament." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents
  
  Note that Wikipedia says this author "claims that in 367" etc., because this author makes numerous hysterical claims about Christians destroying books, including gnostic gospels, for which she never gives any source. The only source for Athanasius issuing any order resembling this is the 39th Festal Letter or "Easter Letter":
  
  

  In addition to the books that he calls either canonical or books to be read, he speaks also of books to be rejected, calling them apocrypha, and describing them as "an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_letter

  
  The full text of the Easter Letter of Athanasius is at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm . It contains strong language condemning some "apocryphal" writings, and maybe others, but it says nothing about destroying them or going on a hunt for them to confiscate them and consign them to the flames or any other such paranoia. It mentions some non-canonical books as acceptable to read, while condemning others as sinister and maybe even of the Devil.
  
  Several websites cite this letter as proof that the Church did widespread bookburning and claim that it orders books to be destroyed, which is a lie. It says no such thing. The only books it explicitly names, by title, are ones that are in the official canon, both O.T. and N.T., and some other books also to be read, but names none of the books that are condemned, and says nothing about destroying any books.
  
  
• Writings of Priscillian -- "In 385, the theologian Priscillian of Ávila became the first Christian to be executed by fellow-Christians as a heretic. Some (though not all) of his writings were condemned as heretical and burned. For many centuries they were considered irreversibly lost, but surviving copies were discovered in the 19th century." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents
  
  If it's true that some of Priscillian's writings were burned, which is not clear -- there's no source for it. But in any case, these were writings of an orthodox Christian, not a pagan or a gnostic writer. All the persecutions and "bookburnings" (alleged only, no evidence of it) were of mainline Christians, who got condemned for one reason or another. In Priscillian's case, it was for his oddball practices, not theology.
  
  There were no writings of any NON-Christians which were burned, or of gnostics. Or even minor oddball Christian sects/cults. Whatever writings might have been burned (again, allegations only, no evidence) were only of high-profile Christians -- Priscillian was a bishop -- who believed the same basic "Jesus myth" that is found in the gospels, i.e., of a physical bodily Jesus who performed miracles and was crucified on a physical cross such as the Gospel accounts report.

If there were really any bookburnings (of which there is no record), they began happening much later, past 500 AD, but they were still only against standard Christians who got into trouble nitpicking over theological doctrines or introducing some odd practice. Plus also some books on magic/divination, which were burned as much by pagan rulers/emperors as by Christians and have nothing to do with heresies or pagan beliefs or rival cults.

Nothing written before 300 AD was burned, and there's no record of any such thing until many centuries later, and no gnostic books or alternative "gospels" were ever burned. There's no evidence of other cult literature, rivals to the Christ cult(s), alternative "gospels," alternative messiah legends, etc. ever being burned.

All those claims are lies. There is no source ever given for these false claims. The only quotes are from 20th- and 21st-century Jesus-debunker crusaders, inventing sensationalist stories based on prejudice, with no sources for the stories. Some of these get quoted, it seems, as legitimate sources, but none of these claims is ever based on any early documents near to the time of the alleged bookburning events.

And though there eventually were some bookburnings centuries later, during the Reformation, these never caused anything to be lost to posterity. It was failure to make copies which resulted in many manuscripts being lost. There were thousands of libraries, eventually millions, private and public, and virtually none of these were destroyed in any "bookburning" crusades.

A few libraries got destroyed, maybe a half dozen, but not as part of any "bookburning" crusade, but as casualties of war and possibly in one case or two as part of a pagan temple being destroyed which contained a library -- never as part of some campaign by Christians or the Church to eliminate literature of rival "gospel" cults or alternate belief systems.

You may hear or read of many cases of a library being burned by Christian fanatics, but virtually all these are fiction, unsupported by any sources relating the events. The alleged burning of the Antioch library by Jovian is the only real possible example of something like this.

This Antioch incident is the only case known, in all the historical record, of Christians possibly targeting a pagan library to be destroyed. Yet, in all likelihood, what really happened was the burning of a pagan temple, not library, and not by the Church or by the Christian emperor Jovian, but rather by an angry mob, and some of those in the crowd tried to actually rescue the books as the temple was being set on fire.

And actually the "pagan" books in Julian's library were Greek philosophy books rather than religious books about the pagan gods or about heresies or gnostic beliefs. No religious beliefs or mythic hero legends were somehow lost to posterity because of this fire. Or any fire allegedly set by Christians to "hide the evidence" in a coverup conspiracy fantasized by 20th- and 21st-century debunker Bible-basher pundits.

Always ask them for the sources, from the early literature. You don't have to take it on faith from 20th- and 21st-century hysteria-driven crusader-debunkers for the facts about what happened before 500 AD.

. . . and burns all the books they can get their hands on to destroy the evidence. Some of it survives anyway, . . .

All of it survives, except what was not copied sufficiently to preserve it from being lost due to rotting. Nothing has been lost due to bookburnings. Copies of books were destroyed in a few fires (not book-burning frenzies), but if there had been no fires, we'd have all the same books today anyway, and not any additional ones containing "the evidence" of anything that has been lost to us due to "bookburnings" which are fantasy only.

. . . which is why we still have the gospel of Peter (for example).

That's a nutty example to use. No one ever wanted to destroy this gospel, especially not the Council of Nicea, which targeted only Arianism, which the gospel of Peter is not.

What is important in the Gospel of Peter that someone would want to suppress? Of course some of the ideas are denounced in the patristic writings, but some other parts are confirmed. The patristic writings are in conflict with each other at many points, even denouncing each other, and yet no one went around trying to "burn" these writings to try to "destroy the evidence" of anything. Even the N.T. writings contradict each other on various points.

Just because there are theological differences or conflicts in doctrine does not mean one school is running around holding bookburning crusades to annihilate the other school's writings in order to "destroy the evidence" -- Those holding these delusions are suffering some kind of sickness that they need to get help for.

Yes, certain high-profile heresies/heretics were persecuted, but these were all versions of the original 1st-century historical Jesus in the gospel accounts, not anything contrary to those accounts. Rather, they were based upon those canonical accounts but offered divergent theological interpretations of it that departed from the standard orthodox interpretation. Eventually some versions similar to gnosticism were also persecuted, after 400 AD (but no bookburnings).

Their attempt to galvanize Christianity is successful for awhile but eventually the religion splinters off into tens of thousands of different sects.

But in the earliest period also, centuries before Nicea, the Christ cults began as a hodge-podge of different sects, each going its own way, each with its own version of who the Christ was or what was the meaning of his acts/words and of his death and resurrection.

This early explosion of the Christ cults, driven by those early "gospel" accounts or reports, is what needs to be explained. No one conspiracy or cabal could have caused such a jumble of differing cults. Only an uncontrolled and unplanned event that all these cults were responding to can explain this. But not an early fictional hero myth someone cleverly crafted and "marketed" or promoted to diverse groups by stamping out all other hero legends, running around idiotically burning the other guy's books -- no, this is just fantasy and wacko-head paranoia that explains nothing.


(to be continued)

 

[Keith&Co.]

Rewind, repeat, retread...

 

[skepticalbip]

The Jesus story has to be true because Jesus is the only mythic hero who's name starts with "J" who was born on Christmas and arose from the dead on Easter.

 

[funinspace]

What's important is that the writer/source should not just be someone who was a direct devotee of the demigod or healer, especially not someone under the spell of the guru's charisma for several years.

If the writer is a believer in the healer's cause, it should not be due to his having been a member of his flock and having a personal attachment to him.

Quite funny. Please present a theologian of any significance that argues that the Gospel stories don’t come from devotees?

And knowing the writer's name is of little importance.

You Keep Using Those Words, I Do Not Think They Mean What You Think It Means.

Sure they are analogous. The Jesus cult was constructed within the confines of the Roman Empire with Yahweh, Mithras, and Orisis floating around, with their followers with healing claims.

No, there are no healing miracle events within this environment, other than the following:

[*]from Jewish scripture containing hundreds of miracles, 3 healings by Elisha and Elijah: 1 Kings 17:22, 2 Kings 4:34, 2 Kings 5:14);

3 healings? For someone who is trying to promote your someone unusual variant form of Christianity, you show a very poor understanding of your own holy book. Yahweh provided all sorts of healing according to the holy writings of the Jews, that your cult worked hard to cleave upon.

List courtesy of: http://www.voiceofhealing.info/02history/oldtestament.html
1. Gen 20:1-18
‘Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again, for the Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Abraham's wife Sarah.’ Gen 20:17-18

2. Num 12:1-15
God inflicted Miriam with leprosy and Moses interceded for her saying, ‘O God, please heal her!’ Though there is no record of her healing it must be assumed that the Lord exchanged this act of judgement with the lesser penalty of seven days of disgrace outside the camp. There is no further mention of her having leprosy.

3. 1 Sam 1:9-20
Hannah received healing from barreness in response to her personal prayers and Eli, the priest’s declaration.

4. 1 Kings 13:4-6
King Jeroboam pointed his hand in judgement at an unnamed prophet and it ‘shrivelled up.’ The prophet interceded for Jeroboam and his hand was restored to health.

elijah raises widows son
Elijah raises a widows son from death
5. 1 Kings 17:17-24
Elijah raised a widow’s son from death.

6. 2 Kings 4:8-17
Elisha granted a child to the formerly barren Shunnamite woman.

7. 2 Kings 4:18-37
The Shunamite’s son dies and Elisha raised him from the dead.

8. 2 Kings 5:1-14
Naaman, commander of the King of Aram’s army, was healed of leprosy after following Elisha’s counsel.

9. 2 Kings 13:21
A dead man was thrown into Elisha’s tomb and contact with Elisha’s bones raised the man to life.

10. 2 Kings 20:1-7, 2 Chron 32:24-26, Isa 38:1-8
Hezekiah contracted a terminal illness and prayed for healing. Isaiah received a word from God that he would live for a further 15 years. Hezekiah was healed after applying a poultice of figs to the offending ‘boil.’

11. Job 42:10-17
After what some scholars believe to be nine months of serious sickness and loss, the patient and trusting Job prayed for his critical friends and was personally healed.

12. Daniel 4:34, 36
Nebuchadnezzar ‘looked to heaven’ and was healed of insanity.

In addition to these incidences of individual healing there are three occurrences of corporate healing in response to prayer:

1. Numbers 16:46-50
Aaron stopped the plague which had killed 14, 700 people by offering incense and making atonement for the people.

2. Numbers 21:4-9
The Lord sent venomous snakes among rebellious Israel. Moses prayed for them, made a bronze snake and anyone who looked at it lived.

3. 2 Samuel 24:10-25
David sinned by counting his troops and the Lord sent a plague upon Israel which took 70,000 lives. David built an altar, sacrificed burnt and fellowship offerings and prayed to the Lord. He answered and stopped the plague.

Finally, there were other healings from barrenness by sovereign acts of God.

1. Sarah - Genesis 18:10,14, 21:1-3. Isaac was born.
2. Manoah’s wife – Judges 13:5-25. She bore Sampson.
3. Hannah – 1 Samuel 1:19-20. The result was Samuel.





As to the rest: Rinse, Wash, Repeat...

 

[funinspace]

No Miracle Max here....

No one has offered any better explanation how an instant miracle-worker could pop up like this.

Through the middle ages, tales of miracle working saints and monks were a dime a dozen.

No instant miracle-workers popped up.

DEFINITION OF "INSTANT MIRACLE-WORKER"

This refers to a character of the following description:

Ya know, I didn't find your definition anywhere. But I did find this definition:

"A multitasking formula for all skin types and tones, that picks up excess oil , and improves the appearance of fine lines and pores."

Maybe you are in the wrong line of skin marketing...

 

[Atheos]

These walls of text tend to obfuscate so I think occasionally we need to bring it back down to the simple truth of the matter. Lumpenproletariat's entire argument is based on the premise that it is more likely that a man levitated unassisted off into the sky never to be seen again than that people made up stories that included him levitating off into the sky.

This is important. It is completely irrelevant whether or not the Jesus myth is the only one of its kind. The fact of the matter is that there are thousands upon thousands of myths and in some sense every one of them is unique. Otherwise they'd be the same. Uniqueness has absolutely zilch to do with truth.

It is completely irrelevant that the first of the written copies of this myth was completed circa A.D. 75 or thereabouts and that it placed the events in a relatively recent historical setting 45 years earlier. Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" was written roughly 60 years after the events described therein. It tells a mostly fictional story in an historical setting. The historical proximity between GWTW's writing and the events it describes does absolutely nothing to make it more true.

It is completely irrelevant that disinterested people may have mentioned the Jesus character 80+ years removed from the events in question. Such "testimony" (if one can call it such) is impossible to separate from the influence of believers who by that time had grown abundant.

What is relevant is the fact that there is not one shred of physical evidence that any of the events described in the myth actually happened. This is true even when such evidence should be relatively easy to find. There is no evidence of a mass killing of male children ordered by Herod. There is no evidence of GLuke's absurd "musical chairs" census. There is no evidence of a three-hour eclipse as described when Jesus supposedly died on the cross.

It's relevant that of all the miracles this man allegedly performed, not one of them left behind even the slightest evidence of its performance. According to the myth Jesus claimed that it would be possible to order a mountain to be lifted out of the way and cast into the sea. Had he done such a feat it would be trivial for modern geologists to analyze the formations and ascertain that indeed the mountain had been moved with sudden effect from the land and dropped into the sea. Instead of cursing the fig tree he could have turned it into an indestructible titanium tree that could forever stand as a tribute to the great power he had and the authority he wielded. But no. Tellingly, every miracle in these tales is something that left no trace. It is far more likely that people made up stories about Jesus performing miracles than it is that he (assuming he existed) actually performed them. It is also far more likely that Jesus was a magician who fooled people with clever tricks than that he actually performed miracles. There are many permutations that are orders of magnitude more likely than that miracles were performed.

Yet Lumpenproletariat goes on and on with this ceaseless line of argumentation, shifting goalposts, affirming consequents, drawing bulls-eyes around fallen arrows, misrepresenting how actual historical scholarship is performed and trying to special-plead his favorite myth onto a pedestal to separate it from all the thousands of others people have invented over the years.

Personally I find it entertaining to watch, and honestly I understand why he does it. I used to be a believer in those same silly myths.

 

[James Brown]

Just because something isn't like all the others doesn't mean that it must be true.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The Jesus healing miracle stories could not have been inspired from pagan mythology or the Hebrew scriptures.

Sure they are analogous. The Jesus cult was constructed within the confines of the Roman Empire with Yahweh, Mithras, and Orisis floating around, with their followers with healing claims.

No, there are no healing miracle events within this environment, other than the following:

from Jewish scripture containing hundreds of miracles, 3 healings by Elisha and Elijah: 1 Kings 17:22, 2 Kings 4:34, 2 Kings 5:14);

3 healings? For someone who is trying to promote your someone unusual variant form of Christianity, you show a very poor understanding of your own holy book. Yahweh provided all sorts of healing according to the holy writings of the Jews, that your cult worked hard to cleave upon.

List courtesy of: http://www.voiceofhealing.info/02history/oldtestament.html

1. Gen 20:1-18
‘Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again, for the Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Abraham's wife Sarah.’ Gen 20:17-18

This is not a healing story. Unless you mean that barrenness is a disease or illness. There were millions of prayers to become pregnant, and whenever it happened, it was considered an answer to the prayer. So these should not be put in the category of miracle healings.

The Jesus miracle healings are virtually unprecedented, except for the 3 healing stories of Elijah and Elisha which I listed.

2. Num 12:1-15
God inflicted Miriam with leprosy and Moses interceded for her saying, ‘O God, please heal her!’ Though there is no record of her healing it must be assumed that the Lord exchanged this act of judgement with the lesser penalty of seven days of disgrace outside the camp. There is no further mention of her having leprosy.

You might claim this contradicts my saying there are only those 3. However, when the illness is initially inflicted by God, and then God changes his mind and restores the victim, it's not in the same category. You're sophisticated enough to recognize the difference.

Jesus did not first inflict an illness onto the victim, and then later restore the victim to health. So, the miracle healings I'm referring to are those where the victim does not first acquire the affliction from the one who cures it.

3. 1 Sam 1:9-20
Hannah received healing from barreness in response to her personal prayers and Eli, the priest’s declaration.

Again, barrenness is not a disease. The Jesus miracle healings were cases where a real illness/disease/deformity was cured and the victim was restored to health.

4. 1 Kings 13:4-6
King Jeroboam pointed his hand in judgement at an unnamed prophet and it ‘shrivelled up.’ The prophet interceded for Jeroboam and his hand was restored to health.

Again, the affliction is acquired as punishment from God for a sin, and then God is persuaded to change his mind. You can include these in your list. But it's signigicant that none of the Jesus miracle healings are ones where he first causes the affliction and then cures it.


5, 7, and 8 below are the 3 legitimate healing stories:

5. 1 Kings 17:17-24
Elijah raised a widow’s son from death.

6. 2 Kings 4:8-17
Elisha granted a child to the formerly barren Shunnamite woman.

Doesn't count -- barrenness is not an illness/disease.

7. 2 Kings 4:18-37
The Shunamite’s son dies and Elisha raised him from the dead.

8. 2 Kings 5:1-14
Naaman, commander of the King of Aram’s army, was healed of leprosy after following Elisha’s counsel.

9. 2 Kings 13:21
A dead man was thrown into Elisha’s tomb and contact with Elisha’s bones raised the man to life.

This is the closest you can come to a miracle healing. But other than the 3 previous ones above, there is nothing resembling a healer who is summoned to come and heal someone. That this is all you can come up with really makes my point that there is virtually nothing from the Hebrew scriptures or from pagan mythology which can explain the sudden rash of miracle healing stories we find in the gospel accounts. They are unprecedented.

Though there are the 3 stories of Elijah and Elisha. But that's it. Only those 3 out of literally hundreds of Old Testament miracle stories and probably thousands of pagan miracles.

10. 2 Kings 20:1-7, 2 Chron 32:24-26, Isa 38:1-8
Hezekiah contracted a terminal illness and prayed for healing. Isaiah received a word from God that he would live for a further 15 years. Hezekiah was healed after applying a poultice of figs to the offending ‘boil.’

There's no miracle healing here. There were prayers, and many medical cures which were used, and some of them probably worked at times.

11. Job 42:10-17
After what some scholars believe to be nine months of serious sickness and loss, the patient and trusting Job prayed for his critical friends and was personally healed.

Anyone can read this chapter and see that there is no miracle healing story here, other than the general point that Job was totally restored to his original condition and even increased all his possessions over what he had owned before. That you would offer this example is only further proof of my original point, that there are only those 3 miracle healing stories in the O.T. which might be a precedent to the Jesus healing miracles. Nothing else in the O.T. has any resemblance to these.

12. Daniel 4:34, 36
Nebuchadnezzar ‘looked to heaven’ and was healed of insanity.

This one is a stretch. Looking to heaven may have been caused by the same condition that caused his reason to return to him. Maybe he recovered his sanity quickly, suddenly, but that in itself is not a miracle healing. Sudden recovery might be a normal situation, even if it's rare.

In addition to these incidences of individual healing there are three occurrences of corporate healing in response to prayer:

1. Numbers 16:46-50
Aaron stopped the plague which had killed 14,700 people by offering incense and making atonement for the people.

2. Numbers 21:4-9
The Lord sent venomous snakes among rebellious Israel. Moses prayed for them, made a bronze snake and anyone who looked at it lived.

3. 2 Samuel 24:10-25
David sinned by counting his troops and the Lord sent a plague upon Israel which took 70,000 lives. David built an altar, sacrificed burnt and fellowship offerings and prayed to the Lord. He answered and stopped the plague.

Again, when Jesus healed victims, he did not first inflict the illness/disease onto them. Also, the above examples are mainly cases of putting a stop to a plague or catastrophe happening. Of course there are many examples of these in the pagan myths. Where Zeus or Whoever sends something awful down upon someone and later stops it when the victims repent. This is a different kind of "miracle" than the healing acts of Jesus. It's silly to compare these as similar in any basic sense.

Finally, there were other healings from barrenness by sovereign acts of God.

1. Sarah - Genesis 18:10,14, 21:1-3. Isaac was born.
2. Manoah’s wife – Judges 13:5-25. She bore Sampson.
3. Hannah – 1 Samuel 1:19-20. The result was Samuel.

Again, barrenness is not really a disease/illness.

Of course there are millions of reported "miracles" as acts of God or imagined answers to prayer, etc. found in pagan mythology and Hebrew scriptures and other ancient religious/mythological traditions, and you can cite them and give a long list.

But there is nothing which explains where the Jesus miracle healing stories came from, which we see in the gospel accounts, other than a kind of resemblance to the 3 healing stories about Elijah and Elisha. These were from several centuries earlier, and there is nothing in between having any resemblance to them.

This makes it very difficult to claim that the Jesus miracle healing stories were inherited from prior tradition or from the culture of the time. Because we see nothing there from which these could have been inspired.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What do all mythic heroes other than Jesus Christ have in common? -- There's NO REASON TO BELIEVE their alleged miracles.

(continued)

You ask "What miracles did Joseph Smith perform?" Wikipedia is your friend. Once again your ignorance of the subject matter you are discussing is your own problem, not that of those with whom you are having the discussion.

You aren't going to name one miracle he did?

I already did mention several miracles he did. Your responses demonstrate a profound lack of willingness to research.

I've already noted earlier that I found there are some anecdotes that he performed some healings. These are surely more of relevance than some mere dead tablets sitting on a table and just looking "awesome" or at best glowing a bit?

Where is the act of power? The healing acts are much better examples of something to cite.

And I have said, and I'll repeat it, no matter how many times it is necessary, to make the point: It is fine if J. Smith did in fact actually do something to make someone recover from an illness. If it can be proved that he did something, just as it is proved that Rasputin the mad monk did something to cause an apparent dying child to recover, then that "miracle" should be recognized for what it is. And Smith did something good if he caused that person to recover.

However, we all know that most such healings would have happened anyway, and it's just a coincidence that it happened on this occasion and failed to happen in the dozen other cases when the same healing technique was tried. So we have to look at the whole collection of anecdotes or reports and try to figure out if there is a real pattern or only a few coincidences and a relatively low batting average.

Ahhh, so "we all know" the paralyzed arm Smith healed would have healed itself anyway.

But where is the account of this? Let's have the original text first, and then we'll go from there. You have to get beyond just quoting a 21st-century Wikipedia article.

There are millions of anecdotes of miracle healings. Perhaps some of them are true, which cannot be attributed to coincidence, or would not have "healed itself anyway." I think most of them probably are not true, but we should keep an open mind, and not condemn all such stories as false only because some have been discredited. Or many have been.

But we have to see the original text, just as we can read the gospel accounts which were written about 30-50 years after the reported events.

A recent post tried to give us a few of the Joseph Smith anecdotes. But they did not actually say that Joseph Smith performed any cures. They quoted Smith claiming that another member of his church cured people. So still nothing of substance has yet been offered showing claims that Joseph Smith actually did any miracle healings.

There probably is something in the record, from the 19th century. But so far no one has turned up anything significant. It looks like there's not much there. Probably just that Smith prayed and the victim recovered the next day or something. Normal healing claims from the close devotees of the cult leader.

But "we all know" the paralyzed man Jesus healed would never have healed of its own accord.

Those who told this story and those who recorded it were not stupid. They were capable of questioning the event just as you and I are capable of questioning it.

No doubt there were millions of healing miracle anecdotes in the ancient world, and yet hardly anything is reported seriously -- nothing reported which resembles at all those examples in the gospel accounts. Why is that?

It must be because those Jesus healing claims were taken more seriously. People truly believed it happened, unlike in other cases where they routinely rejected such claims. They knew it might just be coincidence, or cases where only the "hits" are related and not the "misses" which are probably more numerous. There was plenty of skepticism, just like today.

E.g., they knew that most of the worshipers who prayed at the Asclepius statue did not really get healed, or when they did recover a day or 2 later it was something that would have happened anyway. They were NOT stupid!! despite your fantasy that they were and that their brain was inferior to yours because you're so much more sophisticated and educated than those simpleton idiots of the 1st century.

No, they could think and ask questions and could wonder about the many reports they were hearing and how this case was different than the normal routine healing anecdotes, just like we are skeptical of faith-healing claims today and figure most of them are explainable as due to coincidence etc.

We know the difference, and so did those of the 1st century. This one case of healing anecdotes stood out from the others, and so they retold the reports they were hearing, and someone educated started writing it down, because this time it was different!

So it's reasonable for us today to recognize that something different was happening in this case, and that the reports this time might be true, and that it was not the usual mythologizing process or the usual wishful thinking or the usual coincidence or illusionism that was going on. This time it was real healings taking place, because this case does not fit the usual pattern but sticks out as totally different.

But you're partly right -- we don't "know" for sure that it's true. Rather, we have an indication that this case is different, and it might be true, because there's evidence that is lacking in all the other cases, i.e., written documents near to the time. And that makes a difference.

Even though we have no record of who this person was, we don't know who related the tale of Jesus doing this and we don't have any documentation from signed witnesses . . .

No, and we don't have a time machine in which to go back into history to check and watch the events first-hand to verify that it happened. All we have is the same kind of evidence that we have for most of the historical events we believe happened.

What we also have is multiple accounts, which we do NOT have for many events (such as I've listed earlier) which we believe did happen. Plus we have accounts within 30-70 years after the events, which is also lacking for many events we routinely believe did happen.

So you're right -- we don't have absolute certainty or proof beyond a reasonable doubt, like we have for the assassination of Caesar and some other events. But we don't need that extreme degree of evidence in order to have reasonable belief. Reasonable belief is sufficient, not certainty.

100% certainty would be more comfortable. Like the certainty of knowing a juicy steak tastes good when we bite into it and roll it around in our mouth, or that of a mountain lion chomping into a tasty rabbit -- experiencing it right then and knowing that pleasure stimulation on the taste buds is more comfortable than believing something hopeful that's not immediately present but is only a possibility, or later possibility.

But there's a proper place for reasonable belief.

. . . attesting to the event as we do with Joseph Smith.

Again, you need to produce those documents so we can read the text. Also, that one witness (or maybe it was 2?) was a Joseph Smith devotee who had been under the spell of his charisma for many years, which makes him less reliable than a writer several years later who has collected several accounts, from direct or indirect witnesses who were not long-time devotees of the alleged healer.

It makes a big difference if the only Smith witnesses were 1 or 2 of his disciples who had been under his charismatic spell for 10 or 15 years. The evidence for the Jesus miracles is much better than that. But I agree we should read the written testimony of the Smith witnesses to determine how credible the anecdotes are.

So, let's first read the original text and have something to go on other than just a Wikipedia article 150-200 years later which doesn't quote it at all. And also, let's have an account of Joseph Smith himself actually performing the healing act, rather than a vague story about someone else having prayed and then someone recovered from an illness.

The people in 30 AD who witnessed the Jesus miracle acts were not stupid, even though we pretend that everyone living 100 (500) years ago and earlier were simpletons who imagined whatever they wished for. But they knew the difference between a real pattern of healings, with a high batting average, or 1.000, and a pattern of hits and misses and a low batting average of only .100 or .200.

Who are these people? Got any names? What research have you done, and what evidence can you present demonstrating these people's ability to know the difference between a "real pattern of healings with a high batting average" and "a pattern of hits and misses and a low batting average?"

I just assume they're normal people like the ones I encounter today. Where's your evidence that 1st-century Galileans were unusually stupid? or 1st-century writers who provided these accounts?

With no evidence to the contrary, we should assume they were normal humans, not the brain-dead idiots you're hypothesizing they were.

I know there are people who believe in miracles, but they do not promote stories that are obvious fantasies. People often do humor someone who prays for a miracle, but they don't go around reporting such miracles/fantasies as real events and rounding up the sick to take them to the alleged miracle-worker -- they know it's really just wishful thinking. It's a tiny tiny minority who really believe the cures happen, though in some cases there is a psychological element that might have a beneficial effect, which in turn could add some extra energy to a healing crusade.

Let's put it this way -- the vast majority who would contemplate taking it seriously have to see a case that is far different than all the others. In other words, there has to be some real evidence, or apparently some evidence, that sets one case apart from all the others. And then, if they see this real difference, so this miracle-worker does not fall into the usual pattern of delusionalism and wishful thinking, then, in such a unique case, some normal persons will take it seriously.

But it's not normal for them to believe every anecdote they hear -- this is very abnormal, in the 1st century as well as today. They had the same normal skepticism that we have today, and were not intellectually inferior to us. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate the contrary.

I'd be interested in the statistical analysis you've done on this and the documentation you have accumulated while doing all this research.

Again, the burden of proof is on you to document your hypothesis that people of the 1st century, or those of Galilee, or the writers of the period, were the bone-headed idiot morons that your premise requires.

A very high average, or even 1.000, definitely would astound them, just as it would astound us, and anyone who ever achieved that or close to it would be mythologized immediately and be taken seriously and would quickly attain to a record of his acts that would begin to spread through word of mouth and then through written documents.

Names? Who are these witnesses you're talking about?

Just everyday ordinary people. Virtually anyone, including you, would be atsounded if you observed a healer who demonstrates a very high batting average, especially a 1.000 average. You would probably suspect trickery, but so also would those 1st-century witnesses, and they would not report the events as real healings if there was anything obviously suspicious.

But if the reported healer has a good percentage of "misses," then it's not as convincing, or maybe the "hits" can be attributed to something psychological.

So this is just an observation about people generally, that they usually don't believe such anecdotes (though in some cases they do humor someone hoping for a miracle), but there is some degree of openness to the possibility, if they should witness it and see that there is no normal explanation like the usual fantasizing or religious instincts and so on.

We 21st-century humans are no different in this regard than those of the 1st century. If they report this, claiming there were real witnesses, or real victims who were healed, and they checked into it, or know someone who did, and gathered enough facts to convince them that it's true, then we should give them the same credibility we would give to someone today making such claims. I.e., those of the 1st century were NO MORE GULLIBLE about this than we are today.

Whereas you are claiming they were more gullible and stupid than we today. You're even saying they were this gullible and stupid IN ONE CASE ONLY, in this one Jesus case only, fantasizing and believing the claims in only this case and in no other case, and that they had no more reason to believe this case than the hundreds or thousands of other cases of miracle claims that were floating all around.

So you're the one who needs some data to justify your extravagant claim about these 1st-century idiots you're claiming were abnormally stupid and somehow got hoodwinked into believing in ONLY THIS ONE CASE and no other, so that something irregular must have zapped them, like a weird drug, or something in the water, or maybe an alien attack from somewhere that seized upon this group of people and caused them to obsess on this one itinerant Galilean preacher who was nothing different, did nothing different than all the other healer-charlatans, being just a dime-a-dozen charismatic figure -- and yet they got deluded and caught into this "Jesus myth" fad that just popped up out of nowhere without any cause or anymore credibility than the dozens of other fads they could just as easily have swallowed.

Where's your data to explain why they swallowed ONLY THIS fad and no others?

How many alien abductions, orchestrated by one clique of conspirator from parts unknown, must have happened here to cause all these people to plunge into this one fad only when there were at least a hundred others lurking out there which were just as likely as this one to entrap them?

How many documented instances of 1.000 batting average miracle workers did you research in this effort?

I have as many "documented instances" of them as you have "documented instances" proving that Caesar Augustus and other emperors really existed. Just as you cannot go back in your time machine to observe past history and gather "documented instances" to prove anything you believe happened, so also I do not possess such a time machine with which to gather such "documented instances" and data and proof.

The only "documents" are the ones that have come down to us, i.e., the historical record, and from this we can reasonably conclude some facts, with differing degrees of probability. And one can reasonably conclude that the Jesus figure of about 30 AD was different than the other reported miracle-worker examples, i.e., that he stands out as more noteworthy and credible as a healer who became recognized in a uniquely short time period.

These conclusions are based on reasonable interpretation of the historical record, not on "documented instances" proved by collecting first-hand data -- by going back in a time machine -- from the actual historical events and persons.

So the correct question is: why did so many people believe it in this one case, and report it, so that we have the extra accounts of this one case? i.e., ONLY this one case?

One explanation is that Jesus must have had a much higher batting average than normal. If it was high enough, that would explain why he stood out, apart from all the other cases where such claims were made.

You're declaring that this can't be the explanation because no person can have a higher batting average than another. You should not be faulted for having done no research on which to base this declaration, but it's reasonable to ask you for a BETTER explanation as to why this "Jesus myth" stands out as the only one for which we have evidence, i.e., documents from the period, multiple sources, attesting to the miracle events, with no others coming even close to offering similar credible evidence.

So, what is YOUR explanation? Why is it that we have ONLY ONE case of a reported miracle healer for whom there are documents reporting the events, near to the time, and yet who also had such a short career that the normal mythologizing could not have happened in such a short time frame?

What evidence do you have to demonstrate that Jesus rarely attempted to perform a miracle and ended up with the equivalent of a fumble?

There's no need to claim certainty about such a thing or to have evidence of every act he did. We have the reports that these acts happened, just as we have reports for all the historical events that we believe happened, and we need an explanation why we have ONLY ONE case where there is evidence, from documents of the time, attesting to such acts as these, and we have no other cases.

If the events did happen, then we have a case of someone with unusual power, i.e., a life-giving power, which is important if it's true, but we have only this evidence, not certainty.

If Jesus fumbled several times, and people noticed it, then they would have realized that he was not different after all, but was just another "itinerant preacher" healer of little or no importance, and he would have been dismissed, and we probably wouldn't have any record of him at all, just like virtually all the others who have been forgotten.

But for them to believe he was a true healer with unusual power, to the point that they started to deify him, suggests that he must have had a high batting average. I.e., this would explain how he differs from all the others who were not believed.

I've been looking into this stuff for a long time and somehow was never aware that this research had been done.

The only "research" is normal observation on how people believe, and that normally they do not believe any and every miracle anecdote that comes along, as you think they do, or as you think 1st-century people did, or as you think they did in this one case only. But they were not idiots, and were not victimized at this one time and place only, by some weird event like an alien abduction that put these thoughts into their brains. And so we can trust those who report what they believe happened, and assume they had good reason for believing it. It's not proof based on data from research, but it's reasonable possibility, based on evidence.

So, we should look at the Smith reported miracles, and any other reported cases of this, and anyone who wants to present the case that he had a high batting average should do so. It doesn't look to me like anyone seriously wants to present that case. Most ordinary preachers accumulate a few anecdotes from among their "flock" of folks who recovered more quickly, or rarely even immediately, after being prayed for. The Smith examples seem to fall into this pattern, with of course only the "hits" getting any notice and the "misses" being ignored.

If Smith really had a high batting average, we would have a better record of his successes at this.

So you've got evidence that these anonymous documents, none of which even claim to be written by eyewitnesses or even claim to be written by anyone who actually talked to an eyewitness, contain comprehensive lists of every attempted miracle in the life of this Jesus character and that he never attempted to perform a miracle and whiffed.

Again, it's "reasonable possibility" based on evidence. Not scientific proof based on comprehensive research into all cases, which were investigated by going back to 30 AD in a time machine with the latest video technology and recording all the events.

No, there's no such evidence that could be used in a court of law to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that it happened. But if you can find the time machine and other technical equipment needed to do this investigation, it would be worth looking into -- but for now we can only go by the limited evidence we have, like for all historical events, since the time machine is not yet available.

There's a lot we believe from reasonable possibility based on the limited evidence that we have, rather than having 100% proof based on data that's impossible to gather with the present technology. It's reasonable to draw conclusions from the limited evidence we have, even if more advanced technology would give us more certainty.

I'm interested in seeing this evidence that we can use to ascertain that not one attempted miracle was neglected to be reported.

Then go find that time machine, or invent one, so we can make the trip back and prove it one way or the other. I plead guilty to not having verified my conclusions by means of time travel technology.



(to be continued)

 

[Keith&Co.]

Uniqueness has absolutely zilch to do with truth.

The first time I saw a sailor date a stripper, deploy at sea, come back to find his house empty, his bank account closed, his car sold, that was unique in my experience. But it was not the uniqueness that made me accept it as true. it was the profanity and the guy moving into the barracks.

The tenth time I saw the same damned thing happen to another sailor, it was no longer unique. But the fact that it was common enough to be a cliché is not what I used to determine if it was true or not.

I had a lot of sea stories after my first patrol that started with, "And then this guy did (stand Rover while naked, tell the captain a dirty joke, break his hand shoving a tool into rotating machinery)!" All unique in my experience.

NOW, when I talk about the same patrol, the same unique events, I now have to say 'The first time I saw a guy stand Rover naked..." Same event. Less unique.

Unique doesn't mean it's true. In fact, unique doesn't mean it's really unique... Just means that no one's told you the sea story before now.

Which works the same for historical events, or slightly rephrased historical events (It's just more funny if it happened to an officer), or total fabrications (It almost happened...it could have.) Unique doesn't even help us figure out where the story started, much less how true it might be.

 

[funinspace]

Another Miracle Max test failed...

Sure they are analogous. The Jesus cult was constructed within the confines of the Roman Empire with Yahweh, Mithras, and Orisis floating around, with their followers with healing claims.

No, there are no healing miracle events within this environment, other than the following:

from Jewish scripture containing hundreds of miracles, 3 healings by Elisha and Elijah: 1 Kings 17:22, 2 Kings 4:34, 2 Kings 5:14);

3 healings? For someone who is trying to promote your someone unusual variant form of Christianity, you show a very poor understanding of your own holy book. Yahweh provided all sorts of healing according to the holy writings of the Jews, that your cult worked hard to cleave upon.

List courtesy of: http://www.voiceofhealing.info/02history/oldtestament.html

1. Gen 20:1-18
‘Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again, for the Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Abraham's wife Sarah.’ Gen 20:17-18

This is not a healing story. Unless you mean that barrenness is a disease or illness. There were millions of prayers to become pregnant, and whenever it happened, it was considered an answer to the prayer. So these should not be put in the category of miracle healings.

The Jesus miracle healings are virtually unprecedented, except for the 3 healing stories of Elijah and Elisha which I listed.

2. Num 12:1-15
God inflicted Miriam with leprosy and Moses interceded for her saying, ‘O God, please heal her!’ Though there is no record of her healing it must be assumed that the Lord exchanged this act of judgement with the lesser penalty of seven days of disgrace outside the camp. There is no further mention of her having leprosy.

You might claim this contradicts my saying there are only those 3. However, when the illness is initially inflicted by God, and then God changes his mind and restores the victim, it's not in the same category. You're sophisticated enough to recognize the difference.

Jesus did not first inflict an illness onto the victim, and then later restore the victim to health. So, the miracle healings I'm referring to are those where the victim does not first acquire the affliction from the one who cures it.

Ah, this must be yet another one of those Lumpenproletariat Special Pleading Definitions (LSPD) like "INSTANT MIRACLE-WORKER" (evidently also a facial cream). And yet again you seem to treat your holy book as if it doesn't matter. Yeah, I'm sure that a woman being barren and then being healed was of little import to those Jews from 2,000 years ago

Again: Please present a theologian of any significance that argues that the Gospel stories don’t come from devotees?