Higgins:
"What sources are you suggesting
for the miracles of Jesus?"
Second hand stories written 30+ years after the event.
Sort of -- the same as for all our other ancient history events. Though more typical is 50-100-150 years after the event. Some cases even 200-300 years.
No, not sort of. History books are often plagued with
footnotes and references to individual claims and accounts.
miscommunication!
"Sources" here must refer to the earliest information historically, the earliest written documents telling us of the events in question (or alleged events). So this is not about modern history books, but about the 1st-century writings, and other ancient writings from those original "historians" we rely on for our ancient history facts. It includes anything written in that period, not only from recognized historians, but also from religionists (missionaries, Bible etc.) and political propagandists (Cicero etc., even historians like Josephus). There are no "unbiased" or "objective" sources.
The ancient writings almost NEVER contain footnotes and references to individual claims and accounts. Not Thucydides, not Polybius, not your favorite ancient historian. Of course there are a few references to earlier sources, but only a tiny fraction of the reported events are documented from earlier sources.
If you mean modern history texts, it is true that there are sometimes footnotes and bibliographies etc., to explain the sources used by the modern historian. But this is not normal for the ancient historians, who seldom give a source. So our trace-back to actual history ends with those ancient documents/manuscripts surviving to our time which we now rely on for what happened 1000 or 2000 years ago, and these almost never give us the "footnotes" or bibliography etc. for the sources they used.
They aren't like middle school history papers which just reference the same paragraph in Wikipedia.
Usually Wikipedia is a reliable source. But our ancient sources/authors didn't have even that.
For the ancient events we must rely on ALL the ancient documents which have survived. Given that there are so few, we cannot be selective such as we can be about modern sources. It's fine to say we have more certainty about modern events than about events 2000 years ago. But our knowledge of those events is not "certainty" anyway, its just good guessing.
This is often the trouble with people who claim that Jesus was real or generally people who suck at history.
What "trouble"? Most modern scholars claim that Jesus historically was real. And as to the details about him, there's the same difficulty as with any ancient historical figure -- same doubts about anything unusual and about discrepancies. There is similar "trouble" with any ancient historical figure about whom there is legend mixed with fact. And there is such legend with most of the historical figures who stand out conspicuously -- they were probably "real" regardless of the legend.
They don't realize there is a lot of evidence.
Who doesn't realize this? Everyone knows there are documents providing much evidence, and those who know the facts know that Jesus was real, or existed, because the evidence shows this is the case.
Some goes back a bit, but there are still slots of evidence from the past. The further back, the less evidence, but if it was written down, we have a great chance of knowing what happened. Which is also why we know dick about the Vikings, because they good at pillage, suck at writing.
But for miracle events we should require sources much closer to when they allegedly happened.
Actually, directly involved would be best.
But we don't have that for 99.9% of the ancient history events. Even those writing contemporary to their own time were not directly involved in the events they report. There's no reason we have to demand a video recording for miracle events only. Obviously we'd like such evidence for ALL historical events, just to be sure it really happened -- maybe some day there'll be such evidence. But for now, despite the doubts about the unusual events, it's reasonable to believe some of them did happen, without needing a time machine to take us back to see it directly or replay it.
Not some person who lived 100 miles from the location of said event, . . .
There's very little agreement among scholars where the Gospel accounts were written. But even if they were written mostly 100+ miles distant from Israel/Palestine that doesn't discredit them as sources. Maybe those writers/editors had been there, or if not they had connections to someone from there. Most of our information for the period was written by Josephus mostly from Rome, hundreds of miles distant. He had his sources, and the Gospel writers/editors had theirs. Even for his reported events contemporary to him he probably witnessed less than 1% of it directly and so relied on sources.
Most ancient history events we know are from sources much farther removed in time than only 50 years later. Our earliest sources for the Resurrection event are 20 and 40 years later, a relatively short time span for ancient history.
Virtually all the ancient history you believe comes from "second-hand stories" written 50-200 years after the event. And most of it from only one source (maybe two if you're lucky).
True, but it is
peculiar how we know so much more about King Tut than Jesus, and King Tut existed a long time before Jesus was ever allegedly born of a virgin.
This is a completely false and inappropriate and worthless comparison.
You can't compare historical persons who are so totally dissimilar. Jesus was a nobody during his lifetime, with no power or recognition or status, whereas King Tut, during his lifetime, was King of the greatest Empire in existence, arguably the most powerful single individual worldwide at that time, in terms of official recognized power.
So find a more realistic comparison if you want to say something to be taken seriously. E.g.,
comparison to Gautama Buddha or Zoroaster, both worshiped for centuries later but for whom there is so little historical documentation from near their lifetimes. These also probably were real historical persons who did something noteworthy and for whom there is some fact along with the fiction.
Siddhartha Guatama, Lao Tzu, Jesus, have a lot less about them than those living at "their" time.
"those living at 'their' time"? What does this mean? other known historical characters?
Of the 1st-century historical figures, Jesus is one of the best documented, more noted in the then-existing literature than 90% of the other 1st-century known figures. Maybe 98%. This is another bad comparison, because we do have much more about Jesus than for Gautama and Lao Tzu etc. in the writings of "their time."
Even if there's the "legend" or "mythologizing" problem for such persons, we at least know Jesus must have done something very unique, to distinguish him so much from others who did not get the same reaction and were not deified or mythologized. Even if we can't be sure what he did, he almost certainly did something much
more noteworthy than John the Baptizer and James the Just and many other Jewish prophets or rabbis or heroes, etc. who likely were more recognized than he was at that time. (Robert Eisenman's book
James, the Brother of Jesus, documents extensively how John the Baptizer and James the Just were more widely revered and honored than Jesus, during that period.) Why don't we have "Gospel" accounts of these and so many other popular prophets and preachers etc.? Why was Jesus alone, among the many popular preachers and apocalyptic teachers etc., chosen to play the "Messiah" role, and all the others relegated to such an inferior status in the 1st-century literature? Not even new literature discovered shows any other miracle-worker "Messiah" etc. appearing anywhere.
You know, here is the rub... we know the people that wrote the New Testament existed, but . . .
"existed"?
Yes, about their existence we also know more about your next-door-neighbor's dog (that's verifiable) than we know about Gautama and Lao Tzu and Jesus. It's not whether they "existed" or "how much we know" about someone that matters, but what we know of significance about them.
. . . but the Gospels are the only known source to demonstrate that Jesus existed.
Even if that were true, these accounts tell us more about him than we know about 99.9999999% of historical persons in the 1st century. But it's not true that these are the only known source that he existed, because there's also the epistles of Paul, and 3 or 4 other 1st-century writings. And though Paul gives us so little "biography" of Jesus, he does confirm the most significant fact, which is the Resurrection event. Paul's interest was to stick to only the most important information of all, while neglecting the rest. If ". . . to demonstrate that Jesus existed" includes everything biographical, then what we have is very limited. But only demonstrating that someone existed isn't saying what's significant about them.
Like I said, I’m really close. Just need to get some quotes from the eyewitnesses to throw in there, and maybe another someone to write a gospel or two. In 300 years we will take over, baby! And I’m going to be a saint!
No, there are too many other charlatans competing with you, who are more talented than you [even the character below, e.g., (maybe his problem is that he needed some better material to work with).]
SLD doesn't need talent, just needs a charismatic hook. Jesus didn't have talent, he was a crap carpenter.
You're missing SLD's point. He did not compare himself to Jesus, but to St. Paul or other missionary-promoter. And he compared Jesus to David Koresh (who also "rose from the dead" but then "something funny happened" on his way up to Heaven).
Despite the silliness of the comparison and the above video, there is a serious point here, which is that ---
Charisma, or charismatic talent cannot explain why Jesus attracted believers, though it explains why Koresh and other modern gurus, and also ancient gurus like John the Baptizer and Gautama succeeded at attracting followers -- that is, by their charisma. All of these attracted disciples by their speeches/sermons over many years and exercised a dynamic power over their listeners, usually over a long teaching career, though in some cases this was cut short by their "martyrdom" in one form or another. But the case of Jesus doesn't fit into this pattern because his public career was only 1-3 years long, which is way too short for any charismatic to establish himself as a recognized Holy Man preacher or divinely-inspired Prophet.
So in his one case we must find some other explanation why he attracted "disciples" who thought he had Divine Status of some kind. We could say also that Socrates must have had some other quality than only charisma, to gain his status as a Wise Man of some kind, because the written record of him suggests he was unattractive and without personal appeal on the surface. But in his case we have the explanation that he did truly have wisdom which he demonstrated over a
long career of teaching and challenging the popular beliefs of the time, and this gained him a genuine respect, along with some hate and fear from those of power and influence in that society.
So for Socrates the long teaching career plus genuine wisdom explains his unique reputation lasting into the future. But for Jesus there is no normal explanation why he became deified into "The Messiah" or "Savior" or "Son of God" etc. in such a short time period, known to us now from the written sources near to his own time rather than from mythologizing over the centuries. The extended
mythologizing lasting for centuries can also explain a miracle legend in many cases, like Gautama and the pagan heroes, etc. -- but not in the case of Jesus where the stories existed from the beginning rather than evolving over many centuries.
