Why is there no evidence for the ancient miracle-workers, other than --
-- redacted summaries from a modern debunker-crusader guru whose job is to reassure you that they must have existed?
And because you think it's unfair for Jesus to be the only reported ancient miracle-worker?
Why are you so scared to discuss the story of Jesus's resurrection and his ascent into heaven? Do you secretly doubt the story? Is that why you keep repeating your absurd arguments, to try to convince yourself?
Note that all along, he has wanted a streamlined ticket to salvation.
First class luxury liner, breakfast-in-bed, the works.
Minimum effort, so he doesn't have to change his behavior, . . .
Yes, like this woman's minimum effort:
Mark:5 -- 25 And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well." 29 And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. . . . 34 And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
So, you'd have said to her: Hey lady, you can't get what you want that easily. You have to first change your behavior, go and do alms and rituals and chant "Hare Krishna" 1000 times and do some good deeds to prove your worthiness, and only then are you entitled to be saved or healed.
No, our evidence from 2000 years ago, this account of a Jesus healing, tells us there's a power to save us, or heal us, which is free and requires "minimum effort" from us. So, how far does this life-giving power go? Could it even extend to resurrection to life beyond death? She had "heard the reports about Jesus" and figured "If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well." And we know "reports" of him bringing the dead back to life and of his own resurrection, indicating the possibility of eternal life. So it's a "leap of faith" similar to hers, a bigger "leap of faith," more difficult philosophically, but based on the evidence, or "reports" about him.
So it's a reasonable hope like hers, and the extra "leap of faith" for us is not really so great if this event and the other reported healings really happened, as historical facts. If our evidence is really the truth, the "reports about Jesus" which we have, then the philosophical "leap of faith" to the eternal life possibility is not so difficult.
. . . and reasonable in that there are other stories of similar nature.
I.e., there are some known cases of events which seemingly defy "the laws of nature" or have a seeming miracle element, or which cannot be explained by current known science. Perhaps in all cases there's really a "natural explanation" anyway -- who knows? That doesn't change the evidence of the "miracle" event. So there are some cases of events which science cannot explain, with the Jesus miracle acts as a conspicuous example. The event is not disproved just because current science has no explanation. The evidence is that the events did happen, and they're not debunked by just saying they're "impossible" or contrary to "natural law" etc. Rather, there's the element of doubt, as also with many normal events.
That's why he's willing to dismiss lots of Jesus speeches and some of the more outlandish miracles as fictional.
More correctly, it's good to distinguish what really happened from what was added later, and there's no way to establish whether it's "lots" to be dismissed or only few. With other writings or accounts of historical figures don't we try to figure out what really happened and determine what part is more credible and what part less? What's wrong with treating the Gospel accounts and the historical Jesus this way? and trying to separate fact from fiction?
Virtually all our ancient written accounts contain both fact and fiction. You insist in this one case it's ALL fiction or ALL fact? no in-between? Why only in this case? We must believe everything written as infallible? or we must reject it all as fiction? Only for these writings must we follow this all-or-nothing standard? and no others? Why?
But tales of faith healers are as old as religion.
No they're not. Depending on what "faith healers" means, such tales are almost non-existent in the literature before Jesus in the Gospels. At that point, in the first century AD, we see something new appear, like the following:
Mt 9:28-30 -- . . . the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord." Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you." And their eyes were opened.
There's nothing else like this in all the known literature. Nothing even close, other than Jesus in the Gospels (and 3 Elijah-Elisha stories from one source only and dating more than 200 years later than the alleged events). Our only other "tales of faith healers" are from debunkers claiming there were other reported miracle-workers or healers around the ancient world doing the same miracles Jesus did, and yet they cannot give any example of a healing event, showing the text which we can read for ourselves. No, all your Jesus-debunker guru can offer you is his authority that the stories exist, and you must take his word for it.
The Asclepius stories are not really about "faith-healers," though they're about worshipers claiming to be healed by praying to their ancient healing god. The earliest of these stories might date a bit earlier than 600 BC, not "as old as religion."
So there was belief in ancient healing gods, mainly Asclepius, and rituals or praying for healing, like religious people today pray to be healed by an ancient healer. The only victims reported to be healed were worshipers of the ancient healing deity, and the only claims of healings come from these worshipers and priests at the temple doing the rituals, at a private location only for disciples of the healing cult.
Except for Jesus in the Gospels, there are no "tales of faith healers" where NON-disciples were the ones healed, or where there were non-disciples present, as with the Jesus healing events where the ones healed were non-disciples and there were non-disciples present, at a public location not dedicated to the ancient healing deity and where no ancient healing ritual was being practiced by worshipers of the ancient healing deity.
Almost all miracle healing stories date from Jesus in the Gospels and later, except some cases of worshipers praying to their ancient healer deity at the temple and claiming to have been healed after performing the ritual prescribed by their priest, according to the popular traditions of the culture. For these popular entrenched religious traditions it is easy to explain why some worshipers claimed to have been healed by the ritual, as loyal devotees of the cult.
And all the miracle healing stories can be separated into two categories: 1) those for which there's evidence, like Jesus in the Gospels, and 2) those for which there is no evidence, which is 99% of miracle claims.
Here is a lengthy study on ancient miracle claims:
https://www.academia.edu/36021940/Greco-Roman_Healing_Miracles
(I've not completed reading this lengthy dissertation.) The pattern seems clear that there are many claims of pre-Christian miracle healings, and yet there is no text offered of an actual healing event. This seems to be
the way the non-Biblical healing stories are promoted, as claims that the stories exist, but without giving the original text of the reported event. There are citings of text, but no quotes from it of the actual healing event, like our text for Jesus in the Gospels, where the text describes the scene and narrates Jesus healing the victim of blindness or leprosy etc.
If the actual healing event is somewhere in the ancient Greek/Roman text, why is there never a quote from the text, in a clear-cut case stating the miracle healing?
There are examples in the famous
Edelstein book on
Asclepius, which relates stories of worshipers praying and claiming to be healed at the Asclepius temple. These actual examples of healing stories are numerous in the early period, from 500-200 BC, but by 200 BC the stories fade away, with almost nothing after 200 BC. But then, the stories begin again suddenly after 100 AD, as the Asclepius cult revives about that time and becomes popular again for another 100-200 years.
Stories in Edelstein's Asclepius collection -- the empty space 200 BC - 100 AD:
In the period 200 BC to 100 AD, there are references to Asclepius, but virtually no miracle healings. The references/inscriptions appearing in this period are non-miracle claims, like various statements of adoration toward Asclepius, which is what most of the Edelstein book is about, paying respect to the ancient healing god.
The healing claims are from inscriptions on Asclepius temples, showing that worshipers prayed and claimed to be healed. But none of these appear from 100 BC to 100 AD, and virtually nothing from 200 BC to 100 AD. The miracle claims date from the earlier period, disappearing after about 200 BC. But then there's the revival of such miracle events after 100 AD when the cult comes back to life. This cult was virtually dead in the first century when the Jesus miracle claims appear.
The search for "tales of faith healers" before Jesus:
Greco-Roman Healing Miracles
Freya Burford
Submitted for MA Ancient History (Rome)
University of Kent 2017
This source should serve as a good test, to verify if it's true that "tales of faith healers are as old as religion." Some of those tales should be in this website. There should be actual quoted text somewhere here, giving the accounts of healing events, or healing acts by these "faith healers," assuming they really existed and anything was recorded. The author states explicitly the goal of presenting pre-Christian or non-Biblical miracle healing stories, claiming there are many examples of it.
https://www.academia.edu/36021940/Greco-Roman_Healing_Miracles
If you want to claim there were non-Christian miracle healings in the Greek/Roman culture, it should be found in this source, claiming to do an exhaustive study of the Greek and Roman healing miracle events, and claiming there is a large number of such events or claims. But there seems to be no quoting of any text of actual miracle events. There was obviously belief in ancient healing gods, especially Asclepius and Serapis, and praying to them and doing rituals for healing from sickness. But where are the reported events of someone being healed? There has to be quoted text from an original source. Not just continued repetition that such stories exist without any original text.
At best there is only ancient healing cult tradition, where worshipers practice the established rituals honoring the ancient healing god which is revered in the popular culture.
It's obvious that Jesus-debunkers want to claim there were many other miracle-workers at the time, running around here and there doing the same miracles. These debunkers must cut out the phoniness, quoting only modern authors, and must find the original text, from the ancient sources, showing these alleged ancient events. It's easy to quote some modern Jesus-debunker, or a compendium of ancient miracle-worker listings, without any substance to verify the evidence or documentation for those claims.
Here is one text quoted, to show the power of a statue (p. 28):
Comparatively, there is evidence which suggests other statues made quite substantial impressions on those viewing them. The famous statue of Zeus at Olympia appears to have had a clear influence on those who viewed it:
‘men, whoever is sore distressed in soul, having in the course of his life drained the cup of many misfortunes and griefs, nor winning sweet sleep — even this man, methinks, if he stood before this image, would forget all the terrors and hardships that fall to our human lot’
(D. Chr. 12. 51)
Is this what we mean by "tales of faith healers as old as religion"? This is a speculation about the power of a statue to impress the viewer and cause him to forget his pain or suffering. Is this the same as Jesus reportedly healing a leper or a paralytic or demoniac? Is this a reported case of a victim being healed, gaining his vision or being made whole?
Is this a text of a miracle event? Is this statue here described as performing a healing act on a victim? like that of Jesus curing the woman with the bleeding condition who touched his garment and was cured?
______________________________________________
So, not too much of a stretch to think Jesus did that regularly. The flying into heaven, he only did that once, and there aren't many stories of faith flers.
Would you elaborate more on the "faith flers" (before you totally pass out).
Even Rasputin never claimed to be able to fly.
After another vodka or two you'll be claiming you had many flights with him.
Lumpy's whole approach is easily understood when you realize he wants the line-of-least-credulity faith, . . .
No, what I want is not lyrics from a beer-drinking song, or wherever you found that phrase, but serious evidence that miracle acts were performed, indicating the possibility of eternal life, recorded near the time of the reported event, in more than one source, and not just ancient ritual practices entrenched in the culture to worship an established centuries-old deity routinely revered by most of the population. What I want is evidence that the miracle acts really happened rather than just being part of the established ritual traditions and automatically believed by everyone out of respect for the ancient gods.
. . . with little demands on his time or energy.
So you're demanding a Jesus who kicks butt and makes people go faster and burn more calories? rather than giving them eternal life?
Meaning your approach is more demands on someone, more expenditure of time and energy, more dissipation of energy, more huffing and puffing.
Nah, this lazy bum prefers the Jesus who said:
Mt. 11:28-30 -- Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
I know there are quotes of him speaking differently than this. Demanding sacrifice, etc. Those are the quotes added by later preachers trying to instill discipline in the believers, when the Christ believers were threatened with persecution.