The Jesus miracle stories must be rejected as fiction --
-- not because the miracles didn't happen, but because it's unwholesome for people to believe such things, even if they did happen. I.e., sometimes it's best to DISbelieve something even if it's true.
bottom line: The evidence is that the miracle acts of Jesus really did happen. The only evidence that they did not happen is the ideological premise that miracle events cannot happen. [or if they did, they should not have?] . . . the Jesus miracle acts are based on the same kind of historical evidence as much (most) of our mainline history.
If it's the laws of physics, which we can verify today, versus a handful of miracle stories from thousands of years ago, I know what I'm betting on.
Besides, you presumably want us to base our lives on these accounts and pass laws based on them (e.g., banning abortion). In that case, the standard of evidence is necessarily much higher than for any other . . .
No, the standard is the same as for all other alleged events, regardless what one's interpretation of it is, or how one would react to it.
. . . In that case, the standard of evidence is necessarily much higher than for any other ancient event - they need to be proven . . .
No, all miracle claims require extra evidence. And there's no agreed quantity of extra evidence that is required. But the extra evidence required has nothing to do with anyone's prediction of dire consequences which would happen if everyone believes this. Even if you think it means everyone would commit suicide, that still doesn't make the standard of evidence any higher. The purpose of seeking the truth is not to prevent panic or head off a disaster. Except in the sense that the truth found can be put to use in some cases for a practical purpose. But the basic truth-seeking has value regardless whether it's put to a practical use for something.
. . . they need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
No, we need evidence, but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And for miracle claims there needs to be extra evidence, like we have extra evidence for the Jesus miracle acts but virtually no evidence for other reported miracles in antiquity.
Nobody writes modern laws based on the belief that Richard III murdered his nephews in order to secure the throne for himself.
Whether someone writes a law based on their belief does not tell us if the belief is true or false. Whether the law is wrong or controversial is beside the point -- that subject matter of the belief has to be judged in itself, on the merits of the evidence and the reasoning about what is claimed by the belief, regardless of any result it might lead to or someone's bad reaction to it or perversion of it.
It's a question that historians still debate, and probably always will. Maybe it happened; Maybe it didn't.
The same is true about the reported Jesus miracle acts as historical events. Maybe they happened, and maybe they didn't. All the evidence says they happened (other than the doctrine that miracles can never happen), but since they are alleged miracles, this adds doubt and there must be extra evidence. Historical science cannot declare what the truth is one way or the other, as it declares that "Caesar was assassinated" or "Charlemagne was crowned emperor." These and some other events are in the category of established fact, while others remain in the doubtful category and can be believed based on the evidence, but also disbelieved by someone for whom the existing extra evidence is still not enough.
But we do have pseudo-science in history, among professional scholars paid by the state, who impose their beliefs as facts, onto their students, and onto the public, e.g. in interviews/lectures, where they distort history, using their status as official historians to even tell blatant lies, on a crusade to prove their case that Jesus did not do any miracles.
So history can be abused in order to promote ideology, rather than remaining neutral to report facts only. Maybe it's naive to expect historians to really be neutral.
While it's important to the tiny proportion of the world's population who are scholars of the Plantagenet Kings, these people are not trying to pass laws, or even demanding that their preferred interpretation be taught in schools --
No one is trying to pass laws requiring Christ-belief to be taught in schools. But we already have some scholars teaching DISbelief, pronouncing that Jesus did not do miracle acts, claiming that our accounts of Jesus doing miracles were inspired by earlier miracle legends, and that those earlier legends are just as credible as the Jesus miracles reported in the Gospel accounts. Even claiming that the Jesus miracle acts are copied from the earlier miracle legends or are dependent on them and have no more credibility than those earlier beliefs, even claiming those earlier beliefs were based on similar evidence as that for the Jesus miracles in the Gospel accounts. Some of this is normal bias among professionals, but how far can the dishonesty go? What are the proper limits?
-- neither to the exclusion of all other interpretations, nor despite strong evidence for a different interpretation of the evidence.
Like professional Jesus-debunker scholars present their interpretation by telling falsehoods about other alleged miracle-worker legends, "to the exclusion of other interpretations," despite the "strong evidence for a different interpretation."
The only schools where the Resurrection etc. is taught as established fact is in Christian schools paid for privately, just as Muslim or Jewish schools also teach their beliefs as facts. No one is proposing that their particular religious beliefs be taught as fact, other than in private schools paid for privately.
What should be required is for the publicly-funded schools to remain neutral rather than engage in anti-Christian or other biased teaching in an effort to change the facts of history toward favoring their anti-Christian theories.
Teaching facts vs. making up stories
For example, some teachers distort history by declaring that the Christian Church burned down the Library at Alexandria. Though the Church committed misdeeds, there is virtually no evidence that the Church ever burned down libraries or did any bookburnings during those centuries. Yet some teachers do make pronouncements like this which go unchallenged, which is a perverse use of a public institution to promote their personal anti-Christian bias, out of spite and hate, rather than a genuine pursuit of knowledge and teaching the facts of history.
The proper role of the history teacher is to report the facts of history per se, regardless of anyone's emotional impulses about those facts, or opinions about religion or philosophy or the cosmos.
So we can go over examples of what should or should not be taught, because of debatable points of history which are not settled as facts, and yet about which there are strong opinions, and there are probably more cases of ANTI-Christian bias in the schools, in teaching history or science, than of PRO-Christian bias, since the latter is mainly in the Christian schools only. It would be legitimate for a teacher to present some of these examples and say it's debatable, without declaring this or that side to be the truth. But what is not legitimate, and yet does happen, is to teach as fact that the Church under Constantine and his successors went around burning books and burning down libraries. Or that the Jesus miracles could not have really happened.
On the other hand, it is proper historical teaching to report the bookburnings of later centuries which are documented, such as in the Reformation period.
Meanwhile, the promoters of Creationism avoid the Christian or Bible doctrine as their authority, and instead try to present their case as based on legitimate secular science. As long as they follow this approach, they're entitled to present their case for including their theory in the curriculum, just as anyone else can try to promote properly their version of the established facts, based on science rather than religious belief (or anti-religious belief). They might be wrong, but their case has to be judged on the merits of the scientific facts rather than their possible religious motivation. Just as teachers proclaiming that the Church burned down the Library at Alexandria have to be judged on the facts, or evidence one way or the other, rather than their motive or bias.
If they were, we would be totally justified to oppose them on the grounds that their claims are not sufficiently well evidenced to justify their proposed changes to law, curriculum, or society.
What is meant by "their claims" and "their proposed changes to law, curriculum, or society"? No one is proposing any such changes.
Everyone agrees that miracle claims are not to be put into the law or curriculum as facts of history, and instead that they might be mentioned -- if the topic comes up -- as beliefs people have, based on ancient traditions or written record, and which cannot be proved or disproved as established facts, but are left in the doubtful category. But instead of this reasonable approach, many Jesus-debunker zealots try to go farther and impose their dogma that all miracle claims have to be fiction, especially the Jesus miracle acts, despite the evidence. And paid professional scholars teach this, promoting their bias instead of just presenting the facts.
Even though regicide is known to be commonplace in world history, and in no way violates physical law.
Pronouncements about what "violates physical law" tend to be subjective and prejudiced opinion rather than factual. It's better to say something lies outside the currently-known science, or cannot be explained by the physical law as it's currently understood -- and that such a claim requires extra evidence in order to be credible, and so goes into the doubtful category. It's not legitimate for a public school teacher to say a claimed event for which there's evidence "violates the physical law" and so therefore cannot have really happened. What they can say, without being dishonest, is that the claim is doubtful and requires more than the normal amount of evidence.
And we are far more justified in opposing the imposition of Christianity on our laws, curricula, and social structures;
There is no such imposition today. There's more of the opposite, or the imposition of ANTI-Christianity on laws, etc.
Because the claims made by Christians have even less evidence than there is for the murders of the Princes in the Tower, . . .
Which "claims made by Christians"? Which Christians? There are millions, even billions of such claims, and none of them believed by ALL Christians. This falsely puts ALL claims by any Christians into this broad category you want to condemn and banish.
You can't impose your own ban by lumping everything you don't like into this broad category and banning everything in it, pretending to be scientific. Rather, if you want to ban something, you have to name that particular item and say why it's not legitimate, rather than just branding it as "the claims made by Christians" and then banning everything you're putting in that category. That's no different than lumping everything Leftist into "the claims made by communists" category and condemning all liberals as totalitarian and treasonous.
There is "evidence" for some of the Christian claims, probably more than for those murders of the Princes in the Tower, so you have to name which Christian claim you want to ban for lack of evidence, rather than demanding that every imaginable belief a Christian might have has to be banned because all "claims made by Christians" are automatically tainted and therefore must be banned.
. . . and unlike those hypothesised murders, the Christian claims involve the impossible -- they entail contravention of physical law.
Some do and some don't. Why can't you identify "the Christian claims" you mean? Do you want to ban the "Christian claim" that Caesar Augustus was once the Roman emperor? And it's only your interpretation that "they entail contravention of physical law." Rather, the miracles claims are a kind which require extra evidence. Not all "the Christian claims" are equally valid or invalid.
The evidence for what? There is abundant evidence for the Jesus miracle acts, including the Resurrection. But not for some other "Christian claims." There is more evidence for the Resurrection than there is for many/most events of ancient history which are routinely accepted.
All you can argue is that for miracle-type claims there needs to be extra evidence, and that the extra evidence in this case is still not enough, by your standard.
The demands go far beyond what little evidence there is;
"far beyond" and "little evidence" are subjective and judgmental. There's much normal belief about historical events which has less evidence than the Jesus Resurrection has for it, as an historical event. It's not established exactly how much extra evidence is required. Your personal feelings are not the objective standard for establishing how much extra evidence is required in this or other cases of miracle claims. What is appropriate is a demand for NEUTRALITY about the miracle claims, rather than a proactive demand to debunk them as fiction, as your Jesus-debunker scholars are now paid to do, even to the point of making up their own facts -- whatever it takes to promote their crusade to debunk the miracle stories.
And the claims are so extraordinary that truly compelling evidence is . . .
Phrases like "so extraordinary" and "truly compelling" are subjective and not measurable. You must have a more precise description of something which you propose to have publicly banned or put into an illegitimate category.
. . . truly compelling evidence is a prerequisite for sane people to believe them.
"sane"? Who keeps this official list of the "sane" vs. the not "sane" people?
There is "compelling evidence" for the Resurrection and other miracle acts of Jesus, so that "sane people" reasonably believe it, based on the extra evidence beyond what is required for most ancient history events. While at the same time other "sane people" don't believe it because they require extra evidence beyond the existing extra evidence. So it's reasonable to impose a policy of NEUTRALITY regarding this, rather than a dogmatic insistence that the miracles must be suppressed, and every "sane" person forced to submit to this insistence, and that falsehoods are OK in teaching as long as they refute the Jesus miracle stories, because it's necessary to suppress these beliefs in order to enforce your theory of what "sane people" are supposed to believe or not believe.
And so the fans of the Jesus story can go get fucked.
OK, now we're getting somewhere.
Here's a publicly-paid university professor sharing the sentiment that "fans of the Jesus-story can go get fucked," in his crusade to debunk the evidence for the Jesus miracle acts. In his response to the following interviewer, he resorts to telling a blatant falsehood in order to promote his miracle-debunking crusade:
. . . such as the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew and the birth of Moses in Exodus, or Jesus feeding 5000 men plus women and children with a few scraps of food and Elisha feeding 100 people with 20 loaves of bread, both similar miracles, Jesus' a little bit more impressive. But, how does distorted memory explain that kind of story about Jesus, that appears to have a literary antecedent in the Hebrew scriptures?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNIyyoRPbLM&t=1024s (This excerpt begins about 1 hour into the video.)
This is a talk-show host interviewing a distinguished Bible scholar. The scholar now tells a blatant falsehood which crosses the line. Of course many scholars and philosophers and pundits and religious crusaders and anti-religious crusaders tell falsehoods, because of their prejudice, and because they exaggerate or distort the facts. But those are usually 2 or 3 Pinocchios only, whereas this one scores 4½ Pinocchios minimum, as he blatantly transposes an historical figure, Apollonius of Tyana, to a different time than when he actually lived.
Dr. Pinocchio lying about Apollonius of Tyana
other "miracle-working sons of God" prior to Jesus (note the term "literary antecedent"):
Dr. Pinocchio: Yeah, and it's interesting, because the literary antecedents are not just the Hebrew scriptures, but also there are close parallels between what Jesus says and does with what figures in Greek and Roman mythology say and do. So, there are a lot of similarities, and what scholars of memory would say is that we always remember new things in light of the old things that we already know. And so, when you're trying to make sense of Jesus as the Son of God, the miracle-working Son of God, you put him in a category that you already have, because you already have an idea of miracle-working sons of God, whether they are somebody great like Moses or Elijah, in the Hebrew Bible, or if they're like somebody in the Greek or Roman environment, like Apollonius of Tyana, who was also a miracle-working Son of God.
When you try to conceptualize something new, you always do it in light of something old. And so the older things always affect how you remember the present things.
Notice he uses the term "antecedent" in describing these "sons of God" -- these are "literary antecedents" which means they came earlier. He says they are the "old things" -- he uses that term "old things" in contrast to the "new things" which are understood "in light of" the "old things." In other words, the new thing -- in this case Jesus the miracle-working Son of God in the 1st century -- is conceptualized in light of the old things, which are the previous miracle sons of God, such as Moses and Elijah and Apollonius of Tyana.
Is that what he's saying? Is he not saying that Moses and Elijah and Apollonius of Tyana were PREVIOUS miracle-working sons of God?
again:
(interviewer). . . such as the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew and the birth of Moses in Exodus, or Jesus feeding 5000 men plus women and children with a few scraps of food and Elisha feeding 100 people with 20 loaves of bread . . . But, how does distorted memory explain that kind of story about Jesus, that appears to have a literary antecedent in the Hebrew scriptures?
(Dr. Pinocchio). . . it's interesting, because the literary antecedents are not just the Hebrew scriptures, but also . . . Greek and Roman . . . So, there are a lot of similarities, and . . . we always remember new things in light of the old things that we already know. And so, when you're trying to make sense of Jesus as the Son of God, the miracle-working Son of God, you put him in a category that you already have, because you already have an idea of miracle-working sons of God, whether . . . Moses or Elijah, in the Hebrew Bible, or . . . in the Greek or Roman environment, like Apollonius of Tyana, who was also a miracle-working son of God.
When you try to conceptualize something new, you always do it in light of something old. And so the older things always affect how you remember the present things."
What does he mean by the "something new" and "something old"? From the context it's clear that the "something new" is Jesus in the Gospels, the 1st-century historical figure and reported miracle-worker of about 30 AD. And the "something old" are the "literary antecedents" of an earlier time, such as the Jewish prophets Moses and Elijah and Elisha. These literary antecedents are earlier "sons of God" or miracle-workers who are a kind of model for understanding the later Jesus miracle-worker of the 1st century AD. It's "in light of something old" (such as Moses and Elijah) that they "try to conceptualize something new" (the 1st-century Jesus).
But our scholar here adds a fourth "literary antecedent" to these earlier Jewish prophets, namely, Apollonius of Tyana, who is placed alongside Moses and Elijah and Elisha as an earlier model, or "something old" by which to conceptualize the "something new" -- which is Jesus in the Gospels.
And there's something wrong with this picture.
If we're to believe this scholar, accepting him as a competent authority on 1st-century history, certified by the state, then this Apollonius of Tyana was prior to Jesus, and there were written accounts about him which were used by the Gospel writers, and also by the Apostle Paul who writes about the Resurrection of Jesus -- and these 1st-century writers relied on the earlier Apollonius of Tyana miracle-worker tradition and other literary antecedents, i.e., the "something old," as ideas for conceptualizing their story of Jesus or their presentation of him in their written accounts.
Doesn't a "literary antecedent" have to be EARLIER
by definition?
He's telling us this Apollonius was a
LITERARY antecedent to Jesus, meaning not only that the Apollonius person was earlier, like Moses and Elijah were earlier, but also that there were earlier written accounts about him in the 1st century, as there were written accounts about Moses and Elijah, making them (or the writings about them) "LITERARY antecedents" or earlier characters known from earlier written accounts available to the Apostle Paul and the Gospel writers, who used them to present their understanding of Jesus. What's wrong here is that this scholar knows it's false, because Apollonius was barely a contemporary to Jesus and comes mostly later, not before. His dates are estimated to be about 15 AD - 100 AD. Or even later, like 40 AD - 120 AD.
Of course you should Google the name Apollonius of Tyana to confirm his dates. And you'll find that not only is he a little later than Jesus, in the 1st century, but that the only account of his life and claiming any miracles by him was not written until about 220 AD, or at least 100 years later. How can something written in 220 AD be a "literary antecedent" to the written accounts of Jesus in the 1st century?
Is this what the scholar is saying? Notice his repeated use of the word "already" in saying that the literary antecedent was much earlier than the "something new" (Jesus in the Gospels):
. . . that we always remember new things in light of the old things that we already know. And so, when you're trying to make sense of Jesus as the Son of God, the miracle-working Son of God, you put him in a category that you already have, because you already have an idea of miracle-working sons of God, whether they are somebody great like Moses or Elijah, in the Hebrew Bible, or if they're like somebody in the Greek or Roman environment, like Apollonius of Tyana, who was also a miracle-working son of God.
When you try to conceptualize something new, you always do it in light of something old. And so the older things always affect how you remember the present things.
He says "you already have an idea of miracle-working sons of God" -- that'd be the literary antecedent, whether it's Moses, etc., or someone like Apollonius. Isn't he saying Apollonius is chronologically earlier than Jesus, just as Moses and Elijah were?
How can he not be saying here that Apollonius is "already" there, in the 1st century, BEFORE Jesus in the Gospels, as the "something old"? or as the "literary antecedent" to the "something new" which is the Christ we find in Paul and in the Gospel accounts?
And yet he knows that's false, and that the story of Apollonius of Tyana, who died 100 AD or later, could not possibly be an antecedent to Jesus, or to the written accounts of him in the New Testament.
Isn't this a falsehood he's telling? Also, isn't the interviewer remiss for not questioning who Apollonius of Tyana is, to clarify if he's really an ANTECEDENT to Jesus in the Gospels, when the scholar speaks this name which is not familiar to many or most listeners? Didn't the interviewer neglect his responsibility here to get a clarification who Apollonius of Tyana is, who's being placed alongside the familiar names of Moses and Elijah? Didn't he fail to serve the listeners, many of whom would assume this Greek-Roman figure was a literary antecedent to Jesus, or a forerunner to him from earlier centuries, just as Moses and Elijah were forerunners? Given how he puts them in the category of literary antecedents, or miracle sons of God, what's the difference between this Apollonius "son of God" and the Elijah "son of God" other than that the latter is Jewish and Apollonius is Greek-Roman? Everything he says here puts Apollonius into the earlier period, along with Moses and Elijah.
Telling falsehoods in order to promote the cause
Is he unaware that he's telling this falsehood? What's going on in his mind that he thinks it's OK to tell a falsehood like this? falsely transporting a historical figure to an earlier period? even centuries earlier? This Apollonius would need to have lived at least 100 years earlier in order to be placed alongside the names of Elijah and Moses as a literary antecedent to Jesus in the Gospels. What's the bias of this scholar? Is he on a crusade which he promotes by telling this falsehood?
A scholar is allowed some bias -- but to promote it with a falsehood of this magnitude? transporting a real historical figure back at least 100 years? We can easily identify his bias, or his crusade, which is to debunk the Jesus miracle-worker described in the Gospel accounts. These reported miracle acts of Jesus must somehow be placed into the fiction category, in his mind, because it's not healthy, or wholesome, for people to believe in such miracle claims. So anything which debunks these miracle accounts is good or wholesome for society. So he's using his ideological judgmentalism to determine the facts here -- his own manufactured facts to corroborate his bias -- to place this historical figure earlier in history and make him an antecedent to the historical Jesus of 30 AD.
Driven by his bias, rather than facts, this official publicly-paid scholar debunks the miracle stories in the Gospels by means of a narrative, which is that there were many other reported miracle-workers within the ancient culture, prior to Jesus, so that this culture of the period then produced the Jesus miracle-worker as just one of several others, or, one additional miracle legend alongside several earlier examples, which he calls "miracle-working sons of god" -- by advancing this narrative, he promotes his crusade to debunk the miracle-worker Jesus, and this debunking crusade of his takes priority over any commitment to accuracy or truth. Here's the same scholar in a debate on whether the Jesus Resurrection is historical. He emphatically insists that any evidence we have for the Jesus Resurrection also exists for many other reported "miracle-working sons of god":
(Dr. Pinocchio) -- People claimed to have seen Jesus alive after his death. So we have one fact that I agree with: There were people who claimed they saw Jesus alive after his death. The question is: Can the historian on the basis of that fact establish that Jesus was probably raised from the dead?
First, I'm a little puzzled that Mike hasn't looked at parallel phenomena in the ancient world. As it turns out there are numerous instances of ancient people who were dead as doornails who allegedly appeared to their close companions and followers after their death. Were all of these people raised from the dead?
Which people? It's not clear that there really were any such cases. He's going to give an example here, the same Apollonius he mentioned earlier, and yet he's wrong. In our only written record, no one reported a visual appearance of this 1st-century character after his death. The scholar is wrong in most of what he says about this 1st-century character doing miracles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1eWhzxja0&t=3724s (skip to about one hour into the video)
Let me give you one example. A famous holy man in the first century, a pagan holy man, was named Apollonius from the city of Tyana. We know about Apollonius and the life of Apollonius because one of his later followers wrote down an account of his life. Apollonius had a life that was very interesting indeed. Before he was born an angelic visitor came to his would-be mother and told her that she was going to bear a special son. Her son would not be a mere mortal, her son would be the Son of God. He was born supernaturally. After his birth, as a young boy, he impressed the teachers of his people with his religious knowledge, that was superior in every way. When he became an adult he left his home and went from one village and town to the other, preaching his message, that people shouldn't be concerned about material things of this world, people should be concerned with the spiritual things in life. He gathered a group of followers around him who were convinced that he was the Son of God, and he confirmed their belief by doing miracles. He could cast out demons, he could . . .
No, there are no stories of Apollonius casting out demons. We'll go through each example of a reported Apollonius miracle, and there's none saying he cast out demons.
. . . cast out demons, he could heal the sick, and he could raise the dead.
What about healing the sick or raising the dead? What does the Apollonius biography say about this?
When you read what the account says, you actually find no narrative account of Apollonius healing a sick person, and the only account of him raising the dead is copied from an earlier story lifted out from the Gospel of Luke, written more than 100 years earlier.
Also, note the chronology of Jesus and Apollonius and the written accounts about them. Both of them were real 1st-century historical figures, but the single source for Apollonius doing miracles is not serious evidence. We have
only one source, a biography written about 220 AD, more than
100 years after the historical Apollonius lived. There are no earlier reports of him doing any miracles, such as we have 5 early accounts of the Jesus resurrection.
But in addition to the limited written record for Apollonius, it's necessary to look at the miracle claims themselves in the one source, because there are really very few miracles listed in this biography, and some of them are ambiguous and ludicrous -- even hilarious, so the claim that "he confirmed their belief by doing miracles" cannot be taken seriously.
There are only 5 identifiable references to miracle acts of Apollonius in the only source, the biography, to which might be added a psychic vision or two, or prophecy or premonition, suggesting a psychic ability of some sort, for which there's a little bit of evidence.
The most prominent miracles are in the goofy category (the numbering below follows the order in which they appear in the biography, but they're listed in the order of their importance), with the first 2 being not only the most important, but also the goofiest:
miracle #1: Purging the Plague at Ephesus (Bk 4 ch 11, Bk 8 ch 7)
In his speech to the emperor, Apollonius claims to have predicted this plague in advance, which we cannot check in any way, nor is there any confirmation that there was any such plague. But what's important is the strange way this plague was supposedly purged. He claimed to have accomplished this by inciting his followers to stone to death an old man he accused of really being a demon and causing the plague. The crowd is reluctant to attack the poor old man, who's a beggar and seems harmless, but Apollonius assures them that this apparent helpless beggar is really the cause of the plague, so they take up stones and kill him. At which point the old beggar turns into a heinous monster, with flaming eyes, resembling a savage hound and vomiting and foaming at the mouth.
And our scholar-debunker, with a straight face, says that this miracle confirmed their belief that Apollonius was the Son of God.
It's interesting that all the attention is on this violent scene of stoning the beast disguised as an old beggar and his metamorphising into the hideous dying monster. Virtually nothing is said of the plague being driven away, of victims recovering, of ending the harmful sickness and suffering, etc. So the incident is reported with almost no mention of any beneficial result. The only interest is in the sensationalism and shock of the violent stoning and slaughtering of the old man who is really the beast in disguise. So, we're given entertainment and shock rather than a happy ending of the suffering from the plague.
What about the believability of this reported miracle? If we make allowance (with evidence) that a miracle event could happen, what is the believability of a miracle which requires the stoning to death of an old man, or rather, of a monster disguised as an old man beggar? This is a prominent Apollonius miracle, comprising maybe 20 or 30 percent of all his miracles.
The next most important miracle is #3 (#2 is listed farther down), which is also a nightmare and goes into the Twilight Zone category:
miracle #3: Wedding Scene Blowup (Bk 4 ch 25)
A young man, Menipus, is about to marry a beautiful girl he thinks loves him. But Apollonius knows that she's really a vampire who plans to eat him. A wedding celebration is about to commence, but Apollonius shows up and exposes her, telling Menipus the truth about her. She denies it at first, but then suddenly everything starts to disappear, the banquet hall, the tables, the servants -- it was all only an illusion --
Poof! all gone. And then the girl breaks down and admits that she's really a vampire and had planned to eat the young man for supper.
That's your miracle. Everything turns into a pumpkin, the vampire is foiled, and the young man is saved from being eaten. The text says that this joyous miracle event is the most famous of all the great deeds of Apollonius.
So now, with these two famous Apollonius miracles, you have at least half of the entire Apollonius miracle legend.
So, our scholar says, with miracles like these "he confirmed their belief" and they became "convinced that he was the Son of God" -- you can read it yourself -- Bk 4 ch 25. Of course the scholar gave no reference or quote from this biography, which he should have done, so the listener could check to confirm his claim about the miracles done by this "son of God" who he says was a "parallel" to Jesus.
This biography is available online, in text and also as an audiobook -- Philostratus,
The Life of Apollonius of Tyana.
Notice that, when you check the examples more closely, like this one, the scholar's claim that "he confirmed their belief" by doing miracles becomes silly. He's a fraud to put anything like this in the same category as the miracles of Jesus. Which is why when he gives his narrative about the "miracle-working sons of God," he avoids giving any references from ancient sources, or quotes, telling the alleged miracles. Rather, you're just to take his word for it that these miracles are in the ancient literature, giving us the same kind of evidence for them as we have for Jesus in the Gospel accounts.
Not all the Apollonius "miracle" stories are this ludicrous. But these two are the most conspicuous ones, to show the miracle-working power of Apollonius. The next miracle is not as shocking as the first two:
miracle #4: Apollonius Vanishing Act (Bk 8, ch 5)
At his "trial" before the emperor Domitian, Apollonius delivers a lengthy oration in his defense, and he concludes with the words, "I am not mortal!" and then suddenly disappears.
Poof! he's gone. At least this is less depressing than the 2 earlier "miracles" where the solution to the problem is for everything to turn into a pumpkin or for someone mistaken as real to suddenly blow up in our face.
So, this vanishing act by Apollonius might be chalked up as one legitimate miracle he reportedly did -- it can't be denied that the ability to suddenly vanish is a pretty neat trick. We have one source saying it happened, written about 120 years after the alleged event.
Now something sane, and similar to the Jesus miracles:
miracle #5: A dead girl is raised back to life (Bk 4 ch 45)
Here too is a miracle which Apollonius worked: A girl had died just in the hour of her marriage, and the bridegroom was following her bier lamenting, as was natural, his marriage left unfulfilled, and the whole of Rome was mourning with him, for the maiden belonged to a consular family. Apollonius then witnessing their grief, said: "Put down the bier, for I will stay the tears that you are shedding for this maiden."
And withal he asked what was her name. The crowd accordingly thought that he was about to deliver such an oration as is commonly delivered to grace the funeral as to stir up lamentation; but he did nothing of the kind, but merely touching her and whispering in secret some spell over her, at once woke up the maiden from her seeming death; and the girl spoke out loud, and returned to her father's house, just as Alcestis did when she was brought back to life by Heracles.
Now, of course that's a miracle if it happened. But compare it to the following, from the Gospel of Luke ch 7:
12 As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." 14 And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." 15 And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and "God has visited his people!" 17 And this report concerning him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
This was written sometime near 90 AD, about 60 years after Jesus. While the Apollonius story was written about 220 AD, describing a 1st-century event 120-150 years earlier.
So, one main difference between the written record of Jesus in the Gospels and that of Apollonius of Tyana is that whereas the Jesus miracle acts are documented in multiple written accounts dated 40-70 years from the time of his public life, those of Apollonius are found in one source only, more than 100 years later, and even include a copycat story lifted out of the Gospel of Luke. This funeral story of the son/daughter raised back to life is found in both, and we can assume the later writer Philostratus is the one who plagiarized it from the earlier Luke writer.
This is the best of the Apollonius miracle stories, as something serious, describing explicitly a benefit, i.e., the deceased being raised back to life, witnessed by a large number of observers. But, it turns out, the story is plagiarized from a written account more than 100 years earlier.
Here's an Apollonius miracle we can put in the truly legitimate category, but note how innocuous it is:
miracle #2: "and having healed many of them, he came to the land of Ilium." (Bk 4 ch 11)
That's the entire miracle claim.
This is an incidental remark after Apollonius leaves the temple of Asclepius the healing deity, where worshipers went regularly, seeking cures, to do the rituals or be treated by priests who performed the prescribed rites of the ancient god Asclepius. Note that in this case it's the god Asclepius who is the source for the miracle, while in the case just previous, purging the plague in Ephesus, the miracle was credited to the god-man Heracles.
There are also some incidental phrases like this in the Gospels, of Jesus healing many, with no narration or details of individual cases. Also at one point it says the disciples of Jesus did miracles (Mark 6:13): "And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them."
This by itself has little value as evidence of miracle acts. But along with the many narrative accounts in the Gospels, more than 30 in number, giving details of individual cases, we have a body of evidence for the Jesus miracle acts which is far greater than what is required to establish a normal historical event (or pattern of events) -- and far greater than we have for any other reputed miracle-worker of antiquity. For most of the ancient miracle stories there is little or no evidence at all, such as written accounts dated any time near that of the alleged events.
So, does a phrase like "having healed many of them" pass for a miracle story? If we had only this for Jesus in the Gospels, plus a vanishing scene, a copycat story plagiarized from an earlier source, and two depraved stories of humans turning into monsters -- like we have for Apollonius, would this have confirmed someone's belief that he was the Son of God? This is the best we have attesting to any miracles of Apollonius, whereas Jesus in the Gospels is described as performing at least 30 miracle acts -- individual cases of lepers, the blind, mentally ill, and others being instantly healed, and of the dead raised back to life. But for Apollonius we have no such accounts of anyone healed, other than this one passing phrase "having healed many of them" -- that's all.
So from nothing more than this, Dr. Pinocchio preaches that he was a "miracle-working son of god" and that his disciples were "convinced that he was the Son of God" and that "he confirmed their belief by doing miracles. He could cast out demons, he could raise the dead . . ." These are not the words of a truth-seeking scholar, but of a fanatic debunker-crusader, being paid by other crusader-ideologues whose interest is not in the historical facts, but in planting the appropriate beliefs into students, rewriting the historical facts as needed, to create a perceived healthy mindset in them, because it's not the facts that matter, but the programming of people's minds to meet the social need. And this social need is not compatible with the evidence of the 1st century pointing to the miracles of Jesus, being the only case for which there is evidence.
(this Wall of Text to be continued)
