Dishonesty among Scholars
about the Historical Jesus
Here is another pundit (albeit legitimate scholar, mostly reliable) who has the need to lie about miracle-worker legends in antiquity, claiming that there were many other reported miracle-workers similar and prior to Jesus, who therefore was not unique. What's dishonest is his failure to note that there is no legitimate historical evidence for any of the pre-Jesus miracle-worker examples he gives. All the sources for these are post-Jesus and are dated centuries later than when the alleged miracle-workers did their deeds. There is no indication of Jewish miracle-workers prior to Jesus, other than the ancient Moses and Elijah/Elisha legends.
And there was virtually no interest in any miracle-worker claims among Jews in the centuries leading up to Jesus in 30 AD. In that period Jews were oblivious to the ancient Elijah/Elisha miracle tradition. There is a huge volume of non-canonical Jewish literature, e.g. the Dead Sea Scrolls, which totally ignores miracle-workers. Elijah is ignored by 1st-century Jews -- e.g. Philo the Alexandrian mentions a story about him but doesn't name Elijah, and the reference totally ignores anything miraculous about Elijah. Philo and other Jews of the early 1st century had a disdain for miracle-worker stories.
It's only after Jesus, or after 50 AD, that any Jews notice Elijah, and these were the early Christian Jews comparing Jesus to Elijah. Elijah would have been totally forgotten by Jews except for the appearance of Jesus in history, as a miracle-worker having some resemblance to Elijah.
I'll select some quotes from this video -- click the link for the entire presentation.
Jewish Galilean Miracle Workers in the Life & Times of Jesus -
The Mages of the Rabbinical World
YouTube Channel Esoterica
Part of Jesus of Nazareth's claim to fame are the many miracles associated with him, from turning water to wine, resurrecting the dead, including himself, . . . healing the sick and exorcising demons. These, among other supernatural feats, are taken to be evidence of Jesus' unique status. . . . Though several other Galilean miracle-workers are known to us, both from Jewish history and lore. . . .
. . . because of the glare cast by Jesus and early Christianity, it’s easy to forget that such miracle-workers abounded in the ancient world generally and in the Jewish context more specifically.
This is a falsehood. By comparison to other historical periods, the period of about 800 BC up to the time of Jesus is a period almost totally devoid of miracle-workers and miracle stories. Rather, it's after about 100 AD when miracle stories abound and increase. This later period and into the Middle Ages vastly surpasses classical antiquity in the volume of miracle stories, as even the modern time does. By comparison the classical Greek/Roman age and pre-Christian Judaism show a conspicuous disdain for the miraculous and for miracle-workers, especially for anything other than very ancient legends from 1000+ years earlier (e.g. ancient legends like Zeus, Apollo, Hercules, Asclepius, etc.). I.e., any alleged miracle-workers of recent time were scoffed at, not followed by anyone, and disbelieved as charlatans.
Several other specifically Galilean miracle-workers are known to us from both Jewish history and lore. In fact, they seem to have constituted a unique class of men capable of such miraculous feats, known as 'anshe ma’aseh' or “men of deeds.” In fact, Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries very likely would have understood him in something like this category.
Note the phrase "would have understood him" = they didn't really understand him that way at all, because there was no such "category" of 'anshe ma'aseh' miracle-workers in that time, because this is much later Jewish terminology, from the Talmud period, not the 1st century AD. This "men of deeds" language did not exist until after the time of Jesus, which inspired a renewed interest in Elijah and miracle-workers.
In collaboration with @ReligionForBreakfast I explore a few of these Galilean miracle-workers or anshe ma’aseh who lived just before and after the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth. From Honi the circle-maker who could compel G-d to make it rain, . . .
The earliest source for Honi the Circle-Drawer is Josephus, writing 150 years later than the reported miracle-worker. The only reported miracle is that he once caused it to rain. After this one brief reference in Josephus, about 90 AD, there developed further legends which appear in the Talmud centuries later. This is not legitimate evidence for a miracle event of 150 BC. We need multiple sources near to the time of the alleged event. We know that miracle tales can easily evolve in the culture over many generations and centuries of story-telling. In many cases the character in question may have attracted attention in his time, and then stories began to develop as he was remembered, but it always required centuries for miracle tales to be added to the legend.
The only exception to this pattern is the case of a powerful military hero, like Alexander the Great, to whom a miracle rumor might emerge even during his lifetime -- very rare, only in the case of a widely popular hero worshiped by millions of admirers during his lifetime. Other examples of this are Julius Caesar and Emperors Caesar Augustus and Vespasian, for whom there are a few miracle claims. They acquired this mythic hero status only because they were worshiped as gods by millions of devoted fanatics, even before their death. Obviously nothing like this can explain the reported Jesus miracle acts.
. . . to Hanina ben Dosa’s extreme piety accidentally inducing miracles and who forestalled the power of the Queen of Demons to Shimon bar Yochai, so pious that even the key commandments of the Torah didn’t apply to him and whose very gaze could incinerate those before him and from whom the secrets of the Kabbalah are said to flow, even an errant resurrection of the dead following fisticuffs at a Purim party.
These are ridiculous examples, silly tales which required centuries to evolve, based only on much later legends in the Talmud and even later Jewish sources, after many centuries. This is not serious history. It is dishonest to give an example like this, pretending that it has anything to do with actual history, based on legitimate evidence, such as we have in the case of the Jesus miracle-worker of 30 AD.
Our scholar here tries to give the impression that these legendary Jewish miracle-workers are part of a tradition which preceded Jesus, as part of a culture or tradition of miracle legends, to which then Jesus was added later, as though these earlier figures established the trend of legends earlier, and then this "context" of legends explains how Jesus became mythologized into another miracle-worker similar to them -- a total distortion. He was EARLIER, while they were later legends inspired by the Galilean Jesus of 30 AD.
Why does a scholar who knows better promote this totally false picture of the miracle legends? Such legends did not exist prior to Jesus, unless you go way back centuries to Elijah/Elisha, 900 years earlier, where there is an ancient legend of this kind, and then 500 years back to Moses.
He tells us that these were "Galilean miracle-workers or anshe ma’aseh who lived just before and after the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth" as though the tradition predates Jesus. He implies there were "multiple accounts" of such miracle-workers prior to Jesus. But this is dishonest because the stories are all post-Jesus, as there is no source earlier than Josephus, and the vast majority of it is many centuries later. All this tradition of Galilean miracle-workers was likely inspired by the earlier Jesus miracle legend of 30 AD (or about 50-90 AD), which was earlier. We have no evidence of any other such miracle tradition prior to the latter 1st century AD.
bottom line: There was no "context" or culture of miracle-worker legends prior to Jesus in 30 AD. Rather, he pops into history suddenly, unexpectedly out of nowhere, performing miracle acts for which there is no precedent in the ancient culture.
