Where did the idea of eternal life in Heaven come from?

[Politesse]

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. This due to the unbroken prominence of Christianity throughout antiquity combined with the monastic scribal system. This is awesome. ANY other surviving religious texts are fragmentary and pathetic in comparison with the Bible. We have been able to reconstruct and map some Babylonian, Zoroastrian, and other Middle-Eastern religious ideas through the Bible. There's no other religious text that comes even close to it.

This is awesome, and something I hope Christians today appreciate.

But there's a risk to see the lack of other texts as Christianity being qualitatively different, or special in other regards. The numbers of surviving Bibles is an accident of history.

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

Another Catholic bishop in Spain in the 1700's took about half of the then existing ancient Bibles and sold them to a fireworks factory. He thought they were too weird. So these were all the surviving Christian Bibles that conformed the least to then current Catholic doctrine.

We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we are with the Bibles. Any political upheaval in Rome could easily have destroyed all those Bibles as well.

So the details of the reporting in the gospels doesn't mean we didn't get similar details in the reporting for other religions. It's not proof of anything. It's just evidence that Christian monks are good at copying and keeping alive stuff and the the papal library is damn lucky in dodging all the revolutionary bullets flying throughout history.

Now this is actually a vey good point. Perhaps the only equivalent treasures to the in the religious text world are the Gilgamesh epic, the Vedas, and the Tao Te Ching; it is not the norm for a religious corpus to survive for thousands of years, and none of them, the Bible included, have done so without severe edits, translations, and redactions over the centuries.

The Eddas are pretty extensive as well. Snorri Et Al did a great job there.

Yes, but not even slightly as old.

 

[Jarhyn]

The Eddas are pretty extensive as well. Snorri Et Al did a great job there.

Yes, but not even slightly as old.

To be fair, right up till snorri's time they were still oral, held through right poetic structures which constrained dictation and prevented mistakes.

In this way, it's less likely to be corrupted than most.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Are the Jesus healing miracles just copies of earlier pagan legends common in antiquity?

What are the earlier pagan legends of someone resurrecting or doing miracles?

No, there are no other dying and resurrecting stories from the Middle East. You can't name one and cite a source for it. I know you can rattle off a list of names of supposed resurrected gods/heroes, but you can't quote any source for those, giving the account of it and reporting the alleged event.

Yes, I can. Osiris. Well documented Greek myth.

Yes, the Egyptian who was killed and did NOT come back to life but was succeeded by his son. There are two problems you must address in claiming this is a "documented" story of someone who resurrected: 1) Where exactly is the "resurrection" in the story? and 2) for documenting it as an alleged fact of history (as the Jesus resurrection as an event is documented by written accounts near to the time it allegedly happened), when did the Osiris event reportedly happen in history and when is it reported in the source which documents it? i.e., when is the source dated?

You have to show in the source a claim that this person died and then came back to life to live on as before, seen by witnesses or in some way confirmed. And the source saying this has to be dated reasonably close to when the alleged resurrection event took place. Neither of these is the case for Osiris, who might have been a real person, but for whom we have no sources anywhere near the time that he lived, if he lived.

And the sources we do have about this do not say that Osiris resurrected -- i.e., there is no actual "resurrection" event in the legend. The word "resurrection" is used only by later Christianized scholars giving their interpretation of the Osiris story, not by the original source telling us the event. These modern scholars use the NT word "resurrection" and apply it to Osiris, as having some similarity to the Christ resurrection, in their mind. But the story they take from the source does not say Osiris came back to life, but only that he spawned a son who lived on, just as any offspring lives on, which is not what "resurrection" means. If "resurrection" did mean that, then all humans have resurrected who left behind any offspring, which is obviously not what "resurrection" means.

Orpheus, the son of a God, comes out of the underworld.

Yes, but the story does not say that he died. Resurrection means the person first dies, or is killed, and then is brought back to life. Just visiting another realm or dimension or alternate universe of some kind does not mean the visitor first died. The Orpheus story does not say he first died before visiting the underworld.

Also well documented.

No, "well documented" has to mean more than just hundreds of poets 1000 years later retelling the tale, even assuming sufficient agreement among them. To be "documented" means there are written accounts of it near the time of the reported event. We need something less than 100 or 200 years later which reports it. Preferably only 50 years, but maybe 100 or 200 -- no one has established the rule for exactly how long this time-span should be between the actual event (when it allegedly happened) and the date when it's reported to us in the source. But shorter is better, and many centuries gets to be too long.

For normal events we can trust an author 100 or 200 or even 300 years later, as long as it's not contradicted by other sources. However, for miracle claims, or anything "supernatural" etc., we need extra evidence, such as extra sources, more than one, plus also a reasonable proximity of the report, chronologically, to the event being reported.

We have no such source for Orpheus. The written record for the Christ event of 30 AD, to "document" it, dates from about 50-100 AD -- 5 sources reporting the Resurrection, and 4 of them reporting the healing miracles. That is "well documented" -- but poets 1000 years later retelling a popular legend with no source within 500 or 1000 years of the event is not "well documented."

There's so many sources I wonder how lazy you are?

Lazy enough to want those sources to be reasonably close to the actual event, like maybe within 100 or 200 years. What good are the "so many sources" if they're no closer than 500 or 1000 years later? Hundreds of sources 1000+ years later is not "well documented" -- we have millions of legends repeated over and over in multiple sources centuries later. The later storytellers are not "sources" for the actual event, as evidence for it, near the time when it happened, if it happened. We're entitled to be "lazy" and demand something closer to the actual event.

The Orpheus story can be found in Ovid's Metamorphosis, one of the most famous books in world history.

But Ovid relied only on an ancient legend, not on any reports near to his time from someone close to the event, if it happened.

The Osiris myth is literally carved in stone in many ancient Egyptian tombs.

Not tombs from 3100 BC near to the time of Osiris, if he was a real person, which is possible. The sources we have are sufficient to establish maybe that he lived, and maybe he spawned a son Horus. There's nothing to establish how he died or if anything unusual happened, such as his being raised back to life after being killed. It's reasonable to believe he might have been killed, in a power struggle.

But for miracle claims, such as him having sex after his body had been sliced and diced into a hundred pieces and then put back together -- we don't have any serious sources for an event like that. For bizarre miracle claims we need more than one source, and these must come from a time point near to when the alleged event happened, like less than 50 or 100 or 200 years. The earliest Osiris sources are 500-600 years later than the alleged event.

It's reasonable to assume from them that there was a power struggle in which Osiris was killed, but also that he had an heir Horus who continued his dynasty forward -- and that's your only "resurrection" of Osiris. We're entitled to put together a normal story from the details of the tale, but without the bizarre or miraculous elements, when there is no proper source for these near to the time it happened. It's also a reasonable speculation that his wife Isis made up a story of having sex with him even though he had been killed, so that then her son would inherit the reign. More likely is that she got impregnated by someone else later and then claimed the offspring was really from Osiris, and perhaps a miracle claim got into the story, and people believed her.

Or, if we must totally discount the possibility that any Osiris or Isis even existed and insist instead that the accounts of them are completely fiction stories made up by storytellers, without any connection to history at all, then it's improper to offer this as comparison to the historical Jesus, who probably did exist in history as most historians believe, and who thus cannot be compared to someone whose historical existence is totally discounted as a possibility.

The list of these stories is long.

Of course the list gets long after many centuries of legend-building. These are not strictly "sources" to document what actually happened in history, or at least not for anything dubious or a matter of dispute. But there were the real events historically, which we should search for and for which we can use all the sources to speculate what really happened, including anything unusual, even "supernatural" or dubious claims, but not based on a "long list" of stories added 1000 years later.

The Jesus myth in the Bible was never intended by its authors to be an accurate account.

It was at least partly, if not 100% intended as accurate.

There are inaccuracies, probably, as in any ancient written accounts (and even most modern accounts). In some cases maybe an author included something inaccurate and even knew it was inaccurate. Also there could be something subconscious going on, where the author only half believed it, realizing there was also a fiction element.

But it's wrong to say that ALL the "miraculous" elements were known by the author to be inaccurate or fiction. Rather, there may be some of that mixed in, but still the accounts are intended mostly to be taken as accurate, and mostly believed by the authors, just as Josephus and Herodotus and Cicero believed what they were saying and yet still mixed propaganda into their writings or speeches, including exaggerations or distortions in order to strengthen the case they were making. There could be some conscious and some subconscious elements they included which were inaccurate and not totally honest.

That does not disqualify the accounts as reliable sources for the reported events, and for all the sources we must apply the rule that for "miracle" claims or anything very unusual we must have stronger evidence, such as extra sources, and these reasonably close in time to the actual reported events.

The Jesus miracle acts, including the Resurrection, are a case of "miracle" claims where we do have the necessary extra sources close in time to when the events happened, unlike 99% of miracle claims in all the various legends and sources. And especially for the ancient history events we usually are lacking sufficient sources near to when the event happened to be able to make the "miracle" claims credible.

That's not the kind of book it is. It's not a "report".

But it contains "reports" along with other elements to tell us what happened while also promoting the authors' beliefs or worldview. A written account does not have to be neatly classified as something excluding the "report" element. There probably is no such thing as "the kind of book" that is "report" only. The most respected ancient historian, Thucydides, did more than just give a "report" of the facts, but also included propaganda and psychology and historical philosophy/theory. Likewise the Bible writings also included "reports" along with the teaching matter and are reliable sources for the "report" or factual part, despite also containing inaccuracies, as virtually all the ancient writings did. ALL the ancient writings have to be read skeptically, even Thucydides, and not taken automatically as accurate in all the "reporting" they do.


The Gospels include some NEGATIVE "reports" about Jesus.

And the Gospel accounts do contain some "report" element which has nothing to do with teaching religion and even gives a negative side which is unfavorable to the image of Jesus as divine and perfect.

One example of this is the story of the rejection at Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6) where we're told that Jesus was "not able to perform any mighty deed there," which would not be included in the Gospel accounts if their sole purpose was to promote Jesus as a divine miracle-worker and omit any inconvenient facts. Whatever this rejection at Nazareth event was, it shows that these writers were willing to include reports reflecting something negative about Jesus.

Another negative element is related in Mark 3:21

When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind."

This is negative enough to not be something the Gospel writer would provide if it is inspirational only, and limited to positive "myth" telling. Rather, it is something in Mark's source, which has more of a negative tone than positive, toward Jesus, and Mark provides it not in order to promote his portrayal of Jesus, but simply as a "report" from his source which he feels obligated to include.

Another negative element is the story of the demoniac being cured and the demons being sent into a herd of swine (Mark 5:1-20). This story cannot be easily understood as "inspirational" with all the negative imagery in it, of the local ranchers losing their herd and requesting that Jesus get the hell out of their district. If the author is creating only positive "myths" about Jesus, why doesn't he add something for Jesus to do to compensate those ranchers, like maybe performing some miracle for them? The demoniac he healed was not Jewish or somehow special that he alone was worthy to be helped. Mark could easily have added a miracle to benefit the local population and dazzle them with the power of Jesus, as happens in many of the reported miracle episodes. But instead this story leaves us with a bitter outcome where a very large group of locals, who did nothing wrong, end up hating Jesus, for good reason, because he caused much costly damage to their interests.

Plus also the demoniac stories generally have a bizarre unpleasantness about them which would not be included in stories created only to inspire the readers and strengthen their faith with heartwarming myths. The Gospel of John excludes the exorcism stories entirely as something distasteful and of little use in promoting the author's lofty visions of Christ the Cosmic Logos and Word of God Incarnate, whose dignity ought not be tarnished with scenes of him duking it out with demons and ousting them into a herd of swine.

So there is an element of neutral "report" stories in the Gospels which aims only at giving us the cold facts, even something negative, without needing to promote an inspirational or religious or positive teaching. Most effort to derive a positive inspirational message from it is just subjective interpretation. The writings are a combination of the "myth" or religious and inspirational element along with this "report" only element which includes some non-inspiring negativity and which is also an essential component of the writings.

It's a myth intended to be inspirational.

Even if it does contain myth, it's not "myth" exclusively, as if you can neatly categorize every document into "report" only or "myth" only. That's not what the ancient written accounts are. All the historical writings, even Thucydides, are intended partly as "inspirational" rather than exclusively as "report" only. You can say some are more factual than others, but not that they are entirely factual and "report" only, with no part intended as inspirational. Or that all the written accounts must be exclusively "myth" or "report" only without a combination of the two. No, these accounts contain factual "reporting" plus also some "myth" and also some "inspirational" content, and these get intermixed so much that it's difficult to separate even individual parts of the account exclusively into "report" and "myth" and "inspiration" etc.

The authors knew the readers would understand the content both as "report" of fact but also as "myth" and "inspiration" and religious teaching with moral or spiritual interpretation. And nothing prevents it from being these together, both -- not either/or. How the readers would take the stories is the best guide to what the authors probably intended. Even today we learn much from a presentation which contains both fact being "reported" to us but also some "myth" or moralistic inspirational content, or some content intended mainly for entertainment, for impact, to keep our attention. It's seldom exclusively factual "report" only, but is usually intermixed with some drama added for impact, and a fictional element often gets mixed in.

Bible scholar Bart Ehrman (non-Christian) disagrees that the NT Jesus stories were intended only as non-accurate accounts:

Interview -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNIyyoRPbLM&t=1029s

interviewer: Some scholars have claimed, critical scholars, that the authors of the Gospels self-consciously told parables about Jesus. They were writing stories that didn't really actually happen, and knew that, but we don't get it because we're too literal-minded. Were the authors who told stories about Jesus that are likely not probably accurate -- Jesus bodily ascending into the sky, for instance -- did they know it was a fiction and that the readers would get it, that it was a metaphor, or 2) know it was a fiction but were passing it off as something that happened, or 3) did they really think it happened?

Ehrman: Right, so you know, at the end of the day, the question is impossible to answer. We don't know what the authors were actually thinking at the time. Did they think that they were telling a parable, did they think they were telling the literal truth, did they think the readers would get it? So we don't know that. What we do know is how readers always read these stories. And in almost every instance that we have any record of, readers read the stories as being literal descriptions of what happened. Now, did the authors mean for them to take it that way, and that they were mistaken? I don't know, but the fact that every early reader seems to have read these things as literally suggests to me that it was the literal mindset that was widespread in antiquity, and so probably the authors meant these to be taken literally as well.

I.e., the mindset of the readers mostly settles the question, taking the stories at face value, or generally intended to be taken as literally accurate, because we know this was how the readers understood them. But still this doesn't totally exclude any possibility whatever of a fictional element also being there; i.e., not every detail has to be exactly accurate, and both readers and writers understand this. E.g., some element of exaggeration or distortion is normal, such as to add emphasis to an important point. There can be less than 100% accuracy while still the main points are intended as substantially correct, or literally as accurate reporting of the events.

A tweaked reality of a super human person.

There could be some tweaking, but only because the "super human" element is already there, believed to be literally true -- believed because of good evidence -- and then to this there could be some tweaking added, for emphasis. The believer telling it to others, orally or in writing, might do such tweaking, which is less than 100% honest but probably normal. Probably most of the truth we learn has some elements of error mixed in with it, due to some flaw in understanding and communicating and our less than 100% objectivity. But still it's "the truth" more or less, we assume.

I'm pretty sure that the authors adding reports of miracles for dramatic effect wouldn't have seen it as lying.

Not as long as they truly believed the "miracle" element really was there, and what they're adding is only a little extra, out of their less-than-perfect scientifically-objective "just the facts ma'am" frame of mind. But if they fabricated entirely the miracle report, adding it to something which had no such element in it already, then they would have seen that as lying. Probably none of our ancient authors did that in the written accounts which have come down to us -- or it's the rare exception, and we need extra evidence or indication of it if we're to suspect blatant dishonesty. We can be skeptical of everything that looks suspicious, but we can't automatically rule out something unusual by assuming that the author was blatantly lying. Especially if there are multiple authors telling the same unusual reports.

It's not that kind of book.

What "kind of book" is it? It's not much different from most of the historical and other serious writings, all of which contain less than 100% honest content or reporting. Even if the NT writers are 5 or 10% less honest than Herodotus e.g., they are still bound to a certain standard for not "lying" which prevents them from injecting a foreign "miracle" element into subject matter which otherwise had no "miracle" element in it at all. Rather, the truth is that if they did add any such element, this is allowed ONLY because a major "miracle" element was already there, and the new element added was only minor "tweaking" added to it.

Again, there is virtually NO "kind of book" which is 100% accurate reporting, or intended to be factual reporting only in which there could be no "lying" of any kind whatever. The "kind of book" which the Gospels are is not different from other kinds in the standard for what may pass as normal tweaking (less than 100% factual and honest) vs. what would be understood as lying (blatant fabrication).

The "fiction" category is understood (in the ancient literature as well as modern). This "kind of book" is granted wide latitude -- e.g. "poetic license" -- understood by readers and writers, as to the dishonesty. But most literature, including NT writings, are not in that category. They are a "kind of book" which is understood to contain some "fiction" venturing outside the "just the facts ma'am" category, while at the same time also remaining within the "just the facts ma'am" category for much of the content. I.e., they're in both categories, or a mixture of the two, not always easy to separate. This includes most or all the historical writings, and almost anything not in the strict "fiction" category. Obviously some science books would come close to the absolutely-no-fiction-allowed category. Of course it's not possible to neatly classify every piece of literature neatly into its proper category.

So the NT/Gospel accounts are "the kind of book" which is allowed a limited "fiction" or "myth" element, but also containing the "report" factual element as essential, without the same license for "dishonesty" as the fiction "kind of book" is allowed, and following similar standards for not lying as the philosophy and history "kind of book" -- or differing only slightly from these. How readers generally understood them, as mostly literal, is a good guide to how the authors intended them to be understood.


simple summary: You cannot simply pigeon-hole the NT writings (and most other writings) into their designated category, saying they are "this kind of book" or "that kind" and thus judge the content as not factually or literally intended, or as "fiction" and thus to be dismissed as non-historical or inaccurate only because of this category or "this kind of book" designation you have pigeon-holed them into. No, you must analyze each part of the writing, trying to separate fact from fiction in each instance. And you must be willing to allow that we "just don't know" (or can only make a guess) in many cases what the truth is, or what happened; and yet still the source or "book" is helpful in our attempt to guess what happened, because the source appears near to the time in question and thus is one witness to the truth of what happened.

simpler summary: Analyzing/understanding the source (not categorizing it in order to dismiss it) + good guesswork = historical truth-seeking.




(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[DrZoidberg]

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. This due to the unbroken prominence of Christianity throughout antiquity combined with the monastic scribal system. This is awesome. ANY other surviving religious texts are fragmentary and pathetic in comparison with the Bible. We have been able to reconstruct and map some Babylonian, Zoroastrian, and other Middle-Eastern religious ideas through the Bible. There's no other religious text that comes even close to it.

This is awesome, and something I hope Christians today appreciate.

But there's a risk to see the lack of other texts as Christianity being qualitatively different, or special in other regards. The numbers of surviving Bibles is an accident of history.

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

Another Catholic bishop in Spain in the 1700's took about half of the then existing ancient Bibles and sold them to a fireworks factory. He thought they were too weird. So these were all the surviving Christian Bibles that conformed the least to then current Catholic doctrine.

We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we are with the Bibles. Any political upheaval in Rome could easily have destroyed all those Bibles as well.

So the details of the reporting in the gospels doesn't mean we didn't get similar details in the reporting for other religions. It's not proof of anything. It's just evidence that Christian monks are good at copying and keeping alive stuff and the the papal library is damn lucky in dodging all the revolutionary bullets flying throughout history.

Now this is actually a vey good point. Perhaps the only equivalent treasures to the in the religious text world are the Gilgamesh epic, the Vedas, and the Tao Te Ching; it is not the norm for a religious corpus to survive for thousands of years, and none of them, the Bible included, have done so without severe edits, translations, and redactions over the centuries.

The Gilgamesh epic is a great analogue. Because the only reason we have so many of that epic surviving, is because they wrote in clay = survives well, and it was the one text that Babylonian scribes used in scribal schools to teach writing. So we have a huge number of these that survived. The fact that they were low on every other writing material besides clay means so much survives.

Papyrus was a popular writing medium in the entire Roman empire. Yet texts on it only survives in one country, Egypt. Because of the climate. Accidents in history.

Stone is an annoying material to work in. Anything written in stone, we have to assume has thousands of times more texts written in other, now destroyed materials. Countries with high moisture have very little surviving ancient texts. Which isn't evidence for that they didn't exist.

If it hadn't been for Buddhism spreading to the Himalayas we'd have much less of the Buddhist and vedic texts surviving. Early Hindus and Buddhists, most likely, wrote as much as Christians. Yet much less has survived. The Early Taoists wrote on paper and silk! Extremely sensitive materials. Imagine how much of what they wrote which is lost now.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What are the earlier pagan legends of someone resurrecting or doing miracles?


Yes, the Egyptian who was killed and did NOT come back to life but was succeeded by his son. There are two problems you must address in claiming this is a "documented" story of someone who resurrected: 1) Where exactly is the "resurrection" in the story? and 2) for documenting it as an alleged fact of history (as the Jesus resurrection as an event is documented by written accounts near to the time it allegedly happened), when did the Osiris event reportedly happen in history and when is it reported in the source which documents it? i.e., when is the source dated?

You have to show in the source a claim that this person died and then came back to life to live on as before, seen by witnesses or in some way confirmed. And the source saying this has to be dated reasonably close to when the alleged resurrection event took place. Neither of these is the case for Osiris, who might have been a real person, but for whom we have no sources anywhere near the time that he lived, if he lived.

What are you talking about? The Biblical story of Jesus didn't actually happen. It's not a documentary report. It's a made up myth. The story of Jesus is a fantasy exactly like the story of Osiris. And was kept and alive and spread through similar means. They're extremely similar.

What sets them apart is what virtues they're trying to signal, since they're products of different ages. But fundamentally, and in every other way, it's the same kind of story.

The Osiris story also contains the element of Cain and Abel. Still... the Jesus story has Judas. A betrayer in the midst, included to add some drama to the story. It's all the same.

The rest of your post is just special pleading.

And the sources we do have about this do not say that Osiris resurrected -- i.e., there is no actual "resurrection" event in the legend. The word "resurrection" is used only by later Christianized scholars giving their interpretation of the Osiris story, not by the original source telling us the event. These modern scholars use the NT word "resurrection" and apply it to Osiris, as having some similarity to the Christ resurrection, in their mind. But the story they take from the source does not say Osiris came back to life, but only that he spawned a son who lived on, just as any offspring lives on, which is not what "resurrection" means. If "resurrection" did mean that, then all humans have resurrected who left behind any offspring, which is obviously not what "resurrection" means.

Osiris is resurected every morning. Just like the mummys in Egyptian tombs. Each morning they travel to the Field of Reeds and then Each night they come back to the tomb.

Osiris resurecting is also the rich and fertile black silt which is left behind after the Nile is flooded once a year. This is why Osiris is depicted has having black skin. And then he dies again.

The original source of the Jesus story, as well as the Osiris story, is somebody making it up. The witnesses are also made up. It's all made up. There most likely was a real Jesus and he most likely had disciples. But the chances that anything in the Biblical story even remotely resembles anything in the Bible is slim. It's not like this hasn't been studied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Consensual_knowledge_about_Jesus

If it wasn't the fact that so many people today are Christian we'd treat the Jesus story on par with the Osiris story.

Orpheus, the son of a God, comes out of the underworld.

Yes, but the story does not say that he died. Resurrection means the person first dies, or is killed, and then is brought back to life. Just visiting another realm or dimension or alternate universe of some kind does not mean the visitor first died. The Orpheus story does not say he first died before visiting the underworld.

Yes, it does. It's a metaphor. You know... like the Biblical story of Jesus is.

Also well documented.

No, "well documented" has to mean more than just hundreds of poets 1000 years later retelling the tale, even assuming sufficient agreement among them. To be "documented" means there are written accounts of it near the time of the reported event. We need something less than 100 or 200 years later which reports it. Preferably only 50 years, but maybe 100 or 200 -- no one has established the rule for exactly how long this time-span should be between the actual event (when it allegedly happened) and the date when it's reported to us in the source. But shorter is better, and many centuries gets to be too long.

For normal events we can trust an author 100 or 200 or even 300 years later, as long as it's not contradicted by other sources. However, for miracle claims, or anything "supernatural" etc., we need extra evidence, such as extra sources, more than one, plus also a reasonable proximity of the report, chronologically, to the event being reported.

We have no such source for Orpheus. The written record for the Christ event of 30 AD, to "document" it, dates from about 50-100 AD -- 5 sources reporting the Resurrection, and 4 of them reporting the healing miracles. That is "well documented" -- but poets 1000 years later retelling a popular legend with no source within 500 or 1000 years of the event is not "well documented."

They're all religious myths. The point is to engage the audience with a dramatic narrative and give moral teachings. They're not supposed to give an accurate report on what actually happened.

You can trust all of these authors to the same degree. You can trust that they made up all the details. The only truth is the core message of the story. In Jesus case, he was a humble and wise man who sacrificed himself for humanity and took upon himself all their sins because he's such a great guy, and we should be grateful. Not true necessarily in that it happened. But true in the sense that it's in the tradition of the stories we tell about them.

There's so many sources I wonder how lazy you are?

Lazy enough to want those sources to be reasonably close to the actual event, like maybe within 100 or 200 years. What good are the "so many sources" if they're no closer than 500 or 1000 years later? Hundreds of sources 1000+ years later is not "well documented" -- we have millions of legends repeated over and over in multiple sources centuries later. The later storytellers are not "sources" for the actual event, as evidence for it, near the time when it happened, if it happened. We're entitled to be "lazy" and demand something closer to the actual event.

You're pretending the Bible is something it isn't. I know there's a tradition within fundamentalist Christianity to do this. But it was always silly. We knew it was silly when Martin Luther started it. It's a like a guy buying a cheap Versace t-shirt on a beach in Pataya and convinced it's authentic Versace. You can have as much faith as you like in that it's a genuine Versace, and to other people in the same "authentic" Versace t-shirt club you can convince each other they're all authentic. But to ANYONE else you'll always come across as a bunch of deluded clowns.

The Orpheus story can be found in Ovid's Metamorphosis, one of the most famous books in world history.

But Ovid relied only on an ancient legend, not on any reports near to his time from someone close to the event, if it happened.

The Jesus myth is a modern legend. Both are legends.

Trump often talked about how many people told him of how great he was. He said it to increase credibility. But was it? The Bible is the same deal. It's a narrative story telling tool. It's a writerly object. It's not lying. It's just effective story telling. In Trump's case it was absolutely lying. But you know what mean.

The Osiris myth is literally carved in stone in many ancient Egyptian tombs.

Not tombs from 3100 BC near to the time of Osiris, if he was a real person, which is possible. The sources we have are sufficient to establish maybe that he lived, and maybe he spawned a son Horus. There's nothing to establish how he died or if anything unusual happened, such as his being raised back to life after being killed. It's reasonable to believe he might have been killed, in a power struggle.

I'd say chances of that Osiris is based on a real person is slim. He's literally the black earth left behind after the Nile recedes. I have a hard time understanding how a real person can, over time, get warped into something like that.

But for miracle claims, such as him having sex after his body had been sliced and diced into a hundred pieces and then put back together -- we don't have any serious sources for an event like that. For bizarre miracle claims we need more than one source, and these must come from a time point near to when the alleged event happened, like less than 50 or 100 or 200 years.

We have zero credible sources for Jesus' resurrection. We only have the Bible. But nice that you agree that the evidence for Jesus' miracles need more evidence than what we've got. All we have is the word in one, fantastical, book. Which I agree is pretty weak.

The earliest Osiris sources are 500-600 years later than the alleged event.

What? What alleged event are you talking about? In Egyptian mythology Osiris isn't placed in a specific time period. He's just placed in the distant past. A bit like the Garden of Paradise in the Old Testament is placed far in the North East. It's somewhere far far away. Like the Galaxy where Star Wars is set. These are all hallmarks of legend.

The Jesus myth in the Bible was never intended by its authors to be an accurate account.

It was at least partly, if not 100% intended as accurate.

There are inaccuracies, probably, as in any ancient written accounts (and even most modern accounts). In some cases maybe an author included something inaccurate and even knew it was inaccurate. Also there could be something subconscious going on, where the author only half believed it, realizing there was also a fiction element.

You're just asserting that based on nothing. There's a funny text written by Cicero where he complains about how earlier historiographers played fast and loose with facts and then proceed to list his rules for writing good history. Which to modern historians comes across as a total joke because today we'd call his rules fast and loose with facts as well.

Since there was so many copying errors when ancient texts were written, they treated histories differently, and they accepted that they would have added made up things. It was the tradition of retelling stories of the time. Everybody assumed they were being lied to, and had to, in their own heads, adjust for this and read it critically. A way of reading, they would have taken for granted, but which we in the modern post-science world don't.

But it's wrong to say that ALL the "miraculous" elements were known by the author to be inaccurate or fiction. Rather, there may be some of that mixed in, but still the accounts are intended mostly to be taken as accurate, and mostly believed by the authors, just as Josephus and Herodotus and Cicero believed what they were saying and yet still mixed propaganda into their writings or speeches, including exaggerations or distortions in order to strengthen the case they were making. There could be some conscious and some subconscious elements they included which were inaccurate and not totally honest.

That does not disqualify the accounts as reliable sources for the reported events, and for all the sources we must apply the rule that for "miracle" claims or anything very unusual we must have stronger evidence, such as extra sources, and these reasonably close in time to the actual reported events.

The Jesus miracle acts, including the Resurrection, are a case of "miracle" claims where we do have the necessary extra sources close in time to when the events happened, unlike 99% of miracle claims in all the various legends and sources. And especially for the ancient history events we usually are lacking sufficient sources near to when the event happened to be able to make the "miracle" claims credible.

What about miracles don't you understand? You are aware that no miracle has ever happened in all of history? No?

In the Musical Jesus Christ Superstar there's a line where Judas says something like, "why did you come in an age before mass communication?" Implying that if he'd come today then he could have proven he was the son of God and we wouldn't have to deal with the debate about him. He wouldn't have had to be crucified.

That's not the kind of book it is. It's not a "report".

But it contains "reports" along with other elements to tell us what happened while also promoting the authors' beliefs or worldview. A written account does not have to be neatly classified as something excluding the "report" element. There probably is no such thing as "the kind of book" that is "report" only. The most respected ancient historian, Thucydides, did more than just give a "report" of the facts, but also included propaganda and psychology and historical philosophy/theory. Likewise the Bible writings also included "reports" along with the teaching matter and are reliable sources for the "report" or factual part, despite also containing inaccuracies, as virtually all the ancient writings did. ALL the ancient writings have to be read skeptically, even Thucydides, and not taken automatically as accurate in all the "reporting" they do.

No, it doesn't. It's a classic ancient story about a virtuous man doing virtuous things that we're supposed to admire. That's ALL the Bible is. It's a story.

The Gospels include some NEGATIVE "reports" about Jesus.

And the Gospel accounts do contain some "report" element which has nothing to do with teaching religion and even gives a negative side which is unfavorable to the image of Jesus as divine and perfect.

One example of this is the story of the rejection at Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6) where we're told that Jesus was "not able to perform any mighty deed there," which would not be included in the Gospel accounts if their sole purpose was to promote Jesus as a divine miracle-worker and omit any inconvenient facts. Whatever this rejection at Nazareth event was, it shows that these writers were willing to include reports reflecting something negative about Jesus.

Another negative element is related in Mark 3:21

When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind."

This is negative enough to not be something the Gospel writer would provide if it is inspirational only, and limited to positive "myth" telling. Rather, it is something in Mark's source, which has more of a negative tone than positive, toward Jesus, and Mark provides it not in order to promote his portrayal of Jesus, but simply as a "report" from his source which he feels obligated to include.

Another negative element is the story of the demoniac being cured and the demons being sent into a herd of swine (Mark 5:1-20). This story cannot be easily understood as "inspirational" with all the negative imagery in it, of the local ranchers losing their herd and requesting that Jesus get the hell out of their district. If the author is creating only positive "myths" about Jesus, why doesn't he add something for Jesus to do to compensate those ranchers, like maybe performing some miracle for them? The demoniac he healed was not Jewish or somehow special that he alone was worthy to be helped. Mark could easily have added a miracle to benefit the local population and dazzle them with the power of Jesus, as happens in many of the reported miracle episodes. But instead this story leaves us with a bitter outcome where a very large group of locals, who did nothing wrong, end up hating Jesus, for good reason, because he caused much costly damage to their interests.

Plus also the demoniac stories generally have a bizarre unpleasantness about them which would not be included in stories created only to inspire the readers and strengthen their faith with heartwarming myths. The Gospel of John excludes the exorcism stories entirely as something distasteful and of little use in promoting the author's lofty visions of Christ the Cosmic Logos and Word of God Incarnate, whose dignity ought not be tarnished with scenes of him duking it out with demons and ousting them into a herd of swine.

So there is an element of neutral "report" stories in the Gospels which aims only at giving us the cold facts, even something negative, without needing to promote an inspirational or religious or positive teaching. Most effort to derive a positive inspirational message from it is just subjective interpretation. The writings are a combination of the "myth" or religious and inspirational element along with this "report" only element which includes some non-inspiring negativity and which is also an essential component of the writings.

Every author in history have tried to make their fictional characters believable and relatable. It makes for a more engaging story.


I've read every book by Bart Ehrman. He believes Jesus was a real person and really was the leader of the movement that became Christianity. But he also believes that real Jesus was nothing like Jesus in the Bible.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Eddas are pretty extensive as well. Snorri Et Al did a great job there.

Yes, but not even slightly as old.

Fun fact about the Eddas is that they were written by a Christian. Snorri Sturlasson was Christian. He was writing down stories still in circulation from Iceland's pagan past. But he was writing them down after that culture was gone, or at the very least dying. Just for posterity and historical reasons.

I am convinced his perspective has influenced the contents. He had every incentive to add stuff, or chose a version of a story, to make Norse pagans more exotic.

 

[funinspace]

What are you talking about? The Biblical story of Jesus didn't actually happen. It's not a documentary report. It's a made up myth. The story of Jesus is a fantasy exactly like the story of Osiris. And was kept and alive and spread through similar means. They're extremely similar.

What sets them apart is what virtues they're trying to signal, since they're products of different ages. But fundamentally, and in every other way, it's the same kind of story.

FYI...you are dealing with Lumpy and his Mythological Hero Official Requirements Checklist (MHORC), with its set of random puzzle piece requirements. Here is a tolerable summary from a few years ago about the basics of Lumpy Theology apologetics, as it doesn't really fit within normative conservative Christian theology. He also makes a lot of hay about 4-5 sources for his Miracle Max, but then conveniently ignores the Two Source Hypothesis. He also ignores his own criteria when he states 4-5 sources for his Miracle Max, as Paul never met Jesus, and the GoJ doesn't really repeat the required miracle healings of the synoptics gospels (but for 1 or 2 of them).

Lumpy is really a rather eccentric version of a Christian...He has in the past pretty much thrown out much/most of the OT, along with other parts of the NT. Back in 2018, he even suggested that his Miracle Max healer could have been the son of Quetzalcoatl, if the timing was right or sum such noise... A minor reminder of Lumpy and his mysterious/hidden MHORC (his MHORC is much like the paisley sofa in the Hitchhikers Guide, where one can't see it if one tries to look straight at it):

Yeah, Lumpy also requires his idea of a viable god to be some sort of miracle max healer. And it has to be possible that the people being healed and the witnesses were not followers of said cult at the time, notwithstanding that Joseph Smith still fits this narrative no matter how much Lumpy disassembled. Of course, from the NT no one can really know about the people who purportedly witnessed these events as any outside details are lost in the dust bin of time; but Lumpy insists it is so. But Lumpy never explained why a god needs to be a miracle max. It's all in his Mythical Hero Official Requirements Checklist (MHORC)...


Other opinions on sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis

Says the religion famous for burning books.

Though Lumpy really isn't so much a Christian, as he is sort of a deist who is enthralled by Jesus as the mono miracle max god. Lumpy even said that he could have been the son of Quetzalcoatl...

 

[Tigers!]

On a somewhat related note Yale Divinity school is running a virtual lecture in 6th & 13th Dec 2021 on "The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Light They Shed on Judaism and Christianity"
https://divinity.yale.edu/calendar/dead-sea-scrolls-light-they-shed-judaism-and-christianity-dr-john-collins-0

 

[Jarhyn]

The Eddas are pretty extensive as well. Snorri Et Al did a great job there.

Yes, but not even slightly as old.

Fun fact about the Eddas is that they were written by a Christian. Snorri Sturlasson was Christian. He was writing down stories still in circulation from Iceland's pagan past. But he was writing them down after that culture was gone, or at the very least dying. Just for posterity and historical reasons.

I am convinced his perspective has influenced the contents. He had every incentive to add stuff, or chose a version of a story, to make Norse pagans more exotic.

And again, I'm going to point out that The Poetic Edda was tamper-resistant due to the rules of viking poetry.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Fun fact about the Eddas is that they were written by a Christian. Snorri Sturlasson was Christian. He was writing down stories still in circulation from Iceland's pagan past. But he was writing them down after that culture was gone, or at the very least dying. Just for posterity and historical reasons.

I am convinced his perspective has influenced the contents. He had every incentive to add stuff, or chose a version of a story, to make Norse pagans more exotic.

And again, I'm going to point out that The Poetic Edda was tamper-resistant due to the rules of viking poetry.

What rules of Viking poetry? As far as I know Viking poetry had a couple of highlights set in stone, (well... clay. Quite moist clay) but everything between this was made up on the fly by each bard.

I'm very interested to learn something new about my ancestors.

Worth noting is that the myths told by the Vikings were highly regional and varied over time. The worship of Odin/Wotan took place from about the middle of Germany, northern France and far far into Russia. The Poetic Edda is a snapshot from a particular moment in time in one, out of the way, region of the Norse Pagan world. It's notable mostly for that it exists at all.

But we have jewelry and items from all over the Germanic world with all manner of bizarre symbols and stories that didn't survive. So we're just guessing it's the same stories they reference.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Are the Jesus healing miracles just copies of earlier pagan legends common in antiquity?

(continued from previous Wall of Text)


If there are sources telling of the earlier pagan miracle healings, why can't anyone quote from them?

But you cannot cite any earlier pagan or Jewish sources narrating any resurrection event or miracle healings which resemble the miracle acts of Jesus. And it's these which are related to the "good news" eternal life claim which appears in the 1st century AD and cannot be explained unless something unusual happened at this time to cause this new belief in the possibility of eternal life.

OMG. If you'd go to ANY doctor in the ancient Middle-East you would expect a miracle healing.

But did actual "miracle" healings reportedly happen? Do we have written accounts reporting such miracle healings? This is not about normal recovery from a cold, etc. It's about instant healings, like healing blindness or leprosy, etc., in seconds, such as we see in the Gospel accounts.

Where are the written accounts reporting such miracle healings (not just that someone "would expect a miracle healing," but that it happened, and the event is reported)?

Also, it's not true that ancient doctors used magic only, because there were many remedies based on scientific beliefs, regardless whether the science was flawed. They believed that natural herbs and other substances contained healing qualities. In these cases it was not "miracle" healing which took place or which they thought took place. Just because they also had religious beliefs does not put these treatments in the "miracle" category, anymore than modern medical treatments are in the "miracle" category simply because someone prays for the patient to recover.

That's why you'd go.

You'd go to get healed. A patient is not demanding ONLY "miracle" healing. Their belief is mixed, trusting the healer, allowing that it's magic, hoping for ANYTHING THAT WORKS, no matter what, including that the healer is smart and knows some tricks that work for whatever reason.

They didn't believe that healing powers was a science.

They didn't believe it was NOT science. And in some cases there was some science, even though it was mostly religious. What the worshipers/patients believed is that the healer had some power or talent to heal them, regardless what the power was. And they were partly right, because there were some who had more talent than others and knew ways to get a good outcome.

They believe it was ALL magic.

No, they just believed the healer had some power to heal, and this is what they wanted, regardless what kind of power it was. They did not rule out that the healer might have had normal knowledge, or rather, special knowledge that was learned, because the healer was a practitioner who became experienced in the art, and having superior talent. In some cases this is "science" rather than "magic" or "miracle" -- patients who recovered did not get upset to learn that actually some "science" also played a part, which sometimes it did.

Why this demand to find sources for something this well attested and well known?

If it's well known, then provide the written accounts of cases where a "miracle" healing actually took place. It's not enough to say that they "would expect" a miracle. Where are the cases of instant healing of leprosy or blindness, etc.? If it is well attested, then you should have some examples in the literature reporting such cases.

Do you mean the case of King Pyrrhus and his magic toe? That's based on one source only, several centuries later. But there are no "well attested" cases of such miracle healings, in sources near the time of the alleged event. Or, if there really are any such cases, you will come up with them. You should mention the Asclepius stories/inscriptions, which might be the best example, but those are largely in the medical science and psychology category, rather than in the "miracle" category. Just because the ancient gods are worshiped and rituals followed doesn't change the fact that there was some science also, in the practice.

You refute yourself if you refuse to cite the particular examples and provide the narrative accounts of the alleged miracle events. Anyone can prove their case by just saying it's "well attested and well known" but not provide the individual examples and quote the original source for them.

Are you truly this ignorant, or do you think that I don't have access to Google?

[unnecessary graphic deleted]

In the meantime, enjoy this picture of a Roman flying penis. Yes, it's a real thing intended to ward off disease... magically.

Then why don't you provide the source or written account reporting a case when this was used to cure a disease, where witnesses saw it used to bring the victim back to health? There are many objects "intended" to do this or that. But where is the evidence, or written accounts reporting that the intended result actually happened?

Why are you so good at providing "documentation" of magic objects, which proves nothing? Where is your source for a "miracle" healing event? Why not take as much trouble to provide an ancient source, written account, reporting an instant healing act by a "doctor" who did "miracle" healings, if Google has many of them and they are "well documented" and "well attested" and "well known"?

Faith healing was all over the ancient world.

No, not healing -- only praying and religious rituals at shrines and temples, where worshipers were hoping for a "miracle" to happen. And in many cases a victim recovered from their ailment, as they generally do anyway, and the god would usually be credited with healing the victim.

But what was not all over the ancient world were actual instant healings, of victims suffering from long-lasting incurable illnesses, and suddenly cured such as we see described in the Gospel accounts. Where are there other ancient accounts of such miracle healings? Why do we see this in one place only and nowhere else?

. . . all over the ancient world. As it is today, in the modern world.

Yes, there are religious rituals and praying, and occasionally a victim recovers from something and believes the praying caused it. Everyone knows this, so virtually none of these are reported in published accounts of it, because everyone knows that recoveries happen anyway, and when the patient does not recover, despite the praying, it's just forgotten. So these religious experiences are not written down or published or recorded as anything noteworthy to report as "good news" people don't already know about as being the norm.

But in the 1st century something different happened -- reported instant healings which were recorded, because it did not fit the usual pattern. If there were other similar cases, where is there some written record of it?

That's as long as I got reading your message. My eyes are straining from all the eye rolling.

All the evidence suggests that all the magical things attributed to Jesus are attributed to him because those are traditional for divine beings and heroes in the pagan tradition.

If they are "traditional" for those divine beings and heroes, where are the accounts reporting some cases, attributing those same "magical things" to them which are attributed to Jesus?

There is NOTHING special or unique about the Jesus miracles.

Then there are also many written accounts of all those other beings and heroes who did similar miracles? Why are you keeping these a secret? Why can't you give one source narrating a miracle healing?

Oh, I know ----- The Catholic Church sent its book-burning squads all around the ancient world confiscating everything written about the non-Jesus miracles going on everywhere. They sent their black helicopters around everywhere to pluck out any other miracle-workers or their disciples and anyone promoting those divine beings and heroes competing with Jesus.

And the Council of Nicaea sent back their own "Terminator" to the 1st century and earlier to wipe out a "Sarah Connor" here and there in order to prevent those miracle-workers from even being born, erasing history using retroactive abortion so they could actually create the Jesus-only-miracle-worker history to be taught to later generations, for thousands of years into the future. They probably even sent a Terminator back 600 years to snuff out those claiming their spleen was healed by King Pyrrhus and his magic toe, and to confiscate any written accounts about these miracles, destroying all (or almost all) the evidence.

You can always prove your case is the truth by arguing that the evidence to prove it was suppressed by the other side somehow, or suppressed even by nature and accidents of history and geography, all conspiring to promote the other side's evidence and suppress only yours.

They're so standard and traditional, that to me, it's pretty obvious that they're added in order to . . .

But, whatever the purpose, why are such miracles added by only these Christ cult(s) and no others? If the Christ cult(s) could see the purpose for adding them, why couldn't any of the others see it also and gain the same benefit of having such miracle legends of their own to promote their crusade?

. . . pretty obvious that they're added in order to jack into earlier preconceptions about divinity to convince pagans of his godly specialness.

But didn't other cults also want their miracle-worker hero to be special? So why wouldn't they do the same? and also jack into the earlier preconceptions, etc.?

Why was it only the Christ-believers who made any effort to record the miracle events? or, only the Christ-believers who got the idea to wipe out all record of the many other miracle-workers who were standard and traditional and just as well-known and believed as the Christ miracle-worker? -- until the Council of Nicaea decided to exterminate all trace of them and rewrote history, artificially creating all the documents we have now, doctoring them to promote this one miracle-worker only and obliterate all trace of the others?

Why did only the Christ cult(s), or the Catholic Church in 325 AD, think up such a scheme to wipe out all trace of its competitors? and find the technology to return 300+ years into the past to confiscate all that earlier evidence, written accounts. None of the other miracle cults were able to think up such a scheme?

 

[DrZoidberg]

But did actual "miracle" healings reportedly happen? Do we have written accounts reporting such miracle healings? This is not about normal recovery from a cold, etc. It's about instant healings, like healing blindness or leprosy, etc., in seconds, such as we see in the Gospel accounts.

Where are the written accounts reporting such miracle healings (not just that someone "would expect a miracle healing," but that it happened, and the event is reported)?

To the ancients, any healing was a miracle healing. They didn't have a concept of the body healing naturally. To the ancients any wound healing by itself was evidence of a miracle.

We have loads of texts about this.

Also, it's not true that ancient doctors used magic only, because there were many remedies based on scientific beliefs, regardless whether the science was flawed. They believed that natural herbs and other substances contained healing qualities. In these cases it was not "miracle" healing which took place or which they thought took place. Just because they also had religious beliefs does not put these treatments in the "miracle" category, anymore than modern medical treatments are in the "miracle" category simply because someone prays for the patient to recover.

That's just nonsense. I think you just made this up. Just because there existed a couple of Greeks who hypothesized about a division between the natural and supernatural realm, doesn't mean it was something that was widely accepted. In the Roman world naturalism was a popular belief among the elites. But for people in general out in the provinces, ie Jews... no.

Why this demand to find sources for something this well attested and well known?

If it's well known, then provide the written accounts of cases where a "miracle" healing actually took place. It's not enough to say that they "would expect" a miracle. Where are the cases of instant healing of leprosy or blindness, etc.? If it is well attested, then you should have some examples in the literature reporting such cases.

Do you mean the case of King Pyrrhus and his magic toe? That's based on one source only, several centuries later. But there are no "well attested" cases of such miracle healings, in sources near the time of the alleged event. Or, if there really are any such cases, you will come up with them. You should mention the Asclepius stories/inscriptions, which might be the best example, but those are largely in the medical science and psychology category, rather than in the "miracle" category. Just because the ancient gods are worshiped and rituals followed doesn't change the fact that there was some science also, in the practice.

You refute yourself if you refuse to cite the particular examples and provide the narrative accounts of the alleged miracle events. Anyone can prove their case by just saying it's "well attested and well known" but not provide the individual examples and quote the original source for them.

The Bible has exactly one source... itself. All the various Jesus narratives in the Bible come from Mark. One source. A highly dubious source.

. . . pretty obvious that they're added in order to jack into earlier preconceptions about divinity to convince pagans of his godly specialness.

But didn't other cults also want their miracle-worker hero to be special? So why wouldn't they do the same? and also jack into the earlier preconceptions, etc.?

Yes, exactly. Which is what they did. For example, every European Christian king also performed faith healings on major holidays. A surviving remnant from the pagan world.

Why was it only the Christ-believers who made any effort to record the miracle events? or, only the Christ-believers who got the idea to wipe out all record of the many other miracle-workers who were standard and traditional and just as well-known and believed as the Christ miracle-worker? -- until the Council of Nicaea decided to exterminate all trace of them and rewrote history, artificially creating all the documents we have now, doctoring them to promote this one miracle-worker only and obliterate all trace of the others?

Why did only the Christ cult(s), or the Catholic Church in 325 AD, think up such a scheme to wipe out all trace of its competitors? and find the technology to return 300+ years into the past to confiscate all that earlier evidence, written accounts. None of the other miracle cults were able to think up such a scheme?

Because Jews fetishize the written word. It's their special thing. Pagans... by contrast, were mystery religions. They did NOT write the miracles down. They were supposed to be mysterious. Stuff only shared with those initiated into the same cult. Writing it down risked the information to spread beyond the cult.

Pagan mystery cults didn't want riff raff joining their cult. They were exclusive. You needed to jump through all manner of convoluted hoops to become a member. Christianity, by contrast, wanted all their secrets to be spread as much as possible because they were NOT exclusive. Anyone is welcome. That's why they wrote it all down and shared it with the world. There's no other reason.

Those traces actually exist. Because some Christian converts wrote slanderous texts about what went on in the mystery cults. They are anti-pagan propaganda. But we can infer from those what kinds of things went on.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Plato in his dialogue Phaedo, several centuries BC, offers four (or three, I can't remember) logical proofs for the immortality of the soul. This would hardly be news to the authors of the New Testament.

But something new happens about 30-50 AD. Paul's ζωὴν αἰώνιον ("eternal life") is different terminology than Plato's.

It appears Paul is the first to use this term, and then we see it in most other NT writings, while Plato's terminology is hardly ever used.

(I haven't been able to find ζωὴν αἰώνιον anywhere earlier, though maybe it's there somewhere. Those two Greek words exist earlier, separately, but apparently not together as Paul combines them.)

So Paul and the other NT writers are expressing something different, or new.

At the beginning we were asked:

Where did the Christian idea of a soul and its eternal life in Heaven come from?

Shouldn't the answer to this have something to do with Paul's introduction of a new term ζωὴν αἰώνιον ("eternal life")? and his persistent reference to the resurrection of Christ? and also his "good news" term (euangelion)?

What is the meaning of "the Christian idea of a soul and its eternal life in Heaven" if it has nothing to do with the very first Christian author to use this term? who may have even invented it?

Another Greek writer of this period, Philo the Alexandrian, used Plato's language expounding on immortality, but did not use the ζωὴν αἰώνιον term. He was contemporary to Jesus and maybe knew nothing about him, and never uses this terminology in his immortality writings. But later the Gospel of John, probably written by an Alexandrian and Hellenist like Philo, uses only the ζωὴν αἰώνιον term, like Paul. Why do only the Christians want to use this new term for "eternal life"?

So it appears that the Christians strongly preferred the ζωὴν αἰώνιον to Plato's language, even though there was familiarity with Greek and gnostic and Hellenistic thinking. Doesn't that suggest something new happening to cause a new interest in "eternal life" among the Christ cult(s) but not others?

Maybe the "Christian idea of a soul" was the same as Plato's, but not its idea of "eternal life in Heaven," which must also be connected to its "good news" idea and its idea that Christ resurrected. Also to the Gospel of John's idea of "eternal life" (also ζωὴν αἰώνιον) which quotes Jesus as saying "I am the resurrection and the life" and other famous words which must have something to do with "the Christian idea of . . . eternal life in Heaven").

Who would know better where "the Christian idea of . . . eternal life in Heaven" came from other than the first Christian writers who apparently invented this "eternal life" word and are quoted by Christians more than anyone else? If the historical Jesus Christ person they speak of had nothing to do with this idea, then what happened during 30-50 AD which caused them to think he did? The only way to answer where this idea came from is to ask what happened at about 50 AD or earlier which caused Paul to think this and then the Christian writers after him.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. . . . etc. . . .

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

Could we have a clarification what this refers to. If there's no mistake, we need a link or some kind of source.

I plan to respond to this post with another Wall of Text, but first I need an explanation for the above reference to "ancient Inca holy text" being burned.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. . . . etc. . . .

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

Could we have a clarification what this refers to. If there's no mistake, we need a link or some kind of source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Council_of_Lima

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

I plan to respond to this post with another Wall of Text, but first I need an explanation for the above reference to "ancient Inca holy text" being burned.

You don't need to write walls of text. I am aware that I'm one of the worst offenders. But I think most people prefer reading concise posts.

It should be mentioned that we have Inca carvings in stone, and there's oral history preserved. So we're not completely clueless. But we don't have anything preserved in the Inca's own language and words. This is a shame.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Did the Church, or those in power, create the historical facts for us, because they needed to control us?

What makes the Bible special, really really special. Is the amount of texts that has survived. This due to the unbroken prominence of Christianity throughout antiquity combined with the monastic scribal system. This is awesome. ANY other surviving religious texts are fragmentary and pathetic in comparison with the Bible. We have been able to reconstruct and map some Babylonian, Zoroastrian, and other Middle-Eastern religious ideas through the Bible. There's no other religious text that comes even close to it.

This sounds like an exaggeration to explain why there is an absence of other "resurrected" messiahs or saviors etc. in the literature, as comparisons to Jesus Christ in 30 AD, and that there were many other Jesus-like miracle-workers who resurrected (in the legends about them), but that the many written accounts of them have all been lost, due to something artificial, accidents of nature, or deliberate destruction by Christians, etc.

All of which can't be ruled out. It's even possible that all our biblical writings were planted by the Catholic Church 100 or 200 years ago, and all the evidence that they are 2000+ years old was just fabricated and established as our present accepted "history" which we know only through the fabricated "documentation" created for the purpose of controlling us. But in that case most of our ancient history has to be thrown out, and our only "knowledge" of history has to be whatever some present overlords dictate to us, and most of us don't really know who these overlords are.

But if we accept the standard facts, available to all researchers and students, based on the ancient documents as evidence (on display in museums, etc.), we have evidence for the unique Jesus miracle-worker event of about 30 AD, and there's no similar evidence for any other reported miracle-worker.

This is awesome, and something I hope Christians today appreciate.

But there's a risk to see the lack of other texts as Christianity being qualitatively different, or special in other regards. The numbers of surviving Bibles is an accident of history.

Maybe. But we have no reason to believe there would not be similar surviving evidence of other reported ancient miracle-workers if they did exist.

A Catholic bishop in the 1800's took every single existing ancient Inca holy text and burned them. It's all gone. Which sucks for Inca scholars today.

This is a god-da ------ beep beep beep beep ----- !!! [language censored -- not suitable].

What does the phrase "every single existing ancient Inca holy text" mean?

Despite the sophistication of many aspects of Incan life, the Inca never developed a writing system. History and literature were memorized as part of an oral tradition.

https://www.cattlv.wnyric.org/cms/lib/NY19000422/Centricity/Domain/13/World_History_POI_Unit_4.pdf (scroll several pages down to p. 461)

The Inca Empire (1438–1533) had its own spoken language, Quechua, which is still spoken by about a third of the Peruvian population. It is believed that the only “written” language of the Inca empire is a system of different knots tied in ropes attached to a longer cord. This system is called quipu or khipu.

No such Inca "text" was "burned" and there are no "Inca scholars" lamenting the burning of any such ancient "text" -- possibly some khipu objects got destroyed, but to interpret this as "every single existing ancient Inca holy text" being burned is in the wackadoodle nutcase category.

To have to resort to a falsehood like this is itself evidence that there are no other reported miracle-workers in any tradition, in the written record, because if there were, you could cite the case, give the evidence, from a credible source reporting those facts. But instead to resort to a blatant falsehood about all the ancient Inca texts being burned shows that there is no serious evidence, and all one can do is fabricate lies about such things out of an obsession and desperate attempt to downplay the one case we do have, from the 1st century, based on written accounts from the time.

Whatever may have been lost in the normal sense that ancient artifacts get destroyed, there is no reason to believe there were ancient Inca miracle-worker legends lost, or similar legends from any other civilizations or cultures. If such legends did exist, and the evidence is not yet known, probably some day the evidence of them will be uncovered. It's reasonable to base our beliefs on the evidence which is known, while having normal doubt, and be ready to change our beliefs based on any new evidence.

Until further evidence is uncovered, the only credible evidence we have of a reported ancient miracle-worker is that of Jesus in Galilee-Judaea at the time Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judaea. Your hate for this evidence or those who believe it does not suffice to negate these facts of history, however much you may be offended by these facts.

Another Catholic bishop in Spain in the 1700's took about half of the then existing ancient Bibles and sold them to a fireworks factory. He thought they were too weird. So these were all the surviving Christian Bibles that conformed the least to then current Catholic doctrine.

We're exceedingly lucky to be in the situation we are with the Bibles. Any political upheaval in Rome could easily have destroyed all those Bibles as well.

Most ancient writings have been lost, maybe 99%. Including Christian writings, mostly due to normal decay of the "paper" etc. and other processes no one could control or made the effort to control.

The "bookburnings" began mostly with the Reformation period, not back in the early church years. There's virtually no evidence of any Christian bookburnings, or burning libraries before 500 or 1000 AD. Most such claims are false, not based on any evidence. There were no decrees, by Constantine or Theodosius I or other emperors to burn any books or libraries. They destroyed pagan temples, not libraries, and in 1 or 2 cases there is speculation whether a library connected to the temple, or books, might have suffered damage. One historian in the 5th century is quoted saying some books were "consigned to the flames" about 100 years earlier. Other than this, there is no written account from the period reporting any bookburnings by Christians.

In the Book of Acts (19:19) there is reported a burning of books on divination. Such books were sometimes burned as dangerous, but this was legitimate, because there were cases of people being injured by misuse of the information contained in them, causing explosions, etc. Other than this, there is no evidence of bookburnings.

There's one mention of the burning of the Library at Antioch, but this was a Christian mob attacking a pagan temple which had a library in it, and this riot was not ordered by the emperor or the Church. But the writer blamed the emperor Jovian, because he might have been there. If the event happened, it was only the temple and its statues which was targeted, not the library or books.

The Library at Alexandria was destroyed mostly during the wars of Julius Caesar in the period of about 47 BC, not during the Christian period. But the Library itself was not the target. No one targeted libraries or books per se for destruction. Rather, these were sometimes collateral damage. The idea that rulers and religionists sent bookburning squads around to destroy dangerous books is 99.9% paranoia (even 100%). Many things of value, including books, scrolls, or manuscripts were destroyed in the wars.

There is speculation that the Qumran dwellers hid their scrolls for fear that they would be destroyed by the Romans. But there's no evidence that the Romans hunted down scrolls to burn. Possibly they did this in the case of Christian books, during the persecutions under Diocletian. But even this is reported only by the Christians, and no other source.

We cannot rewrite history based on what should have happened and should have been recorded and should not have been destroyed. We cannot reconstruct what the real "record" should have been if everything right had happened and there had been no bad guys or accidents or mistakes made which caused the surviving record to be different. We cannot speculate what the true historical record would or should be to come down to us rather than the actual record which has come down. There are some ways to detect errors and omissions etc. based on the existing evidence, by examining it further. When all that is done, as best as can be determined, the evidence so far is that there was a unique reported miracle-worker in Galilee-Judaea in about 30 AD, and there is no evidence yet of any other at other times or places, or other cultures or civilizations.

But there are possibly a few cases of something similar, on a smaller scale. E.g., there is historical evidence that Rasputin the "Mad Monk" had power to cure a child (or give relief to him) from a blood disease, whereas the conventional doctors were powerless to help him. There is limited evidence in history of some cases like this.

So the details of the reporting in the gospels doesn't mean we didn't get similar details in the reporting for other religions.

There's no evidence yet of other reported miracle-workers, and so no reason to believe they existed, despite the sincerity of those religious worshipers and their wish to have a Jesus-like Savior or Messiah figure they could claim in order to validate their faith in some sense. History cannot be based on such religious sentiment, but only on the facts shown by the evidence.

It's not proof of anything.

The abundance of the evidence, 5 sources reporting the Resurrection in the 1st century, is evidence that the event did happen, but not proof.

It's just evidence that Christian monks are good at copying and keeping alive stuff and . . .

Non-Christian monks were also good at that, and other non-Christian copyists who wanted to preserve the writings. Even if some were more motivated than others, there is so much history preserved that there would probably be abundant evidence of other reported miracle-workers if any existed. Probably they did not exist, based on the evidence, which is extensive. Though there will be much more in the future.

A piece of evidence that is being ignored by both believers and non-believers is the Callirhoe romance novel, probably written in the 1st century. Both sides are dishonest in refusing to consider the uncanny connection of this resurrection/crucifixion novel to elements of the Jesus story in the NT.

. . . and the papal library is damn lucky in dodging all the revolutionary bullets flying throughout history.

There's a lot they did not dodge. If the Catholic Church had this imagined power to create the history they wanted, it'd be shocking how different our history would be for the last 2000 years.

It's not the Catholic Church which created the Jesus miracle "legend" of the 1st century. Rather, this reported event is what created the first Christ cult(s) which eventually evolved into the established Church of later centuries, and the later Council of Nicaea was shaped by this 1st-century "legend" which already existed in the earlier documents which the Council had to accept.

And the original 1st-century events of about 30 AD, whatever they were exactly, are probably what led to the Apostle Paul's ζωὴν αἰώνιον ("eternal life") idea.

 

[DrZoidberg]

This sounds like an exaggeration to explain why there is an absence of other "resurrected" messiahs or saviors etc. in the literature, as comparisons to Jesus Christ in 30 AD, and that there were many other Jesus-like miracle-workers who resurrected (in the legends about them), but that the many written accounts of them have all been lost, due to something artificial, accidents of nature, or deliberate destruction by Christians, etc.

What are you talking about? There isn't an absence of other resurrected divine beings. We have plenty. Which I have already explained, in this very thread. That wasn't the point of my post. I was just gushing about how cool the Bible is.

But if we accept the standard facts, available to all researchers and students, based on the ancient documents as evidence (on display in museums, etc.), we have evidence for the unique Jesus miracle-worker event of about 30 AD, and there's no similar evidence for any other reported miracle-worker.

Totally. Except all the other ones, some of which I have already mentioned in this thread. Your memory is short.

Maybe. But we have no reason to believe there would not be similar surviving evidence of other reported ancient miracle-workers if they did exist.

Which is why it has.

Here's another description of a man's life who made about as many miracles as Jesus. Enjoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_of_Tours

What does the phrase "every single existing ancient Inca holy text" mean?

Despite the sophistication of many aspects of Incan life, the Inca never developed a writing system. History and literature were memorized as part of an oral tradition.

https://www.cattlv.wnyric.org/cms/lib/NY19000422/Centricity/Domain/13/World_History_POI_Unit_4.pdf (scroll several pages down to p. 461)

The Inca Empire (1438–1533) had its own spoken language, Quechua, which is still spoken by about a third of the Peruvian population. It is believed that the only “written” language of the Inca empire is a system of different knots tied in ropes attached to a longer cord. This system is called quipu or khipu.

No such Inca "text" was "burned" and there are no "Inca scholars" lamenting the burning of any such ancient "text" -- possibly some khipu objects got destroyed, but to interpret this as "every single existing ancient Inca holy text" being burned is in the wackadoodle nutcase category.

The library of Khipus was the sacred library of Cusco. This is where they were kept when the bishop decided to burn them all. We have zero knowledge of what information was kept on those.

To have to resort to a falsehood like this is itself evidence that there are no other reported miracle-workers in any tradition, in the written record, because if there were, you could cite the case, give the evidence, from a credible source reporting those facts. But instead to resort to a blatant falsehood about all the ancient Inca texts being burned shows that there is no serious evidence, and all one can do is fabricate lies about such things out of an obsession and desperate attempt to downplay the one case we do have, from the 1st century, based on written accounts from the time.

You've already been shown a rich tradition of miracle-workers predating Jesus in the Middle-East. I only brought up the khipu tragedy to underline how hard it is to keep sacred texts alive for posterity.

I'm sorry to break it to you Lumpy, but you have no case.

The abundance of the evidence, 5 sources reporting the Resurrection in the 1st century, is evidence that the event did happen, but not proof.

It's one written source. Mark. The rest are based on that one. But then again, the other books might as well be based on an oral tradition. Chinese whispers etc. As far as evidence goes it wouldn't hold up on court.

It's just evidence that Christian monks are good at copying and keeping alive stuff and . . .

Non-Christian monks were also good at that, and other non-Christian copyists who wanted to preserve the writings. Even if some were more motivated than others, there is so much history preserved that there would probably be abundant evidence of other reported miracle-workers if any existed. Probably they did not exist, based on the evidence, which is extensive. Though there will be much more in the future.

Not true. The non-Christian works have survived because they were copied and kept alive by Christian monks. The Christian monks are a pretty unique job description in world history. Christianity and it's monk tradition is a big reason why the Enlightenment happened in Europe, and not anywhere else. In the Roman world writing was something for rich people. Their writing was geared toward entertaining those in power. Monks often kept stuff alive just for the hell of it. Because they were curious about the Pagan world. Ovid's works were copied and kept alive only to show how immoral the pre-Christian Roman and pagan world was. They copied and spread his work more than the Romans ever did.

It's not the Catholic Church which created the Jesus miracle "legend" of the 1st century. Rather, this reported event is what created the first Christ cult(s) which eventually evolved into the established Church of later centuries, and the later Council of Nicaea was shaped by this 1st-century "legend" which already existed in the earlier documents which the Council had to accept.

Sure. But miracles don't really happen. Miracles are by definition a fictional construct. So somebody needed to invent it at some point. You know, like any fictional story.

And the original 1st-century events of about 30 AD, whatever they were exactly, are probably what led to the Apostle Paul's ζωὴν αἰώνιον ("eternal life") idea.

I don't believe that's how beliefs work. We're only ever converted to something if it's an idea that's been floating about in the back of our heads for a long time. The idea of Eternal Life must have predated Jesus by centuries, or nobody would have been convinced IMHO.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

How good is the evidence? One source only isn't enough.

. . .we have no reason to believe there would not be similar surviving evidence of other reported ancient miracle-workers if they did exist.

Which is why it has.

Here's another description of a man's life who made about as many miracles as Jesus. Enjoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_of_Tours

But the St. Martin example fails our test for good evidence, or credible evidence. This test requires:

• more than only one source, and

• sources near to the time the alleged miracles happened.

There are many cases of miracle acts reported in only one source. Or reported in sources centuries later than when the alleged events happened.

Virtually all cases of miracle-working saints in the Middle Ages are the latter. For St. Martin there is only one source near the time he lived. The other major source is Gregory of Tours, but he was 200 years later. There were many other saints to whom miracles were attributed, like St. Genevieve and St. Patrick, etc., but by one source only, or sources centuries later. Also, St. Augustine claimed to have witnessed many miracles, mostly of victims who were cured, but he is the only source we have for them.

Of course many Christians uncritically believe ALL the miracle stories, without distinction. But a critical approach requires testing each case, which means extra sources, and sources close to the time of the alleged event.

Possibly in a few cases there is a stronger case, maybe 2 sources. Etc. So we can look at each case individually. If there really is credible evidence in this or that case, then we have to wonder if maybe the reported miracle actually did happen. Possibly there is serious doubt in a few cases, though it seems all of them fail the test. Later Christians had a wish to repeat the ancient Jesus miracles and so probably invented these later copycat stories, because they so much wanted something current rather than only something from the distant past.

So St. Martin fails the test. Do you have another example for which there are at least 2 sources? i.e., 2 separate writings from 2 separate authors, like the Gospel of Matthew was written by a different author than the Gospel of Mark or Luke?

The Book of Acts is another one-source-only example, as a source for the miracles of the apostles in the earliest church period. These also are much less credible examples, based on a single source only.

Another consideration, casting doubt on the credibility, is the phenomenon of copycat miracles, where the story has an obvious resemblance to earlier reported miracles, from an earlier reported case, like Christ became a "model" for later miracle tales. When the example has such extreme resemblance to the earlier tradition, such as the miracles of Peter and Paul in Acts, and also the stories of the saints, which strongly resemble the earlier Jesus miracles, we should be more skeptical that it's a true report and suspect instead that it's only a pious copycat version of the earlier tradition.

We can also be sure that nothing is served by the simplistic impulse to brush ALL miracle claims aside with such thoughtless outbursts as "Aaaaaaaaaaa, people just made up shit!!!"

We have to be willing to look at the facts, rather than let our hate and anger and knee-jerk emotions decide the question.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But the St. Martin example fails our test for good evidence, or credible evidence. This test requires:

• more than only one source, and

• sources near to the time the alleged miracles happened.

Lumpy, your 'test' continues to suck.
You count plagiarized accounts as multiple sources, and we can SEE people telling lies about what, for example, TRUMP is doing RIGHT NOW, even about mundane things without miracle elements, so proximity to events is no basis for proving veracity.

You're just spinning your wheels, here.

 

[DrZoidberg]

. . .we have no reason to believe there would not be similar surviving evidence of other reported ancient miracle-workers if they did exist.

Which is why it has.

Here's another description of a man's life who made about as many miracles as Jesus. Enjoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_of_Tours

But the St. Martin example fails our test for good evidence, or credible evidence. This test requires:

• more than only one source, and

• sources near to the time the alleged miracles happened.

There are many cases of miracle acts reported in only one source. Or reported in sources centuries later than when the alleged events happened.

Virtually all cases of miracle-working saints in the Middle Ages are the latter. For St. Martin there is only one source near the time he lived. The other major source is Gregory of Tours, but he was 200 years later. There were many other saints to whom miracles were attributed, like St. Genevieve and St. Patrick, etc., but by one source only, or sources centuries later. Also, St. Augustine claimed to have witnessed many miracles, mostly of victims who were cured, but he is the only source we have for them.

Of course many Christians uncritically believe ALL the miracle stories, without distinction. But a critical approach requires testing each case, which means extra sources, and sources close to the time of the alleged event.

Possibly in a few cases there is a stronger case, maybe 2 sources. Etc. So we can look at each case individually. If there really is credible evidence in this or that case, then we have to wonder if maybe the reported miracle actually did happen. Possibly there is serious doubt in a few cases, though it seems all of them fail the test. Later Christians had a wish to repeat the ancient Jesus miracles and so probably invented these later copycat stories, because they so much wanted something current rather than only something from the distant past.

So St. Martin fails the test. Do you have another example for which there are at least 2 sources? i.e., 2 separate writings from 2 separate authors, like the Gospel of Matthew was written by a different author than the Gospel of Mark or Luke?

The Book of Acts is another one-source-only example, as a source for the miracles of the apostles in the earliest church period. These also are much less credible examples, based on a single source only.

Another consideration, casting doubt on the credibility, is the phenomenon of copycat miracles, where the story has an obvious resemblance to earlier reported miracles, from an earlier reported case, like Christ became a "model" for later miracle tales. When the example has such extreme resemblance to the earlier tradition, such as the miracles of Peter and Paul in Acts, and also the stories of the saints, which strongly resemble the earlier Jesus miracles, we should be more skeptical that it's a true report and suspect instead that it's only a pious copycat version of the earlier tradition.

We can also be sure that nothing is served by the simplistic impulse to brush ALL miracle claims aside with such thoughtless outbursts as "Aaaaaaaaaaa, people just made up shit!!!"

We have to be willing to look at the facts, rather than let our hate and anger and knee-jerk emotions decide the question.

Cool. So we agree that the miracles in the Bible are also nonsense. Great to reach an agreement.

Both the Bible and the biography of Saint Martin are hagiographyies. Ie, play fast and loose with facts. None of what is in them is remotely trustworthy.

And as I've said before, none of the miracles of Jesus were unique to Jesus. The miracles attributed to him were no doubt attributed to him because they were standard miracles associated with pagan holy men. Just to connect with the pagan tradition. Which is something we expect in hagiographies. It's also wisdom litterature, ie the truth is irrelevant. They're supposed to be inspiring. The authors wouldn't have any problems adding stuff. It wouldn't be considered lying.