Amaleq13

Repeating this logical fallacy does your credibility no good. And this is only more true given the fact you've been provided ample opportunity to correct your misunderstanding. Such willful ignorance is contrary to a genuine desire to engage in a rational discussion. In case you forgot, that is supposed to be the reason you are here.

But certainly not all so you aren't making a point here. Miracles continue to be, at best, enormously improbable and that obviously requires far more support than a theoretical possibility to obtain credibility. And you've got nothing but 2,000 year-old claims.

Then they weren't miracles so you've denied your OP.

miracle: an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. Dictionary.com

So you think there is no basis for the existing definition of "miracle"?

Amaleq13

Wrong. It is easily explained by assuming nothing more than belief in miraculous powers. According to Paul and Acts, apostles were convincing people to believe them by appearing to perform miraculous acts. Their miraculous performances gave credibility to what they preached.

And, no, we don't have to assume they really could perform miracles, either.

spamandham

Jesus follows the exact same general pattern as all the others. What you are doing, is trying to augment the pattern in a very specific way that makes Jesus fall outside of it.

You could play a silly game like that with any given hero figure.

Santa? Oh well, sure lot's of mythical beings are depicted as magical, but Santa is unique because he has magic reindeer. Since the idea of magic reindeer was not derived from another source, it must be historical. ...and so on.

gdeering

I've never understood the argument that God would have created such a loser for a son. Then again, he did live at home for a very long time, and no other hero does that - so he must be historic!

Doug Shaver

There is no contemporary evidence for his having any reputation at all before 100 CE.

The allegation that he had a reputation for working miracles appears only in documents not known to have been written before the second century.

GakuseiDon

It reminds me of this joke:


There were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish:

1. He went into His Father's business.
2. He lived at home until he was 33.
3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God.

But then there were 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black:

1. He called everyone brother.
2. He liked Gospel.
3. He didn't get a fair trial.

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian:

1. He talked with His hands.
2. He had wine with His meals.
3. He used olive oil

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian :

1. He never cut His hair.
2. He walked around barefoot all the time.
3. He started a new religion.

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian :

1. He was at peace with nature.
2. He ate a lot of fish.
3. He talked about the Great Spirit.

But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish:

1. He never got married.
2. He was always telling stories.
3. He loved green pastures.

But the most compelling evidence of all - 3 proofs that Jesus was a woman:

1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was virtually no food.
2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it.
3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do.

Doug Shaver

I think I've seen it before, but it's been a long time. Thanks for the rerun.

gdeering

Thanks GakuseiDon,

I'd only heard the first joke. It does show that he is all things to all people.


Gregg

freetrader

Response to spamandham:


Yes, it was common to attribute miracles to men of wide repute who had a large following of disciples or admirers. But not to men of little or no repute. It was unusual to attribute miracles to someone of no standing or importance, such as Jesus, who was a nobody if you set aside the miracle stories attributed to him.

In fact, it never happened that a nobody acquired wide recognition as a miracle-worker, and so Jesus would have to be the only one case in history of this ever happening, which makes it highly unlikely -- less probable than that he actually did perform the miracle acts.


In the case of Apollonius there's only one source, from about 200 years later. We don't know that he was fondly remembered by anyone other than that one writer who never knew him directly or that anyone during his time thought he did any miracles.

If the account of him has credibility and he did exist, he had a very long life in which to accumulate whatever reputation he had for doing great deeds. This long career of winning admiration and perhaps doing some good deeds can lead to a mythologizing process which would explain the miracle stories about him.

Or the explanation could be the time separation between the historical individual and the later written account, as we have precedent for such a process of mythologizing over a long time span.


A charismatic guru figure who influences hundreds or thousands of followers over a long career of 30 years or more, during which he makes enough impression on enough people to get a "legend" going and some of them start claiming he does miracles. In some cases there is a seeming answer to prayer, such as a healing, and these "hits" get remembered easily and accumulate over time, while the "misses" get forgotten.

Given a long-enough time frame it is possible for the cult leader to accumulate something close to godhead status and become mythologized and "miraculized".

The proselytizers or members of the new cult do not mythologize a nobody into godhead status. They need a somebody figure, someone with an established reputation, to inspire them. (Or, they need someone with unique power, such as the kind of power attributed to Jesus in the miracle healing stories. If the miracle acts were actually performed, then that's all the explanation needed.)


You're saying this diverse group of people all started sharing the same hallucination spontaneously, suddenly, for no reason. They suddenly imagined that this obscure character of no repute was the "Son of God" and did miracles. Why did they all seize upon the same nobody figure?

Why did they all imagine that the same unknown Jew from Galilee was running around doing these miracles? or why did they all invent stories about such an individual? How did they come to agreement on the biographical details about him, or in other words, how did they all invent the same fictional character?

There needs to be an explanation. There are not other cases of this to serve as a precedent to believe it can happen.

Possibly one person alone might hallucinate something like the Jesus legend, but not several altogether, simultaneously, out of the blue.

It's crazy for someone, actually several different people, to suddenly start promoting an unrecognized obscure nobody figure as the "Son of God" and inventing miracle stories about him. Why would several different people with little or no contact with each other all start hallucinating the same unlikely scenario and try to spread it and expect anyone to believe it?

How can these different people all start sharing the same delusion out of nowhere, spontaneously? Even if some conspirator could have put something in the water or food supply to make people start experiencing the same hallucination, why would anyone conspire such a thing?

People can hallucinate, but a bunch of them don't all have the same hallucination spontaneously. Something must have happened in common to all of them.

No, it's not necessary to psychoanalyse them, but neither is it necessary to assume the unlikely scenario that they all spontaneously hallucinated the same delusion of the son of God miracle-worker from Galilee. Not when there is the much more probable scenario that the miracle acts really did happen, which answers all the questions and explains the facts we have.

Toto

You are wrong, however often you repeat this.

In the first case, the idea that Jesus was a nobody is a modern rationalization of the fact that there is no historical record of him - since the alternate conclusion, that he never existed, is unacceptable to so many people.

In the second case, it is more probable that a nobody would acquire a reputation of working miraces based on false rumors or mythmaking - even if it has never happened before, it is theoretically possible. The probability that this nobody actually did perform miracles is indistinguishable from 0.

If you have nothing new to say, I can close this thread so you do not have to keep retyping the same arguments.