Richard Carrier had clearly goofed when he stated that Apollonius of Tyana had lived centuries before Jesus Christ. But Philostratus's biography of A of T may have been based on oral tradition, which some here have contended is supremely reliable.

However, his point is quite correct -- there are numerous accounts of miracles in the Greco-Roman world, accounts that are often at least as well-supported as those in the Bible. So why haven't we seen a detailed analysis of RC's essay?

James Still

I've read Richard's piece as well as a book which I highly recommend entitled Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus (1985) by Richard A. Horsley and John S. Hanson. Another excellent resource on credulity and miracles in the ancient world is E.P. Sanders' The Historical Figure of Jesus. We should realize that the modern emphasis on miracle working as something entailing godhood or messianism is misplaced. This is probably due to the fact that Christianity became so dominant in the West and over the centuries as lesser figures were forgotten it became the conventional wisdom that only Jesus was a miracle worker. Once that assumption was firmly in place it became easy to assume still further that miracle-working was a necessary trait for divinity. It's really only been in the last several decades that this assumption has been critically examined and found to be wrong. As Richard's essay points out anyone who was anyone in the ancient world was a miracle-worker. But no one considered miracle workers to be gods or God.

Nomad and others have suggested that the miracle stories in Apollonius' biography redact (directly or indirectly) the feats of Jesus. I think this is too strong of a claim and there is no evidence for it. Philostratus inherited his manuscript (as preserved by Empress Domna) from Damis a direct disciple of Apollonius. That would put the autograph in the late first century or the early second century. Additionally, unlike the gospels about Jesus, Philostratus worked with a manuscript that was written by an eyewitness. None of the four canonical gospels were written by eyewitnesses but instead were based largely on the stories floating around in the oral tradition. ("Gospel" as "proclamation" meant for Paul the stories about Jesus and only much later did the word come to mean a written text like we think of it today.)

But all of this is really beside the point. The point of Horsley and Hanson, Carrier, and Sanders is that miracle working was common and ordinary in the ancient world. We have dozens of inscriptions from Asclepiums on how cures were miraculously effected. In an age of sickness before there were doctors, we should not be surprised that Apollonius, Jesus, Honi, Eleazar, and hundreds more like them all were said to have done miraculous deeds. There is certainly no justification or reason to say that one tradition must have drawn its stories from another. Indeed two can play at that game. Early wall paintings in the catacombs of the Via Latina show Jesus with a magic wand. Why when the gospels never mention a wand? Quite simply, because his early followers in Rome assumed that Jesus must have used one because all the other miracle workers did. So I don't agree with those who suggest that the traditions about Apollonius or Eleazar rely upon the traditions about Jesus.

Hello James, and welcome back to the Bible discussion board.

If I may, why did you post this point? If you had bothered to read any of the posts from me, Layman, Polycarp, Bede, Metacrock, Tercel, Ish, or any other Christian here, none of us has ever claimed that Jesus was the only miracle worker reported by the ancients. We have, in fact, said the exact opposite in numerous posts and threads.

At the same time, please do not pretend to argue that sceptics here do not continue to claim Christian borrowing from other pagan sources, because they do. Bill himself made some outrageous assertions about Mithras not very long ago, and has yet to offer a shred of evidence to back his claim.

As for Apollonius, I will allow Richard to explain himself here, and tell us how he came to learn about inscriptions detailing miracle works by this man, centuries before Jesus or Apollonius ever lived. But enough on this topic, let's take a look at the rest of your post.

Well, this isn't the issue of this thread, so again, it is quite beside the point. Origen was talking about symbolic meaning and Scripture as allegory long before we moderns came along. And as for the claim that moderns are somehow less credulous, one would not know it by reading many of the posts from the sceptics here. The criteria we appear to see embraced by the "freethinking" minds of these boards is that if it contradicts the Bible, it must be true.

One can hardly get much more credulous than this. (And if examples of such posts are demanded, then I will provide them)

I'm going to address your evidence here shortly here James, but could you please let me in on your methodology that underlies many of your assumptions listed below? That would help a great deal.

As for the case of Apollonius' copying of Jesus, the evidence speaks for itself. The church of Apollonius was promoted as an alternative to Christianity, and supported by the very people that were persecuting the Christian Church. One need not look far or hard to find the sources for their stories.

Now, if you can produce inscriptions that predate the life of Jesus by several centuries, that would be another matter all together. That much I will admit.

Please offer your evidence to support this claim.

Do we have a copy of the autograph? Do we have a fragment to demonstrate that such a thing even existed? Do we know what it said, and how closely and faithfully Philostratus followed this "autograph"?

Are you actually this credulous on this matter James?

Could you offer your evidence for this please. John claims to be a direct witness, a claim supported by a good number of atheist scholars, not just Christians. The other Gospels were clearly rooted in such testimony as well. Luke tells us this in his prologue. Why do you deny this, even as you accept the existence of a hypothetical and never seen text about the life of Apollonius?

I must comment on the lack of consistent application of sceptical principles here. It really is quite alarming.

True. The literal translation is "good news". On the other hand, can you demonstrate that there were no written traditions predating the Gospels? The evidence for such documents is much better than what we have for Apollonius. Why do you discount the former, but accept the latter so willingly?

Actually, I think it is highlighting the point quite nicely James. Unfortunately I do not think that this light looks very flattering to either you or to Richard.

Again, this is all true, and I wonder how you came to believe that I or other apologists on these boards have argued otherwise. That said, the evidence for the miracle working and healing of Jesus greatly exceeds that of the others, and this was Layman's entire point. I'm not even sure, based on what you have just said, why you appear to be disputing this fact.

Ahh... but sceptics do it all the time James. That has been one of the very big problems on these boards of late, and the apologists here have spent a great deal of time refuting these unsubstantiated claims.

And as for the evidence of pagan borrowing from Christianity, well, there is that 3rd Century medallion of the crucified Bacchus pictured on the cover of the Jesus Mysteries.

If, on the other hand, sceptics are willing to conceed that Christian miracle traditions arose independent of other such traditions, then I believe that I and many other apologists will be very content.

Are you talking about the 3rd and 4th Century pictures James? Please try not to be so credulous. Jesus never used a wand, any more than He had blonde hair and blue eyes. But people do portray Him as if He lived in their own times, do they not? That much has never changed, and so long as we do not start to try and claim that the images given are historical, I don't see a problem with it. Do you?

Thank you for your thoughts James. At the same time, I hope that by the same token that you reject pagan copying of Jesus and the Gospel stories, you will be even handed and consistent, and reject that the Gospels copied from the pagan sources.

If you will do this much, then as I said, I will be content.

Be well,

Nomad

James Still

The short answer is that I will write anything I damn well please. The long answer is that context for me is very important and I'm not one of those people who can write short bullet sentences; I need to explore issues more thoroughly. Unless you've been infected with that which ails Metacrock I don't know why you'd treat everything I say as some sort of aggressive point-by-point refutation of your writing. Believe it or not most of the things I wrote about pertained to the issue in general and not as a reaction to something you wrote.

Really? Then I am in your debt since I am unaware of this evidence. I would appreciate it very much if you could share with me how Apollonius knew about Jesus and intentionally went about copying him. As for the inscriptions that Richard mentioned, I am unaware of them and I'm tempted to suggest that this was a gaffe. Poor Richard, how dare he be human and make a mistake!

What other source would there be? Go to your local university library and and consult the Loeb edition of The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Conybeare has a great intro exposition in one of the introductory articles to the text. It's been awhile since I've read it.

No, of course we don't have a copy of Damis' autograph. But since the Empress gave it to Philostratus and commissioned him to expand upon it I see no reason to doubt that he had it. Or do you want to say that we should doubt the date or existence of a manuscript unless we possess physical evidence of it's autograph? I don't think you do since we'd be forced to say that the NT mss. didn't come to be written until the second century.

What evidence do you seek? As for Philostratus' ms. it's right there in the primary source I gave you above. As for the gospel accounts, it is conventionally held that the pseudipigraphical authors of the four written gospels were not the disciples of Jesus. I would be very interested in hearing the reasons why you think that the Gospel of John was written by the disciple of the same name. I'm not sure what you mean by Luke, since in his prologue he says nothing about being an eyewitness to the stories about which he writes. Was Luke in possession of material that came direct from an eyewitness? Maybe. We just don't know.

Personally I believe that there was at least one written source prior to the Synoptics: the Sayings Source Q. I have been taken to task greatly for advocating the Q gospel, notably by Glenn Miller and (in his warm and charming way) by J.P. Holding. The reason they disagree with me is because the evidence for Q is not as strong as the evidence for Damis' autograph. The evidence for Q is a modern theory based on text analysis while the evidence for Damis' autograph is based on the direct testimony of Philostratus. Also, we know that the Empress had money and was a lover of philosophy so it stands to reason she'd have such a manuscript.

In what way does the miracles attributed to Jesus exceed the other miracle workers? Apollonius was said to have exorcised demons. Josephus relates a story he personally saw in which Eleazar cast out a demon. (Jews were thought to make good magicans because they possessed the wisdom of Solomon.) Apollonius raised someone from the dead in front of several witnesses. Honi was able to control the weather just as Jesus calmed a storm. No, I think it's too strong to say that Jesus' miracles "greatly exceeded" those of the other miracles with whom we are familiar. But perhaps you will point some out to me that others couldn't possibly rival.

I don't want to make such sweeping claims. My only point was to say that in this case it is problematic to say that Apollonius was aware of and copied Jesus. I doubt that Apollonius had ever heard of Jesus.

Although Nomad was pretty clear, you missed his point. He did not say Jesus' purported miracles were greater than all the others. He said the evidence for Jesus' miracles exceeds that available for the others.

He's mentioned Apollonius and why the evidence is inferior. I'm not sure what the evidence is for Eleazar, but I'm willing to concede for the sake of argument that its good. But the evidence for Jesus' miracles is certainly better attested than that of Honi:

http://www.infidels.org/electronic/f...ML/000356.html

James Still

Ah, yes I see. Thanks for pointing that out. Regarding Eleazar, I don't have Josephus handy but let me quote the source from the Catholic Encyclopedia so that you can consult it at your leisure:

"It was a popular Jewish belief, accepted even by a learned cosmopolitan like Josephus, that Solomon had received the power of expelling demons, and that he had composed and transmitted certain formulæ that were efficacious for that purpose. The Jewish historian records how a certain Eleazar, in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian and his officers, succeeded, by means of a magical ring applied to the nose of a possessed person, in drawing out the demon through the nostrils -- the virtue of the ring being due to the fact that it enclosed a certain rare root indicated in the formulaæ of Solomon, and which it was exceedingly difficult to obtain (Ant. Jud, VIII, ii, 5; cf. Bell. Jud. VII, vi, 3)."

We find out about Jesus' miracles from the stories left behind by his followers, but Eleazar performed his miracle in front of Josephus and the Emperor himself! Not bad eh?

I generally don't include exorcisms in my discussion regarding miracles. I view it as its own category. At the very least, I don't find them comparable to the blind seeing, the lame walking, and the dead rising.

I was very clear in my post James, and the fact that you have deleted the context of my question leads me to wonder again, why did you post your original point?

You said:

...We should realize that the modern emphasis on miracle working as something entailing godhood or messianism is misplaced. This is probably due to the fact that Christianity became so dominant in the West and over the centuries as lesser figures were forgotten it became the conventional wisdom that only Jesus was a miracle worker.

I responded that none of the apologists on this discussion board have ever advanced this argument, so while you may have thought your point was valid in some circumstances, it certainly is out of place on this Board. Quite frankly, it looked like a bit of grand standing on your part, and by failing to address any real issues on this thread, it was off topic and irrelavent.

Are you free to post anything you wish? Of course. At the same time, when it looks to be no more than propagandizing, I fail to see the point of it, and simply wished to point this out.

Actually, your opening point had nothing to do with what ANY of the theists on this board has posted. Do not worry James, I am not so neurotic as to believe that all posts are directed at me. But when someone is posting generalizations that do not fit the views of any of the Christians on the Bible Board, I do wonder what the purpose was behind such a post.

I’m afraid that this is yet another example (out of many) in which you misread or misunderstood what I wrote.

I have never claimed that Apollonius knew of Jesus. What I did say was that the evidence very clearly points to the stories about Apollonius, written in the 3rd Century, show obvious signs of copying from the Gospel reports of the life of Jesus. Given that the purpose of promoting the church of Apollonius was to compete with Christianity, and that the powers that be in Rome were behind this promotion, this is very logical. Now, if you can demonstrate that we know anything about Apollonius life that predates the Gospels, then I would be happy to look at it. The problem, of course, is that we have no such records to examine. Thus, when some sceptic tells me that the stories about Jesus were copied from Apollonius’ story, I point out that the evidence does not bear them out. On the other hand, if such startling parallels do exist between the two stories, then it is entirely reasonable to assume that the story that came later copied from the one that was written earlier. Given that the Gospels are all 1st Century documents, and the story of Apollonius is 3rd Century, we can see which direction the copying went.

What Apollonius knew about Jesus is quite irrelevant in such a discussion.

Yes, well, when Richard lives in his glass house, and so eagerly wants to cast stones at others for what he believes are errors in their posts, then he might expect to have his own howlers pointed out to him. This will be especially true when he makes such a large issue of supposed misreadings of his posts, since I have rarely bailed on a conversation simply because someone did not understand what I had written the first time through. After all, we are all human, and mistakes do happen. Using them as an excuse to exit stage right (and in the process dodging the answers to any questions or points raised), however, is quite another matter.

Again, you have misunderstood the nature of my request. We have plenty of manuscript evidence that the Gospels existed in an original form in the 1st Century AD. It is the job of the science of Textual Criticism to help solve such historical riddles and puzzles. In the case of a theoretical document that predates Philostratus’ stories about Apollonius, we have nothing at all. Therefore, how can we know what was known about him prior to 218AD? How can we know how much Philostratus embellished the story, even adding to it from other stories about similar miracle workers? With nothing to compare against Philostratus we are literally shooting in the dark. But the evidence for pre-Gospel traditions exists in the sheer number and variety of MSS available to us, coupled with the internal evidence within the Gospels themselves. Thus, we can postulate a theoretical “Q document”, “M”, “L”, an early “Passion Narrative” and even a “Birth Narrative”. In the case of Apollonius of Tyana, and what we can know about him pre-Philostratus, well, we can’t know anything at all. We lack the evidence to even try.

Do you not see the problem here, however? How much did Philostratus “expand” on the original (assuming such an original existed of course)? What other sources and stories might he have used in this expansion? If some of the stories look astonishingly like the Gospel accounts of the miracles of Jesus, then should we not assume that there is a good chance he was using them as a source? If not, why not?

It is true that we do not have any MSS that is known to be from the 1st Century (although this issue is far from settled. There are a number of threads discussing this point if you wish to pursue it). At the same time, we do have enough copies of the originals to conclude that such documents did exist in the 1st Century. With Apollonius, as I have said before, we have nothing of the sort.

My larger point here is that if we are to accept that Philostratus MUST have had an earlier document from which he could and did work, then we should grant the same to the Gospels, and especially to Luke, who tells us very plainly that such sources did exist.

Do you know what a primary source is James? It is not a report of a report. Nor is it a story of a story. If there is a copy of the pre-existent story of Apollonius, then all that is needed is to produce such a document. That document would be a true primary source.

And once again you have misunderstood what I wrote. I did not say that the author of John had to be the disciple of the same name (although I believe that he was). I said, very plainly, that he claimed to be an eyewitness to the events he describes. My question to you was why you reject the possibility that he was, in fact, a witness to the life and miracles of Jesus. After all, you were the one that said that:

Additionally, unlike the gospels about Jesus, Philostratus worked with a manuscript that was written by an eyewitness. None of the four canonical gospels were written by eyewitnesses but instead were based largely on the stories floating around in the oral tradition.

This is a powerful positive assertion. What is your supporting evidence for this belief. If you have none, that is alright, and I will happily offer you my evidence for why I believe that John was written by an eyewitness in any event. I only ask that you offer your evidence first.

And yet again you have misread me. Luke specifically tells us that he is NOT an eyewitness, and I have said this as well. What I said was that he reports that such earlier accounts did exist. I would like to know why you reject his testimony that earlier stories of the life of Jesus served as the basis of his own Gospel. Thus far you have told us that you cannot be sure. I only wish to know what your evidence to doubt him is based upon, especially since you accept without question that Philostratus was working from an earlier document for which we have no textual evidence.

Well, we have the direct testimony from Luke as to his own sources:

Luke 1:1-4 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

All I ask for is consistency. If you accept Philostratus’ word, why not Luke’s? Further, why do you discount (assuming that you do) the testimony of Papias on the existence of an early sayings document recorded by Matthew?

Well, this is a logical assumption, but there were plenty of wealthy and powerful people around between the death of Apollonius and the writing of Philostratus. More than one of them must have heard of this miracle worker. Yet, the fact that we do not have even a single fragment from this (or any other similar) document dating to even the 2nd Century argues against its existence. I have the same problem with Q, BTW, and have not decided if it was a purely oral, or a combination of an oral and written tradition.

Layman appears to have cleared up this particular misreading of my post, so unless you have another question I will move on.

I agree that Apollonius would not have known much of anything about Jesus, but that is not the issue. The question is whether or not his biographer, Philostratus, had such knowledge, and here the answer is almost certainly yes. On that basis, and especially given the motives of his sponsor (namely to compete successfully against Christianity), the likelihood that he copied from the Gospels is very good. The closer the stories parallel one another, the greater the probability that this did happen.

What I am asking, James, is that IF you are willing to say that Apollonius’ story was not copied from the Gospels, will you also concede that the Gospels did not copy from pagan sources? Quite honestly this is all that I would hope to hear from the sceptics on this matter. On the other hand, if you will not do this, then I will have to ask you on what basis you think the evidence supports such a belief in Christian copying of pagan sources, especially ones like Apollonius of Tyana.

Thank you

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited June 12, 2001).]

James Still

Nomad, why are you so hostile? You wrote, "As for the case of Apollonius' copying of Jesus, the evidence speaks for itself." I replied that I doubted that Apollonius knew about Jesus and therefore did not copy him. You then take me to task, suggesting that "this is yet another example (out of many) in which you misread or misunderstood what I wrote." If you meant to say instead that Philostratus set out to make his hero a copy of Jesus then you should have said that rather than berate your poor readers for not reading your mind. In any case, a little charity goes a long way.

I have no intention of getting into a debate with you for one simple reason. You haven't read the "The Life of Apollonius of Tyana" and so are at a severe disadvantage. (Don't bother to deny it; I can tell from your remarks that you are unfamiliar with it.) As for whether or not Philostratus expanded on Damis' original story, I have no doubt that he did take liberties with some of the material. Of course, I have no doubt that the Synoptists took liberties with their material as well. If you consider it a "problem" that Philostratus did that, then I can well imagine the angst you must feel over the canonical gospels.

More condecension and hubris? Do yourself a favor and seek out the Loeb edition of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. It is a primary source just as the gospels are primary sources. Of course, I could demand that you produce the "true" primary source(s) that Luke used to compose his gospel but I won't because it's a silly demand.

What's this the third (or fourth) time I've woefully misunderstood what you've written? I don't know about you but when I write something that a reader misunderstands I'm humble enough to admit that the fault lies with me and my writing rather than the reader. In any case, your strange complaint is moot. I assumed correctly that you were advocating the view that the Gospel of John was written by the disciple of the same name who would have been an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry. And, after parenthetically admitting my assumption was correct you berate me for assuming it! Ok, let's forget the name John. I still say that whoever it was that wrote the Gospel of John was not an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry. And you know what? I have no intention of defending that bit of conventional bit of wisdom to you anymore than a teacher would entertain a student's request for a proof of a polynomial equation in a first-year calculus course. There are some things you have to bring to this discussion and the authorship and dating of the gospels is one of them.

skipping down...

I will say no such thing and my reasons are the same. We have no evidence for or against the notion that Philostratus copied from the gospels. It is possible that he might have in a few places but we just don't know. We do know that at the end of the third century some pagans promoted Apollonius as an alternative to the cult of Jesus. Yet, Philostratus completed his work at the beginning of the third century. That's why I said that your manifesto is too broad. Let me give you an example. Eusebius tells us that Jesus was born in a cave, a story that was also told about Mithras. Did the story about Jesus come over from paganism? Maybe. But then again maybe Jesus was said to have been born in a cave and Mithraism borrowed it. You can't just make sweeping statements about these primary sources. You have to take each story within them on a case by case basis. So it is certainly not obvious to me in the way that it is to you that Philostratus copied from the Gospels. If you know of some reasons why I should reconsider then by all means let me know.

Just for informational purposes...

The Life of Appollonius of Tyana

by Philostratus

Information on Appollonius of Tyana

Ish

[This message has been edited by Ish (edited June 13, 2001).]