mountainman

All claims about the historical Jesus and the historical "Early Jesus Followers aka Christians" and the historical "Christian Churches before Constantine" are uncorroborated by the science of archaeology and carbon 14 dating.

Miracles in Ancient History - Momigliano

“The revolution of the fourth century,
carrying with it a new historiography
will not be understood if we underrate
the determination, almost the fierceness,
with which the Christians
appreciated and exploited

<<<< "the miracle" >>>>>

that had transformed Constantine
into a supporter, a protector,
and later a legislator
of the Christian church.”

— Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987),
Pagan and Christian Historiography
in the Fourth Century A.D; (1960)
[Considered in the foremost of 20th century ancient historians]

Doug Shaver

Oh, so you've read it?

aa5874

It is false to claim that documents from antiquity are ALL evidence.

Documents of antiquity contain claims.

Claims by themselves do not count as evidence. The claims must first be corroborated by some other source.

The document in which the claim is found cannot be used as the corroborative source for the very same uncorroborated claim.

For example, the Pauline Epistles cannot be used as a corroborative source for claims made in the very same epistles.

The claim by Homer that Achilles was the offspring of a sea-goddess is not evidence that Homer existed.

jakejonesiv

Any proposed miracle (an event for which there is no natural explanation) ends scientific and historical inquiry and takes us into the realm of faith.

You can hardly prove a miracle today, much less from nearly 2,000 year old documents written by religous fanatics. A much simplier explanation is that these are tall tales--which never actually happened.

Jake Jones IV

show_no_mercy

Paul might have chosen the name "Jesus" because of it's implication when Moses renamed Hosea son of Nun to "Jesus", and this "Jesus" led the Israel to the promised land.

freetrader

Solo:

That's your opinion, not fact. It isn't known whether he existed or not. This is another likely case of a mixture of fact and fiction. It is reasonable to assume that William Tell was a real hero figure who actually existed in history and that he was a good shot with a bow and arrow, and he probably was involved in some rebellious activity and was killed in battle doing war against some powerful tyrant or despot.

He carried on his heroic battles for decades, in which he earned his reputation as a folk hero, and it was during a period of more than a hundred years after his death that the legends accumulated, including the famous scene where he shot the apple off his son's head. This event might have actually happened centuries earlier involving some previous heroic figure.

There's no reason to assume the apple-shooting event never happened. But even if it's fiction, it was probably inspired by real events similar to it where a tyrant bullied his subjects and forced them to perform dangerous stunts -- this has some resemblance to the gladiator games and other dangerous entertainments going back to Roman times.

The legendary William Tell figure is not analogous to the Jesus from Galilee figure for at least the following reasons:

The first written account of William Tell occurs at least 125 years after his death, and 170 years after the apple-shooting event, which is the most famous of the deeds of William Tell, whereas the first written accounts of Jesus occur about 50 years later. This much shorter time lapse between the historic figure and the first written record makes it more probable that Jesus was a real historical figure than that William Tell was a real historical figure (though probably both of them were real historical figures).

William Tell had a career of at least 40 years performing his heroic deeds and earning his reputation as a rebel hero and master bow-and-arrow sharpshooter. But the public life of Jesus was short (probably only one year long), and so he did not have a long period in which to establish his reputation. Therefore, there is no way to explain how the historic Jesus had enough time to become mythologized into a popular hero figure.

So there is no analogy to William Tell which casts doubt on whether Jesus was a real historic figure or on whether he really performed the deeds attributed to him in the NT.

There is this parallel between the two legends: As historical figures, both of them must have done something noteworthy to become memorialized and made into later legends. It is easy to see what William Tell did and how he became mythologized. But it is difficult to identify what the original Jesus did to cause himself to become made into a god, unless we consider that the miracle acts really did happen -- then we have an explanation how he became mythologized into a god.


No, Confucius was a real historic figure who had a long teaching career of at least 40 years. There's plenty of historical documentation of his life.

During his long teaching career he was able to accumulate a large following of disciples who preserved his teachings and passed them on to future generations, and he was partly mythologized by them putting their words into his mouth.

There is no analogy here to Jesus. No one ever attributed miracles to Confucius, which surely is strong evidence that he never performed such acts. And, whereas we can explain how Confucius became honored and made into a revered wise man during his long career of teaching, we cannot explain how Jesus became mythologized into a great teacher and miracle-worker, since his public life was so short.


There's an inaccuracy in the phrase "several originally unrelated movements." These might have been separate groups, but all of them were crusading for the same cause (elimination of labor-saving machines) and so they were related groups within a tightly-knit narrowly-focused social movement.

Also, the "contradictory traditions" means only that there were various conflicting stories about the character, but not that there were contentions or contradictions among the followers as to the nature of their crusade. In that respect, they were all in lock-step.

Nevertheless, congratulations! -- you have succeeded in coming up with a legend hero who became mythologized by only about 30 years from his reputed lifetime, who had a very short public career, if any public career at all, and who was a complete nobody, whose only claim to fame is that he once smashed a machine with a hammer. You are credited with having found an extremely rare case. His case resembles that of the Jesus legend in these three points, and maybe these two legends are the only such cases.

Can we then say that this is the kind of thing that happened in the case of Jesus, and so the Jesus legend is not unique or extraordinary and the tradition of Jesus the miracle-worker is smashed to pieces? Good try, but no cigar! We don't even need a hammer to bust this analogy, only a dustpan to scoop up the pieces.

Did the Luddites, or the Ludd fanatics, really believe Ned Ludd was leading their movement and was doing all the things they attributed to him in their stories? In all seriousness, they did not believe he was there physically leading their movement and signing letters, and so on. They used his name because they had to find a fictional name rather than that of a real person, in order to avoid getting arrested.

So for the most part, these fanatics did not really believe the tales they were spreading about their hero. They knew he was really only a symbol. Yes, yes, you can insist there were some deranged ones among them who really believed it literally, but you know the majority of them did not believe Ned Ludd literally was leading their movement. They were using this name and this legendary character for a political crusade.

(There were probably a few (mostly women?) who said things like "This is what Ned would want," or "We know Ned is really with us in spirit," and so on, but you know most of them didn't take it literally -- they just used such language to pep themselves up.)

It is clear precisely what the Luddites wanted, and they used the legend character to put forth their demands, and it hardly mattered to them whether this Ned Ludd character really existed or whether anyone took the tales of him seriously.

But in the case of the Jesus believers and the gospel writers, there's every indication they believed in the Jesus character literally, including all the particular reputed acts he did. A correct analogy to the Jesus case would require finding a legend character who really was believed by large numbers to be a real historical figure and really doing or having done all the acts being attributed to him.

The Luddite fanatics who adopted this hero figure were a very limited segment of the society, a tiny special-interest group with a very specific political agenda -- unlike the early "converts" to the new Jesus figure, who were a widely diverse collection of differing types who were not pursuing a narrow political agenda. It is easy for a tightly-knit band of fanatics to rally around a mythical hero and go on a rampage.

But the Jesus gang was widely dispersed and not at all united around any common banner or crusade. What force would drive them all to rally around this one mythic hero? There needs to be a commonality, a united cause or crusade which all the members of the group identify with -- for the Luddites it was really a war, between the workers and the companies replacing them with machines.

Yes, some of the Jesus crusaders also were at war, but not all of them, or even most, and there was not a common enemy. The Jesus followers were coming from different directions ideologically -- they were not all of one interest group or one sect or class. They were very divided, and it is unrealistic to think they all rallied together around the messiah figure and mythologized him in any sense that the Luddites rallied around Ned Ludd.

It is easy to envision the Luddites coalescing around their banner and symbols, including the mythic Ned Ludd, and encouraging each other to stay true to the cause and honor their hero -- the unity and cohesion is an essential element ("Solidarity forever!").

But what was there of this in the early Jesus movement? What was its crusade? What was the common cause that all the believers in Jesus rallied in support of? There are hundreds of interpretations. The "Christians" never really came together solidly, or at least not in the early period.

You could say the mediaeval Crusaders resemble the Luddites in cohesive fanaticism, but not the Jesus activists in the 1st century -- they were all over the map, no cohesion, no clear-cut unifying agenda. Thus, there was lacking the driving force to create a mythic hero to lead them to victory over the bad guys. Yes, each faction had its bad guys, but the early Jesus activists never were unified against any common enemy like the Luddites were.

Now a still further difference between the Ludd and Jesus legends is that Jesus got mythologized into a god and a miracle-worker, whereas Ludd got mythologized into perhaps a "general" leading the Luddite army and into a writer of belligerent letters, which is hardly anything really unusual or noteworthy. They just pretended he was their captain or "general" leading the charge against the enemy.

It's not so difficult to mythologize your hero if you're not attributing miracles to him or superhuman feats, but just eulogizing him and pretending he's doing some normal acts that could easily be done anyway. He was "leading the charge" but not doing anything superhuman.

So for a mythic hero legend to be likened to the Jesus legend, it would have to be the case that the followers truly believe their tales of the mythic hero they are rallying around, which the Luddites mostly did not, and the movement must be more than just an obvious limited special-interest gang of united fanatics rallying around the mythic hero only to promote an obvious narrow political agenda, and also there needs to be something really sensational, such as supernormal acts, attributed to the hero.

So the Ned Ludd case illustrates how a fictional hero may emerge in a certain unusual set of circumstances, one of these being a very narrow agenda suited to a special interest group on a crusade easily recognized in terms of a specific identifiable goal.

But the Jesus case (if it is fictional) is unique, because: 1) The mythic hero is popularized in only a short time after his alleged historical time slot, 2) he is a nobody, 3) he is truly believed by the followers to be a real historic figure, 4) his followers rally around the hero from divergent directions, i.e., from different and even conflicting classes and ideological camps and political agendas, 5) his public career is unusually short, and 6) he is credited with performing supernormal acts.

Most of the above conditions (1, 2, 4, 5) work against a person becoming mythologized into a god, or wise teacher or prophet, or into a miracle-worker.

For example, point 4 works as a disadvantage to getting oneself promoted to miracle-worker status via mythologizing, i.e., if the followers of the hero are united in a single cause and are fanatically driven toward a common goal, like the Luddites were, then they will fervently mythologize the hero in order to promote their common goal. But if they are divided and squabbling with one another and pursuing separate goals, then they have less inspiration to mythologize and deify the hero.

So with the above disadvantages working against him, Jesus still became made into a god. This is difficult to explain if the miracle acts are ruled out. Whereas it is generally easy to explain how a legendary figure got mythologized into something fictional, and it is easy to dismiss the tales that attribute unusual feats to the hero.

aa5874

Well, once it is probably the case and can be proven that 99% of miracle stories are false then it can be claimed with reasonable certainty that Jesus did no miracles.

And further, the miracles that Jesus supposedly did can be examined and it will be seen that his method of healing was totally implausible.

Look at the recorded method of Jesus for making the blind see, he would typically spit on the person's eyes or face. It would be a miracle today if anyone's blindness was corrrected by spit.

Virtually all of Jesus supposed miracles were accomplished by simply talking. Just imagine for a moment this most incredulous outrageous improbability.

Lazarus was dead for four days, only a madman would try to talk to a dead man.

Jesus said to the dead man, (dead men can hear?), Lazarus come forth!

The dead man heard and obeyed the commands of Jesus.

Jesus was in trouble, 100% of his miracles could never be re-created in the field.

One miracle saved Jesus, it was the miracle of Constantine.

Constantine made Jesus an official God of the Roman Empire.

Miracles do happen.

By the way, magicians are not in the "faith healing" industry, they entertain people with illusions for a fee. Magicians typically do not get invovle with medical problems.

Toto

Not every reasonable assumption is true. The consensus of scholars is that William Tell is legendary, with no recoverable historical core.

Unless, of course, neither were historical figures, and the written accounts were placed in a previous historical period. That would make the length of time totally irrelevant, no?

<snip more repetition>

Where is there plenty of historical documentation? Modern scholars think that the figure of Confucius was invented by the Jesuit missionaries, or was an insignficant warrier who became the center of a growing legend. Either one of these possibilities contradicts you thesis here. Please check this out: Confucius and the scholars

According to Jensen, the Jesuits invented the very word "Confucius," a Latinization of Kongfuzi ("Very Reverend Master Kong") -- itself an appellation not found in ru literature (which called the sage simply Kongzi, or "Master Kong"), although it is occasionally found on the "spirit tablets" honoring him in ru temples. Jensen does not believe that Kongzi even existed. "I think he's a literary trope," Jensen says. "He's a figure who came to stand for certain things." Jensen is currently researching the possibility that Kongzi -- whose birth, like that of Jesus, is the subject of many miraculous tales -- had his origins as a mythological figure of ancient Chinese fertility cults.

This example comes from the first meeting of the Jesus Project, if you follow my original link. Who knows what the second meeting will come up with?

The Luddites really did believe that Ludd existed. The gospel writers, on the other hand, may or may not have believed that everything they wrote was literal, earthly fact, as opposed to theological truthiness. Certainly, Matthew and Luke and John seem to have drawn on Mark for details of Jesus' career, but felt free to alter them for their own theological purposes.

How do you know that the converts to the new Jesus figure were diverse or what their agenda was? I think you are just assuming that because it might have happened.

What do you actually know about Jesus activists in the first century?

Not really. You keep typing, but you aren't getting anywhere.

spamandham

The basis of this thread is the idea that Jesus performed miracles. If all you really mean is that he healed people in ways most people of his time didn't understand and thus considered miraculous...that seems to me to be a fundamentally different idea from the OP.

Are you talking about acts that would appear even to us as miraculous, or not?

freetrader

show_no_mercy:

On the contrary, it seems they did, because no one so far can explain how these miracle stories could have developed later.


So by that criterion you could say half the Christians in the 19th century didn't believe in any miracle-performing Jesus.

You're forgetting about the oral tradition. Every indication is that the story of Jesus, including the miracle stories, was passed mostly by word-of-mouth. Up until about AD 50 (if not later) it was almost all word-of-mouth.


This looks like mostly your own social theorizing being cut and pasted onto Paul. But let's assume Paul's message contained something of this revolutionary turning-the-tables theme and bringing down the powerful. This was not any new idea -- "Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain made low" and so on. In a sense you could say there was fertile ground for these ideas far back into prehistoric times, when one tribe dominated others, or where one clique or dynasty or tribal chieftain lorded it over the others.

Even 30 million years ago when prehumans were swinging by their tails from tree branches there were those who dominated over others and were sometimes overthrown and killed by rebels who wrested power away from the current dominating group. "Why do they have power instead of me?" is no doubt a primitive universal sentiment, and actually it is probably held by the middle and even upper classes as much as by the lower classes, because everyone in the social hierarchy imagines they've been gyped by those higher up and that those above them are undeserving to be up there and should be brought low.

To suppose that the reiteration of these sentiments in some novel form by Paul or by the gospel writers explains how the new "gospel" caught on fire and made Jesus into a miracle worker is ludicrous. A mere repetition of such old, even prehistoric, sentiments, put into some new words by a fancy preacher, a kind of "special formula" new improved WHINING -- this is what transformed Jesus from a nobody into a miracle-worker and even a god? No, you have to come up with something better than this.

The true sequence of events is more likely the opposite: Any new hope for some "revolt" or turning-the-tables on those in power began with a nobody who actually did perform miracle acts, and from this there was a new hope sparked in people, not a new revolutionary sentiment (which already existed ages ago), but rather a new hope of that sentiment soon being fulfilled, or a new belief that a revolutionary change was now actually POSSIBLE when it was not before. Without the show of power to begin with, there would be no reason for the new hope, or no impetus to set that hope in motion. This is by far the more plausible explanation.


What is needed is a show of power, something to show people that there is something more powerful than the current ruling order, and that the possibility of overturning the conditions of suffering and oppression does exist. A miracle-performing Jesus does show there is something more powerful and gives reason for hope, and so could inspire a new wave of anticipation that things will change.

There is nothing else in the Jesus story to suggest how any such new hope could have taken hold. And Paul's only role in this was to expound on this new hope and keep it going. He didn't invent anything new, like the "resurrection" or the Christ figure -- he only expounded upon a new hope originating in the risen Jesus story already known and circulating by word-of-mouth.


If he had no power, then there is no basis for any salvation claim. Without the real power being demonstrated, there is nothing but more preaching, more empty words, more babbling prophets, more whining, none of which changes anything. This leaves unanswered what it was that caused any interest in this unknown Galilean figure in the first place.

Perhaps you are saying that Paul or someone here found a new form of babbling that was more effective than the earlier babbling, and so all of a sudden there's some new wave of hope for change, or a new era of whining is introduced -- somehow a higher-quality whining than existed before. And so somehow this caused them to make Jesus into a miracle-worker.

However, there's very little in Paul to base this on. You used the word αρχες (or αρχας) -- I looked it up. You seem to interpret it as "oppressors" or "oppressive rulers" or some such thing. There are only 2 (3?) instances where Paul uses it to mean anything resembling that.

It's usually translated as "principalities" or "sovereignties" and refers to some kind of heavenly or cosmic powers or kingdoms rather than to earthly kings or slave-owners or tyrants or oppressive husbands and so on. Usually it just means "beginning" but Paul uses it also to mean "principalities" and only rarely uses it in a way to suggest that these entities are to be suppressed or conquered or beaten down.

So there is virtually nothing in Paul's letters to give encouragement to the oppressed (slaves, abused wives, etc.) that a messiah figure is coming to put down their oppressors and liberate them from the αρχας. But aside from the fact that this message really is not to be found in Paul, as you imagine, still, even if it was there somehow, oppressed people need something more than mere babble or empty words to give them hope. They need to see something of substance to show truly that there is hope for liberation.

So if Jesus actually did perform the miracle healing acts, such as described in the gospels, and if this story ("good news") was circulating, then yes, this would give some real hope to suffering people who dreamed about the possibility of a better life or a new world order in which the pains and injustices might be overcome. But only a real display of power to put an end to the suffering would have any impact on them, not just empty words and promises with nothing concrete behind it.

And further, there is no reason to suggest that Paul targeted his message only to the lowest classes and the most oppressed and most uneducated populations. His basic message of resurrection and salvation was directed to all classes, equally to rich and poor and to the literate and illiterate and to the powerful and the powerless.

He was not saying, "You have nothing to lose but your chains! Workers of the world UNITE!" No, that's not Paul, or Jesus. We'd like to put our 19th- and 20th- and 21st-century words into their mouths, but you can't fit a round peg into a square hole.


The absence of miracle stories of Jesus in these writings tells us nothing about whether those stories existed. You could also name theological writings of today where the miracles are not mentioned -- these stories are to be found only in the narrative accounts about Jesus, not in the sermons.

The above writings you name are dated mostly after the gospel accounts were written. You think those writers were unaware of those miracle stories? They knew about them and so did their readers, and it was because of that tradition, oral and written, containing the miracle accounts of Jesus, that they believed Jesus was important and should be worshipped as a god.

In the Book of Acts there is virtually no mention of the miracles of Jesus, after the ascension in chapter 1 (only one obscure reference in 10:38). Yet the author(s) of Acts without question believed in those miracle stories of Jesus, and when Jesus is mentioned, it is always the miracle-worker they're referring to. These miracle healings are always assumed to be a part of the original picture of Jesus. It isn't necessary to refer to these stories or recount them when they are already well known and are found in other sources.

And when those stories are removed, it becomes unclear just who the Jesus is who's being talked about. Who is this character? He loses an essential part of his identity when those stories are eliminate from the picture. Who wants to listen to him? Who cares what he says? He's just another babbling prophet.