jonJ

Let's turn the argument around for a moment. You are an opportunist who wants to reap the fame and fortune that comes from spearheading a new religion. As the protagonist of your religion do you select:

a) A famous recent sage who was well known by a large number of educated people, most of whom could provide documented stories of his actions and sayings?

b) An obscure sage from the relatively distant past, whose actions and sayings were known -- or claimed to be known -- only by you and a few cronies, and hence could be easily manipulated into whatever form was expedient to further the growth of your religion at that place and time?

This is a plausible answer to your question: 'why did Christianity grow so fast when it originated with someone so obscure?' It is because Christ was so obscure that Paul and his followers were quickly able to come up with examples and miracles and Scripture that would convince their targets, without running the risk of having someone come along and say: "Look, I knew Jesus, I wrote down what he said, and he didn't say that at all." Perhaps this is why Christianity was able to survive and grow as a unit for several centuries while Islam had its first major schism shortly after Mohammed's death. The key to Christianity's success has been its enormous flexibility; and it's much easier to be flexible when your key figure is a malleable myth.

freetrader

Responses to Diogenes the Cynic:


No, this is relevant, because in these cases you're claiming are analogous to the Jesus case, the miracle-worker figure in question was a celebrity or popular figure who had a wide reputation, and this explains what caused the mythologizing process to take place, whereas in the case of Jesus no such explanation is available.

People were prepared to believe the popular figure did miracles, because they were already attracted to him, and his many promoters had an incentive to invent the stories for his benefit. This explains how the stories took hold and could easily be circulated. Without the wide reputation of the popular figure to begin with, and his large "army" of promoters or admirers, it would not be possible for any mythologizing process to get started and take hold.

So you're wrong to say it's "irrelevant" that these popular figures you're talking about had a wide reputation and that Jesus did not -- this widespread popularity they enjoyed is the driving force behind the mythologizing process that propelled them to "miracle-worker status" and without which they would not have acquired such a reputation.

You can't just give people a nobody figure and tell them this nothing did miracles and expect them to believe it without providing them with real eye witnesses or a real demonstration of his power, i.e., unless it's actually true and there is strong evidence to convince them, such as having them see him do a miracle act which they can witness directly.

So it makes a big difference that the examples you name were well-known figures or that they enjoyed a long public career in which to accumulate a large following. Such was not the case with Jesus, and so they are not comparable to him, and whereas we can explain how the fictional stories accumulated around those figures, we cannot do the same in the case of Jesus.


Well there have been many amateur magicians who could perform magic tricks. This isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about healing acts, where an afflicted person is really cured, such as someone known to have been crippled or blind being completely cured. It's not true that lots of complete nobodies were believed to have that kind of power to heal.

What you might have in mind is someone who is believed to have done one healing act seen by 1 or 2 witnesses, but that was all. In other words, only some minor case where the number of "miracle" acts and witnesses was very small and negligible.


No they aren't. What kind of examples are you talking about? You mean like your next-door neighbor doing a card trick? That's not what we're talking about here.


First there were the direct witnesses. For them, the only needed verification would be that of confirming that the healed one had really been afflicted earlier and was cured of it afterward. Although this might be difficult to do in a scientifically-controlled laboratory experiment, it could be confirmed by those who knew the victim who was healed and witnessed the change in his or her condition.

Also these witnesses are close enough to either confirm that the cure took place or that a staged healing was performed by actors who were trying to deceive the onlookers, i.e., the victim was an actor who pretended to have been afflicted and then later pretended to have been healed. In that case the onlookers could not verify that the event they witnessed was for real and not staged by the actors.

I would concede to you the possibility that someone wanting to promote a scam could have paid people to do these performances -- they could have held training sessions or rehearsals and given them a script to memorize and hired directors to teach the victims how to do the right facial expressions and so on. And there's probably no reasonable way to expect the witnesses to verify that this was not happening, assuming the promoters of the staged scenes had an elaborate plan to deceive the onlookers.

This is an example of a "naturalistic explanation" which is so unlikely that a "miracle" healing is really more probable. A Hollywood production is a possibility that would be explainable in terms of our existing scientific knowledge, but such a scenario is so ridiculous to imagine that a "miracle" healing is really more likely.

Now in addition to the direct eye witnesses, there were also the 2nd-hand and 3rd-hand witnesses who heard it from the direct witnesses. These indirect witnesses could verify it by checking with the direct witnesses. So they would verify that there were direct witnesses, but not verify the event directly. This verification also increases the probability that the events did really take place.

The more verification the better. But there is no such thing as absolute scientific verification such as is performed in a research lab with all the variables put under control. By this rigid scientifically-controlled verification, nothing we know from history can be verified. All the verification we have for anything is testimony from indirect witnesses in most cases, and in a very few cases we have eye-witness testimony in documents.

But even in the case of documents, we have to believe in the reliability of the documents or in the researchers who turned up the documents. So there is no real fullproof scientific verification of any events from history.


I agree there has to be a verifying element. But again, total irrefutable scientific verification of anything from history is not possible. We have the same verification for the miracle healings of Jesus that we have for millions of probable events from history. And I agree that we don't have the same degree of verification for it that we have for something like the assassination of Caesar and so on.

But there are many events from history that don't require that degree of verification in order to be credible. It's difficult to rank each event of history according to the degree of verification for it or the degree of probability. But theoretically there could be such a ranking.


Paul was writing to people who didn't need any more proof. His purpose was to elaborate on the resurrection which he knew his readers already believed in. If Paul had used his writing to give proofs of the resurrection, such as citing witnesses to it, it would have distracted from his purpose. His function was to elaborate on the resurrection, i.e., to promote his philosophy or christology, using the resurrection, or the existing belief in it, as a jumping-off point.


This is just a semantics argument. To dispose of it we can just reword the topic. The exact wording of our topic is not what matters, so we can reword it as follows: Maybe the historical Jesus really did perform healing acts not within the paramaters of standard human medical science.

This wording can be superimposed upon all the arguments posted on this topic without changing the substance of the debate. Where the word "miracle" is used, it can be understood to refer to the healing acts Jesus performed but without insisting that they meet the technical definition of "miracle," so that word is used only as a convenience to identify those particular acts.

In a few places where this rewording might impact on the essence of the argument, those points could be rehashed in order to make it refer to those healing acts Jesus did which were not within the parameters of known medical science. I think actually the rewording does not really impact on any of the arguments posted, except where I tried to define "miracle" in one or two places, in which case the only need is to adjust some wording.

The definition of "miracle" has never been the issue, but just whether these particular acts took place, whatever you choose to call them.

Real arguments are not settled by quibbling over the words.


The more probable should be preferred to the less probable. I've already given an example of this. I'll repeat it:

One hypothesis is that the healing acts were staged, like a Hollywood production. Actors were recruited and paid to play the role of victims who posed as paralytics and so on. The schemers did a very elaborate job of scripting each healing scene and did a very slick job of fooling the onlookers. Plus they were ready with their props and "extras" and stage hands to be able to handle any spontaneous happening.

They had thugs standing nearby to prevent any real victims from being brought before Jesus to be healed. These intruders were quickly attacked and removed from the scene, perhaps beaten and killed and the body disposed of and replaced by a hired actor who was fixed up to resemble that same person, i.e., a duplicate, who then was taken before Jesus to play out the role of being healed, so the onlookers would be impressed. Later some of the acquaintances of that victim might also have been attacked and killed to remove them so they would not discover that the duplication had taken place.

With enough preparation and advance rehearsing of the scenes, and with a sufficiently large amount of funding to be able to pay the actors and thugs and other operatives, this staging conspiracy could have been carried out and would have been done totally in accord with the principes of known human science, without any "miracle" acts taking place.

So this would be a scientific explanation, or "naturalistic explanation" of how the healing events took place, and according to you would be classified in the "possible" category and so would be preferred over an "impossible" hypothesis that real healing acts happened which were outside the paramaters of known medical science.

However, this "scientific" hypothesis, though within the parameters of known science, is less probable than the hypothesis proposed in our topic, that the acts done by Jesus were real healing acts performed outside the parameters of known medical science.

In this case the "possible" hypothesis is just too ridiculous to give it a probability of even 1% and is less likely than the "impossible" hypothesis that there may be healing techniques not yet known by science.


There are probably many small indicators that the "initial notoriety" of Jesus contained a claim that he performed paranormal acts.

I will give one which I happened to stumble upon when I studied the accounts of the trial of Jesus in the synoptic gospels. This is a very fine point and will require some space to present it, however it is a very clear indication that the historical Jesus had a reputation for being able to perform paranormal acts.

In this incident, during the ordeal of Jesus just after being condemned by Pilate, something happens which shows that the guards beating him believed he had claimed the ability to see through solid material blocking his vision, or rather, they believed he had a reputation for having such an ability, though the guards themselves mocked him for it and probably assumed it wasn't true.

These three texts also illustrate that the gospel writers were trying to pay attention to the reports they had of this event and were not contriving the account totally from their own inventiveness, even if some parts of it were added by them. In other words, they had accounts which they tried at times to follow faithfully even if they did not understand the exact details being reported.

The three texts are Mt. 26:67-68, Mk. 14:65, and Lk. 22:63-64.

I'll give them all here for convenient reference:

Mt. 26:67-68: Then they spat in his face and struck him, while some slapped him, saying, "Prophesy for us, Messiah: who is it that struck you?"

Mk. 14:65: Some began to spit on him. They blindfolded him and struck him and said to him, "Prophesy!" And the guards greeted him with blows.

Lk. 22:63-64: The men who held Jesus in custody were ridiculing and beating him. They blindfolded him and questioned him, saying, "Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?"

These 3 texts are obviously reporting the same particular incident.

What is meant by the question, "Who is it that struck you?" Doesn't this question seem a little odd?

The explanation seems clear by looking at all three texts. They first blindfolded him and then struck him and asked him which of them had struck him. How could he know without being able to see through the blindfold?

Notice that Matthew seems to miss the point because he leaves out the blindfolding. What was the writer of Matthew thinking when he wrote "Prophesy for us, Messiah: who is it that struck you?" He must not have understood the point, or he would have included the blindfolding as part of the scene, but he included the question anyway because it was in his source, whatever that source was. He stayed faithful to the source and just gave that quote.

Notice also that Mark seems to miss the point, because he leaves out the question "Who is it that struck you?" and just quotes the command from the guards "Prophesy!" What was Mark thinking when he gave the quote "Prophesy!" He misses the point of it by leaving out the question of who did the striking.

The word "prophesy" or "prophecy" etc. refers not only to predicting future events, but also to any revealing of some kind of information that is supposed to be hidden or secret or not known by ordinary means. The use of this word here obviously is a demand that Jesus demonstrate some power to see through the blindfold and discern which of the guards it was that struck him.

And yet Matthew and Mark did not include this episode here in order to convey any such idea, because each of them leaves out an essential part of this scene of Jesus being assaulted by the guards. So without being aware of it, these two gospel writers are conveying this piece of information to us, that the guards wanted Jesus to demonstrate his paranormal ability to see through the blindfold.

Meanwhile, the writer of Luke apparently understood the point and gave all three elements -- the blindfolding, the beating, and the demand that Jesus tell them which one struck him.

How else can you explain this reported episode unless you assume that it really happened similarly to the given description and that the guards believed there was a rumor that Jesus had some paranormal abilities, such as the ability to see through solid objects?

So here is evidence that Jesus had a reputation for being able to perform paranormal acts. And there is no way to dispute this as being a later insertion into the text, because any later editor adding this would certainly have included the details of both the blindfolding and the question put to Jesus about which guard had struck him.

And probably there are other indicators also that Jesus had this reputation. I happened to stumble upon this one as I did a detailed study of the trial episode.


No, there's no basis for that conclusion. There are references to Jesus doing "miracles" in the earliest written record we have.


Yes, and likewise all other famous miracle-workers. Jesus is the only example of a reputed miracle-worker for whom there is evidence of him having this reputation in the earliest sources.

Except possibly some celebrated cases of someone famous in his lifetime, like Vespasian or Sai Baba or Edgar Cayce or Nostradamus, who all had very long public careers and plenty of time to accumulate a following of worshippers or disciples, and these ones were inspired to do the mythologizing. But Jesus got snuffed out before having time to accumulate such a following.

I want to reiterate that nothing compels us to reject ALL miracle stories of reputed hero figures other than Jesus. In some cases they may really have demonstrated some uncanny ability to predict the future or read someone's mind or do some limited healing acts. You have to consider each case individually.

Toto

I think that freetrader has run out of arguments, so he keeps repeating them.

The idea that the blindfolding of Jesus has some historican basis is implausible, especially if you are trying to argue that only the latest gospel got all the details right. There is a better explanation from a Christian theologian: here:

read more at the link.

spamandham

No there weren't. All we have are fictional stories that claim there were eyewitnesses....hundreds of them even! What absurd nonsense this is.

You have a built-in bullshit detector. Use it.

Amaleq13

Who said Jesus' original disciples were normal? I would say they were unusually devoted. You are trying too hard to avoid the obvious.

Paul and Acts says they did.

I'm getting tired of these inane and irrelevant questions and I'm not going to spend any time explaining why people feel the need to share their faith or why people need something to convince them.

Demonstration of apparently divine powers = credibility to the gullible.

No, Jesus was a nobody because he only played small venues. His followers made him famous.

Really? You haven't the faintest clue what the word might mean in this context? How do you manage to operate a computer? Stop this nonsense.

He doesn't say. Perhaps he took issue with the notion of a crucified criminal being held up as the messiah?

No, Paul was quite successful in spreading his beliefs. When are you going to read your Bible?

Except human nature.

God-fearing gentiles. Do you know the significance of that term? Paul does not preach about a Jesus "who had done nothing". Please try to pay attention to what your Bible tells you.

Oh, you've already been given explanations for all your relevant questions but nobody can provide you an understanding. And that is especially true if, as it appears, you have no genuine interest in obtaining it.

Even been to an Evangelical service? Human nature. A mostly gullible and superstitious species. All we can do is try to educate some out of it. Some, like yourself, fight and claw against such efforts.

You need to reread my posts. That is not my position.

That isn't what Paul or Acts describes. Or Josephus. Nobodies become somebodies by doing something unexpected like perform a "miracle".

You clearly have not thought this through. I'm tired of pretending you are genuinely interested in an intelligent discussion. :wave:

freetrader

Responses to Diogenes the Cynic:


So why can't anyone name another such reputed healer contemporary to Jesus (or anywhere between 100 BC - 100 AD)? No one here has put forth any other serious example, despite the numerous claims that such reputed healers or magicians were all over the place.

Sure, if you dig deep enough into Josephus you can drag out a name or two, but there's virtually nothing written about them other than the one short excerpt from Josephus. And in the case of Apollonius there's no reference to him until 200 years later, and it all comes from one source only, so that's not a serious example.

Also there is no case to be made that reputed healers or miracle-workers were any more characteristic of this period or this Jewish culture than of any other period or culture. Other cultures and other periods of history also had their miracle stories and wonder-workers. If you compare to other cultures, those without a written language did not leave documents of their stories, but those with written languages, like India and China and the Greeks and Romans all did leave a tradition of miracle stories which included healers and other such heroes.

So although a few examples of miracle-workers can be found, as with any culture of that era or any other era, apparently no one of their time took them seriously enough to write accounts of their acts (except in the case of Jesus). Maybe a few of them really did perform something unusual, but whatever it was was so seldom or so minor that it went mostly unnoticed and left little impact.

You can't escape the obvious fact that the case of Jesus stands out from other cases of reputed miracle workers in history. Jesus performed so many healing acts, or alleged healing acts, that it left a strong impact on the large number of direct eye witnesses and also indirect witnesses who knew the ones healed or otherwise learned of these acts through 2nd-hand testimony. How else can we explain the written accounts and the unique widespread reputation so soon after he left the scene?

It is simply not true that there are other examples of such healers which are comparable. Those who say there are such examples do not name any because any one case they cite is such a poor comparison.

Further, simply showing other examples of reputed healers doesn't prove or disprove anything. If any of those cases are really convincing, then perhaps there is some truth in the claims that they did such acts. If there were eye witnesses and reports of the acts near to the time of the alleged events, then it's more credible.

So what do you prove by saying there were other cases? If they are credible, then so be it -- maybe they're also true. If not, then they are not comparable to the case of Jesus. So such an argument is really a total dead end that means nothing.


Doesn't prove it, no. But if there are many reports or eye witness accounts or other evidences, then there is an increased probability that there is some truth in the claims.

But aside from actual miraculous events taking place, there are other possible explanations for the cases you might come up with, such as a widespread reputation or celebrity status achieved by the supposed miracle-worker and the large number of followers or admirers he accumulated over a long career of giving speeches or otherwise influencing people, resulting in his becoming mythologized.

But in the case of Jesus there was no long career and no wide reputation (during his life) or large following outside the direct witnesses, so we can't easily explain how he became so mythologized into a miracle healer, and so a reasonable conclusion is that he actually did perform the "miracle" healing acts. If he did not, then it's very difficult to explain how he acquired the reputation. Despite the attempts, no one yet has given a plausible explanation.

Of course you can dogmatically rule out that such acts can ever be done, regardless of any evidence, and using this dogma as your premise you can draw the prescribed conclusion that Jesus could not have done the healing acts. Obviously you can prove any case by imposing a dogmatic premise that what you're trying to prove has to be true by fiat.


In a few cases maybe the performer actually does demonstrate some unusual power which can't be explained yet by standard science. Sometimes a performer actually does possess some unusual talent, but then this becomes exaggerated or sensationalized and marketed as something more than it really is.

Some successful mediums and astrologers demonstrate an apparent uncanny ability to read the mind of their subject, which cannot always be attributed to trickery. But their explanation for this is that they read the stars or communicate with the dead. While such explanations have virtually no credibility, still it is a real possibility that they demonstrated an unusual mind-reading talent which so far defies mainline science.

So just because there's exaggeration or deception doesn't mean there's no truth at all to the possibility of a paranormal ability shown by the performer. A successful performer of this kind has many talents, among which may be a genuine talent in some cases to do something of a "paranormal" nature such as reading signals from a subject's mind.

To always be skeptical is appropriate, but not to simplisticly dismiss all claims about any paranormal acts as false only because some cases are known to involve an element of deception and exaggeration or because there's a market for magicians. This gives reason for skepticism in looking at alleged cases but does not automatically disprove all claims of "miracle" healings or other paranormal acts.

The rational response is to give more credibility to those cases which stand out from the others and don't fit in with the pattern of reputed "miracle" events where the "naturalistic" explanation is easy to identify, such as cases where a recognized celebrity or traditional hero figure is credited with having done supernatural deeds.

Huon

If JC had not been a reputed healer, perhaps freetrader would not be a christian (?).

gdeering

Which includes today, although I would submit that they are more prevalent in less free-thinking, more religious and superstitious parts of the world.

More importantly your logic can be extended to your other argument: Likelihood of anyone performing miracles today = 0. Likelihood of anyone performing miracles around the year "0" = 0.

Gregg

Amaleq13

freetrader's argument essentially boils down to the No True Scotsman fallacy. There can be no example sufficiently similar to Jesus because he will always be able to find a difference he can pretend is significant and that is clearly the way he prefers it.

freetrader

Responses to Amaleq13:


So all testimony in court from witnesses who report what they saw is unreliable, and all cases involving testimoney from witnesses should be thrown out.


So in your logic class they taught you to disbelieve everything anyone ever told you about what they experienced. I took two logic classes in college and neither of them taught any such nonsense.


By your standard, most history that is taught in classes and in history books has to be dismissed as unsubstantiated gossip.


The accounts in the NT are evidence that the events happened. This anecdotal evidence is "credible support" for the claims, though not all the claims are equally credible. Like any other source, it is not proof, but it is evidence.

This is the same kind of evidence we accept for most claims by historians that certain events happened. But by your standard, nothing from history could be verified and would have to be rejected as gossip. Most or all of our history is based on anecdotes which cannot be verified scientifically.


And thus you must throw out 98% of all recorded history. No, that is not rational thought. We can know history through the millions of anecdotes that historians rely on for most of their information from the past.

You're wrong to imply that all history books are unreliable and there is no basis for any knowledge of history.


Every history book is "unsubstantiated gossip" by your standard.


No, yours are too high, because you reject all claims about the past based on anyone's personal experience or witness or on documents about what someone witnessed.


By your standard, every claim about what happened in the past is "unsubstantiated" because it is based on anecdotes. There can be no "confirmed" case because there is no way we or scientists can "confirm" the anecdotes upon which history is based.

I.e., scientists today cannot "confirm" that Julius Caesar was assassinated, because this is based only on anecdotes which cannot be investigated and verified.


Yes, all history must be thrown out by this standard. It's not just the reputed miracles of Jesus which you have to throw out, but ALL claims of any events in history. The only basis for believing some of them is that there is accumulated anecdotal evidence for them. So more anecdotes do increase the probability of it being true.


My approach is that when a document says something happened and was witnessed by people, that is a small piece of evidence that the event did happen. I agree that it is not proof. But each additional report of the event or similar events is further evidence.

Also if the reputed event is highly irregular, then more evidence is required than for a normal event. But accumulated evidence, such as further anecdotes, increases the credibility even for an irregular event.

On the other hand, your approach is either 1) ALL anecdotes are unreliable and everything based on them must be rejected, and therefore there is no knowledge of anything in history; or 2) All anecdotes must be rejected if the event is something irregular, so therefore no irregular or unusual events can ever happen in history, but normal or regular events only.

Your approach is less rational than mine, because unusual or irregular events can happen and cannot be dogmatically ruled out as you insist on doing. Reason must make allowance for unusual events.


But what substantiation can there be other than further anecdotes that the event did happen and that witnesses saw it? No claims of anything in history can be "supported" by anything except anecdotes from witnesses or indirect reports of what someone witnessed. Give any example of an historical fact that is not based on the "bare existence" of the claims or anecdotes? What other "support" can there be?


Does the medical profession have any more than this? In a very few cases you might be able to prove that a particular treatment actually cured a patient. But the vast majority of "healing" by the medical profession is based on "unsubstantiated gossip" by the patients and providers. Virtually none of it can be substantiated or verified scientifically.


There are plenty of investigations which claim to have found support. The promoters of transcendental meditation claim there have been many scientific proofs that their methods work.

There are hundreds of alternative healing arts which claim to have been scientifically verified in rigid scientific testing. And just because they have their percentage of failures proves nothing -- standard mainline medicine also has its long list of failures.

The vast majority of patients who seek standard medical treatment are not "cured" but either recover or die just the same even if they had received no treatment, with the only difference being that the treatment either extends their life for a few months longer or it suppresses the pain somewhat.

To believe standard medicine really heals patients requires a leap of faith, for the vast majority of treatments. And if you throw out the anecdotes, there is no evidence at all.


It is equally problematic for the claims of standard medical science. Why do you impose a different standard on alternative healing than you do on standard medicine? Or do you also reject the claims of standard medical science to perform healing?


What known facts? How can there be "known facts" that something did not happen that someone claims happened? Some cancer patients recovered who were not supposed to recover. According to the "known facts" they could not have recovered, and yet they did, according to the anecdotes. In some of these cases the anecdotes are the truth and the "known facts" are simply wrong.

Just because something is irregular or improbable does not mean it has to be ruled out in all reported cases. If the anecdotes are numerous enough, and if the reported unusual events help to explain the larger picture, then they might be true despite being unusual or improbable or contrary to your subjective list of certified "known facts."