arnoldo

So what if a HJ also did not tell the truth about many issues nor perform any miracles? And if a HJ did perform miracles it doesn't follow that the demographics of early christians would've been any different. For example, why wouldn't Jews in the first century reject miracles by simply attributing them to demonic forces or simply claiming that the witnesses to these miracles were inebriated/hallucinating?

Johnny Skeptic

If Jesus did not perform any miracles, then Christianity is a false religion regardless of the issue of demographics.

Johnny Skeptic

Are you proposing that a historical Jesus who did not perform any miracles would have attracted as many followers as a historical Jesus who performed miracles?

Johnny Skeptic

In one of my previous posts, I said:

You conveniently did not reply to those arguments. If Moses performed miracles, Jews certainly would not have considered it to be unusual if a promised Messiah also performed miracles.

Micah 5:2 promised that someone would come who would become the ruler of Israel. Obviously, Jesus did not become the ruler of Israel. Ancient Jews were misled since they certainly expected a Messiah to become the ruler of Israel in this life, not in a future life.

Regarding "claiming that the witnesses to these miracles were inebriated/hallucinating," if, as the texts claim, Jesus performed miracles "throughout all Galilee," and "throughout all Syria," it is not likely that drunkeness or hallucinations could account for the reports, especially since it is probable that many of the eyewitnesses did not drink, and had never previously had any hallucinations.

Common sense, logic, and reason indicate that a man who can actually heal people is able to attract a lot more attention than a man who cannot heal people. Authentic miracles can withstand the test of scrutiny from acquaintances and investigators over subsequent months and years. Fake miracles cannot withstand the test of scrutiny from acquaintances and investigators over subsequent months and years. The best conclusion is that if Jesus performed many miracles for three years, there would be a good deal of corroboration from first century, non-biblical historical records, but that is not the case. If Jesus performed miracles, especially to the extent that the texts claim he did, he would have been unique in human history. He would have become a celebrity, and he would have easily become the biggest news story in Palestine, the Middle East, and even in Rome.

Why do you suppose that Jesus performed many miracles in many places?

arnoldo

I'm proposing you need to look into the sociological pressures which makes it difficult for a conversion to take place in different societies. For the jews in the first century accepting Christ would hypothetically entail great difficult, lack of status, being outcast from the synagogue/community, persecution etc.

Johnny Skeptic

On the contrary, in "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark says that Christianity was "a bargain" for a number of reasons. If you have the book, you either did not read all of it, or you did not understand what you read.

Are you aware that more Jews would have accepted Jesus if Micah had predicted that Jesus would heal people, and that Pontius Pilate would become the Roman governor of Palestine, and had not predicted that Jesus would become the ruler of Israel? Jesus did not become the ruler of Israel, and ancient Jews surely expected that a Messiah would become the ruler of Israel in this life, not in a future life.

At any rate, whether or not Jesus performed miracles is a much more important issue than how many Jews accepted Christianity during the first century since the validity of Christianity largely depends upon the claim that Jesus performed miracles. You are conveniently trying to divert attention away from the fact that if, as the texts claim, Jesus actually performed many miracles in Jerusalem, and throughout all of Galilee and Syria, and performed many miracles that the texts did not mention, he would have easily been a unique man in human history, his miracles would have been unprecedented in human history, and he would have become a big celebrity throughout not only Palestine, but also throughout the Middle East and beyond. Josephus would have been all over those claims like a dog on a steak bone, but he wasn't, and neither were any other first century historians, which indicates that the claims were not circulating during the time of Jesus as the New Testament claims.

Johnny Skeptic

That is ridiculous. Since Moses performed many miracles, if Jesus performed many miracles too, common sense, logic, and reason indicate that Jews would have believed that God gave Jesus the power to perform miracles just like he did for Moses.

If Jesus performed many miracles in many places, it would have been easy for local people to check things out for themselves by visiting some of the thousands of eyewitnesses, and some of the hundreds if not thousands of people who had been healed.

Consider the following:

http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/miracles.htm

It is not reasonably possible that newsworthy healings like those escaped the notice of not only Pontius Pilate, but also of Josephus and all other first century historians. If those accounts are true, it would have been easy for people to reasonably verify them, but according to you, most people attributed the healings to drunkeness, demonic forces, or hallucinations. That is cute since many of the eyewitnesses and people who got healed would probably not have been drunkards, and would not have had a history of having hallucinations.

show_no_mercy

There's no record of Christians being harrassed in synagoges until around the turn of the 2nd century. And even then again, Christians didn't seem to come into conflict with Jews until Bar-Kokhba. Synagoges being a center of Jewish life is a result of them losing the temple in 70 CE... so any conflicts in synagoges would be anachronistic anyway.

Then again, you probably think that Acts of the Apostles has some sort of accurate history in it.

andrewcriddle

Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:24 says This was most probably a punishment inflicted on Paul for being (allegedly) disruptive in synagogue.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

Is this a recorded punishment for misconduct?

It seems more likely that this is part of Paul's "playing the fool" - imitating the mime of the Greco-Roman theater, as detailed in The Runaway Paul.

edit to add: Welborn has expanded his thesis into a book Paul, the Fool of Christ: A Study of 1 Corinthians 1-4 in the Comic-philosophic Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk) (can be previewed on googlebooks here.)