Family Man

Do you seriously think that Geller was using supernatural powers to bend spoons? Just because someone does something I can't explain doesn't mean I should believe he used supernatural powers. If so, then I'd have to believe every magician uses them. But they don't. They use illusions.

As for Sanders, I don't have his book in front of me but I am writing about the totality of his work, not from a couple of paragraphs. Historically, it is reasonable to assume that Jesus worked as a faith healer, which includes exorcisms. And quite probably he was able to impress people at the time. That doesn't mean that we can assume that he actually used supernatural means to drive demons out of people. If you think that's what Sanders means, I don't think you read him carefully enough.

Vorkosigan

This is not reasonable. Even the impetus for Jesus being a healer appears drawn from the OT. Isaiah 35:5 (LXX) says "The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart." Isaiah 26 claims that the dead shall rise. And finally, the LXX wrote that Second Isaiah had been appointed to "preach good news to the poor." (61:1)

In other words, the whole thing is based on the OT as a proof-text.

Vorkosigan

Family Man

Vork, I don't mean it in the sense that the events actually described are true. Faith healers practiced at that time and exorcisms were a part of their repetoire. It is a reasonable inference that, if there was a historical Jesus, that he was a faith healer and performed exorcisms. Of course, exorcisms then were just as bogus as they are now.

In other words, the real problem isn't that the OT was used as a proof-text as it was that there were thousands of such people at the time. As a predictor, those OT passages are about as lame as they come.

Vorkosigan

Why is that a reasonable inference? Everything we know about Jesus is a fiction of one sort or another! In fact, there are numerous examples of famous people having healings attributed to them, though they themselves claimed no such power (Mother Teresa and Rebbe Schneerson, most recently).

Actually, I think it was my fault for not being clear. Since there is no evidence that Jesus was a preacher or a faith healer, except for fictions, there is no credible evidence to suggest anything specific about Jesus. That is why I do not think it is a reasonable inference.

If I had to speculate, and there really was a Jesus, I suspect the real story would look something like the one in the Slavonic Josephus, where he was a failed Messianic nutcase. I personally doubt the real Jesus ever preached at all. All of that is backfill designed to justify various positions in the theopolitical struggles in and between the various Christian denominations.

Vorkosigan

GakuseiDon

Yes, I agree that Geller is an out-an-out fraud. But my point is that the fact that lots of people reported that Geller was able to bend spoons doesn't make those accounts myths.

Jesus was a miracle-working, healing exorcist. Sander lists other miracle workers of the time, like 'Honi the Circledrawer' and Simon Magus, and compares their careers with Jesus's. While Jesus's miracles may have been myths, they may also have been actual reports by witnesses who thought them as such.

Sanders deliberately stays away from whether Jesus had supernatural powers or not. He was concerned with trying to get to the historical details behind the gospels.

GakuseiDon

Actually, that is a very good point. Any assessment of how much the Gospels are myths need to take that into account.