chapka

A few points:

1. The idea that first-century peasants had a lot of free time for travelling, or that they would think that a trip from, say, Antioch or Ephesus to Jerusalem was practical, is just silly. We're talking about a time when most people who didn't belong to certain professions (caravan-drivers and sailors) probably never travelled farther than their local market town. As far as I know, Christianity at this point was still not big among the wealthier merchant classes.

2. The idea that anyone would bother to do this is likewise pretty silly. How seriously would you take a flyer for a "yogic flying demonstration"? In a thousand years, will someone pick one of these up and say, "These people must have been able to fly! Otherwise, it would have been so easy to debunk!" Of course not. Most people will ignore it and say, "What a bunch of crackpots," and a few gullible people will say, "Wow--they must be full of healing energy," go to the demonstration, and see what they want to see. Now imagine a book about yogic flying, set somewhere exotic ("Yogic Flying Among the Hunza People"). Some people will believe it, some won't; debunkers are likely to be ignored. And this is in an age with video cameras, jet planes, and investigative reporters.

3. If you asked around in the marketplace about the messianic preacher who'd been wandering around the marketplace shouting about crazy ideas, they wouldn't say, "Oh, yeah, you mean Jesus." They'd say "which one?" Imagine someone asking you which religions were preaching on your last trip through the airport.

Also, you're judging people based on modern standards of literary integrity. You seem to think it would be strange for someone to tell unbelievable stories about something that happened a short journey away, within living memory, with no foundation at all. Herodotus seems to indicate otherwise. We have no evidence of what Paul did--only of what he told the Galatians.

Magdlyn

I started one.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=87383