Steven Carr

Robert Price has recently written a review of Miller's miracle article

It can be found at http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/rev_miller.htm

Miller's article can be found at
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/mqx.html

Glenn Miller of course, writes whatever suits him for what he wants to prove.

On the one hand, he can write 'We need also to remember that 'feeding miracles' were not altogether uncommon at the time:
"Miracles of multiplying food appear in the Old Testament (cf., e.g., 1 Kings
17:16; 19:8) and occasionally in Jewish tradition (cf. the oil in late
traditions about the Maccabees) and Greco-Roman texts; the background here is 2 Kings 4 and especially the manna of Exodus 16..."


One such 'food appearing' miracle shows up in the Jewish lit:
"His (Hanina ben Dosa's) wife used to heat the oven every sabbath eve and used to throw fuel in to make smoke because of the shame (that is, because she was ashamed before her neighbors of having no food). She had this spiteful neighbor.


She (the neighbor) said, 'This is odd, when I know they have nothing, nothing at all. What does all this mean?' She (the neighbor) went and knocked on the door (of Hanina's house). She (Hanina's wife) was ashamed and went into the room.
Then a miracle took place for her (Hanina's wife): she saw the oven full of
bread and the trough full of dough.'



This is all very strange, because Miller quotes with approval somebody who wrote
'On the other hand, we find that such men, as, for instance, Choni Hammaagel, whose prayers were much sought after in times of drought, or R. Chaninah b. Dosa, whose prayers were often solicited in cases of illness, left almost no mark on Jewish thought, the former being known only by the wondrous legends circulating about him, the latter being represented in the whole Talmud only by one or two moral sayings.'

And Miller wrote 'We only have one reliable oral narrative (written down a few
centuries after the narrated incident) about a pre-Christian Jewish figure
(Honi), who is credited with something vaguely 'miraculous'.

And Miller says, talking about Hanina ben Dosa 'Even if, btw, he is somehow
half-a-century earlier (and well-known then), we STILL wouldn't have a decent paradigm or exemplar: the mishnaic material never gives us a narrative of any miracle he actually performed.'

So when Miller wants miracles to be common, he finds miracle stories, and when he doesn't, he states that there are no stories about Hanina ben Dosa, even though he himself happily quotes them, whenever it suits him to do so.

andrewcriddle

IMO what Miller is saying here in the two articles, (which I will attempt to paraphrase) is not contradictory.

a/ 'Multiplying food' stories are quite common in the OT and Jewish tradition, one example is the account about Hanina ben Dosa in the Babylonian Talmud, such stories are not in general related to the Elisha narrative in 2 Kings 4:42-44. This should be taken into account when assessing the claim that the feeding of the 5,000 by Jesus is related to the Elisha story.
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qotripoff.html

b/ The tradition that Hanina ben Dosa was a miracle worker is too late to be either informative about the historical Hanina or a relevant parallel to the tradition that Jesus was a miracle worker.
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/mq4.html

In case a/ the question is about parallels between a specific miracle of Jesus and somewhat similar miracles in the OT and Jewish tradition. In case b/ the question is about parallels between the picture of Jesus as a holy man/miracle worker and the picture of Hanina ben Dosa as a holy man/miracle worker.

One can consistently hold that specific miracles attributed to Hanina are at least worth mentioning as parallels to specific miracles attributed to Jesus without holding that the late Talmudic portrayal of Hanina has, taken as a whole, any significant relevance to the Gospel portrayal of Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

Miller wrote :-
'.... the mishnaic material never gives us a narrative of any miracle he actually performed.'

How can this *not* be contradictory to Miller himself giving us a narrative, and saying that there is one in the Babylonian Talmud?

How can saying there are no narratives and then producing a narrative not be contradictory?

As for Miller not being contradictory. I quote his article in my
http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/mirc1.htm :-

I mentioned the story in the Koran :-
'So when Talut departed with the forces, he said: Surely Allah will try you with a river; whoever then drinks from it, he is not of me, and whoever does not taste of it, he is surely of me, except he who takes with his hand as much of it as fills the hand; but with the exception of a few of them they drank from it. So when he had crossed it, he and those who believed with him, they said: We have today no power against Jalut and his forces.'

This obviously comes from the story in Joshua about Gideon.

I wrote about it :-
It is very easy to spot when old religious stories have been recycled to produce new religious stories about other people.


And was asked by somebody to point to Miller's 'refutation',

So I did and wrote :-

I have been asked to point out that not all Christians agree, and directed to Glenn Miller, who writes here , 'Actually, I consider myself a Christian and I don't "recognise" this to be the case at all... the details aren't close enough to the story, nor clear enough in their referents.' And he later says 'As a matter of fact, the ONLY points of continuity are (1) the mention of a 'hand' (even there it is used quite differently in each story!); and (2) the general motif that God can take on large armies with smaller armies (a general pan-cultural theme in no way implying borrowing!). At most we have a very vague similarity with the biblical passage...... So, close attention to the details shows that the passages are not even remotely close enough to suggest 'literary borrowing' of the type suggested by our objector..... If the previous passage was supposed to be a good example, then I absolutely disagree.


CARR had written :-
Christians will at once recognise this strange story about how God tested the army of the Israelites by making them drink from a river. It comes from Judges 7:4-7.

MILLER wrote about that, '....the details aren't close enough to the story, nor clear enough in their referents......If the previous passage was supposed to be a good example, then I absolutely disagree.'


Answering Islam writes about the Koranic story 'Instead this story is found in Judges 7, where Gideon lead the Israelites into battle.'

Miller writes about this ' I am absolutely in agreement with Answering Islam (cf. #7) that there are reminisces of the Gideon passage, but modified by other borrowings (e.g., the abstinence motif of I Sam 14.24ff).

How can Miller absolutely disagree with something that is very similarly worded to something he is absolutely in agreement with?

------------------------------
Miller is often contradictory.

When I pointed out that even Catholics can see the similarities between OT miracle stories and NT miracle stories , by writing 'On page 176 of the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, written by a raft of Catholic scholars, it says that 2 Kings 4:42-44 is 'obviously the inspiration for the NT multiplication miracles'. I like the word 'obviously'.

Miller wrote :-
So what? I can find a raft of scholars to support positions all along the spectrum of dependence....

My argument from authority was simply to show that it is not just atheists who see connections.

However, Miller does nothing but argue from authority. He is totally self-contradictory here.

To take just one example from his page 'Commentators either don't find it important enough to mention, since the evangelists don't make any point of it (many commentators), or point out that it is more likely a historical reminiscence (Nolland, WBC, Luke) or comment that "such a symbolic use is subtle at best" (Guelich, WBC, in.loc.).'

My only reply is 'So what?' . Fundy commentators don't mention evidence against them. Do you expect more? That was pure argument from (non) authority.

But when even top-notch Catholic scholars have to concede that some stories are obviously similar, that is worth me mentioning. It shows that they really are similar.

Vorkosigan

Miller's comments are sheer desperation. In the Raising of Jairus' Daughter, the Septuagint passage from whence the writer of Mark drew the miracle is actually cited within the pericope itself. In the case of the feeding of the 5,000, the parallels are obvious, which is why everyone identifies them. Miller simply follows the usual strategy of reading the parallels extremely narrowly. He also ignores the fact that Elijah-Elisha parallels dominate GMark, and thus, the context also points to the probable origin of the pericope.

But thanks, Steve, for the link to the Price article. I can definitely incorporate that into my website on Mark.

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

Not always.

In http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qotripoff.html he writes 'I know from forays into comparative mythology (in the Tank) that it is very easy to make facile identifications based on superficial similarities. (One biblical scholar created the term 'parallelomania' to describe this!) A good deal of critical rigor needs to be applied to each case. It may be easy to spot "candidates" for further analysis, but merely pointing out common words, themes, and even settings will not be enough for the critical thinker.'

However this only applies , obviously, just to the Bible.

In http://www.christian-thinktank.com/decide2.html Miller writes '... "And what about 3rd Nephi 28.21-22 ("And thrice they were cast into a furnace and received no harm. And twice they were cast into a den of wild beasts; and behold they did play with the beasts as a child with a suckling lamb and received no harm")? Looks to me like you simply 'remembered' the experiences of the book of Daniel, no?" (He also begged me to compare Alma 10.2 with Daniel's 'handwriting on the wall' passage, but I told him I already got the point.)'

Miller applies not one bit of 'critical rigor' to this identification.

Miller, as an apologist, often finds strange translations. For example, he claims that 'qatan naar' should be translated in 2 Kings 2 as 'young men', although it is translated everywhere else as 'young boys' or 'children' or similar.

However, when it comes to other religions, Miller can write ' I ask how they know this about the Prophet and he says that the Quran affirms it in Surah 7.157, calling him the 'unlettered' prophet. I ask about the word 'unlettered'--is it always translated that way? The door-person admits that not only is it not always translated that way, but that it is not even normally translated that way. I am astonished, but he states that it is normally translated 'Gentile' in Surahs such as 62.2; 2.73; 3.19, 69; 7.159....'

So I guess that we , like Miller, should reject out of hand unusual translations given simply to cover up discrepancies in the text.

andrewcriddle

Mishnaic is a specific term it means material in the Mishnah the basic rabbinic code of law, ritual and morals which took its final form shortly after 200 CE.

The two Talmuds (the Jerusalem and the Babylonian) are later works (Jerusalem around 400 and Babylonian around 600) which contain the Mishnah together with a large quantity of commentary or Gemara .

The narrative about the food miracle is from the Babylonian Gemara and hence is not Mishnaic.

In the Mishnah itself Hanina ben Dosa is mentioned 3 times.
a/ Various of his wise sayings are reported in Tractate Abot.
b/ In tractate Sotah 9:15 it is said (Neusner's translation) 'When Hanina ben Dosa died wonder workers came to an end'. (ie he was the last wonder worker in Israel). However the word translated by Neusner here as 'wonder worker' is of very uncertain meaning.
c/ In tractate Berakhot 5:5 It is reported that Hanina claimed that when he prayed for the sick he was given supernatural knowledge as to whether or not the person he prayed for would recover.

c/ might just class as a miracle narrative despite no specific case or example being given, but only in a very marginal way.

In the Tosefta (a very early supplement to the Mishnah probably before 300 CE), there is an account in Berakhot 3:20 about how Hanina when praying is bitten by a poisonous lizard or snake, however it is the snake that dies.

This is a Tannaitic (Mishnah period) though not strictly Mishnaic miracle narrative of sorts but still rather low key. (It is hyped up in later versions with Hanina deliberately getting bitten by a poisonous animal in order to bring about its death.)

In the Talmuds particularly the Babylonian miracle stories about Hanina proliferate, but this is not in any sense Mishnaic .

Hence is is basically correct to say that there are no Mishnaic miracle narratives about Hanina ben Dosa, despite their frequency in the Talmud

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

Ah, that explains why Miller said there were no *mishnaic* narratives, because he wanted his readers to think there were no narratives....

And why he produces Talmudic narratives when he wants his readers to think that there are narratives.

as you wrote ' In case b/ the question is about parallels between the picture of Jesus as a holy man/miracle worker and the picture of Hanina ben Dosa as a holy man/miracle worker....' As Miller does not want any parallels in that essay he talks about the Mishna, and forgets about the Talmud.

And as you write 'One can consistently hold that specific miracles attributed to Hanina are at least worth mentioning.....'

When Miller wants parallels he talks about the Talmud, and forgets about the Mishna.

I think that is pretty sneaky on his part.

Steven Carr

I'm sure you are right that Miller is saying that the Talmudic stories are too late to be informative about the historical Hanina.

However, when apologists so desire, the Talmud stops being too late to be informative about historical events in the early first century AD.

http://www.christianorigins.com/miracles.html where Layman writes 'Less friendly sources, such as Josephus and the Babylonian Talmud, also attest to Jesus as a miracle worker.' and 'Another Jewish source for Jesus' miracle working can be found in the Babylonian Talmud'

He does state 'On the whole, however, this reference adds only little weight.'.

But he feels it has some weight. That is because it suits him in that article. When apologists don't want the Talmud to have any weight, they will declare it too late to be informative.

andrewcriddle

IMO the Babylonian Talmud is too late to be informative about the historical Jesus and should not be used as a 'historical Jesus' source.

However, it is not quite a straightforward clear cut matter.

The miracle stories about Hanina in the Babylonian Talmud come mostly in the Aramaic language Gemara which is particularly late.

In the passage quoted by Layman The phrase It has been taught is a technical term in the Talmud (sometimes translated there is a baraitha) which means that it is being claimed that the tradition has been handed down accurately from Tannaitic (Mishnaic) times.

IMHO these claims to the antiquity of baraithoth in the Babylonian Talmud are highly dubious and we have no reason to date this tradition much before 'Ulla (c 300 CE) who discusses it in the Talmud passage.

However some scholars treat baraithoth in the Talmud as historically reliable (in the sense that they genuinely go back to Tannaitic times); if they are right then the passage about Jesus quoted above would go back to the 2nd century and be of real though limited historical value.

Andrew Criddle