Solo

...that is right. Looked at non-theologically, as Arthur Koestler once put it, our cultural evolution distinctly favours mind states which, if they receive a water faucet in the sensory input, will cognitively process a water faucet, in preference to flaming bush.

Jiri

Cege

Elijah prayed lying--literally lying atop--over the widow's son in 1 Kings, and the boy was resurrected from dead. Elisha in 2 Kings prays in the same manner over a different mother's son, and that son is raised from dead. Later, after his death, Elisha's dead body comes into contact with a corpse, and that person is raised from the dead.

Jesus raised the daughter of Jarius, a widow's son, and friend Lazarus (who was stinking & rotting, being a 4 days dead). An unnamed number of dead 'saints' buried in Jerusalem tombs were resurrected from dead and walked into the streets right after Jesus died on the cross.

In Acts, Dorcas was raised from the dead by Peter's prayer and the same happened for Eutychus when Paul prayed, like Elijah and Elisha, literally 'over' his body.

According to the NT gospels and the book of Acts, resurrections occured around Jesus on a fairly regular basis. The claimed resurrection of Jesus was certainly not the first or only one described in the Bible.

The stories told in the Bible about resurrections seem to have been readily believed and retold by many. I've even heard tell of some resurrections from the dead after the prayers of missionaries and evangelists during my lifetime, but alas, there seems to be no more historical evidence for any of the contemporary tales than for the ancient.

As a Christian, I read about other resurrections described in the Bible during the ministry years of Jesus and a few years afterward, and wonder what made Jesus' resurrection so remarkable to his peers since there were so many others reported resurrected during the same time.

As for 'miracles commonly reported' in contemporary times, I can't think of any that don't have answers in natural cause.

Your question: Can miracles ever be historically verifiable?
My answer: I don't think any miracles have been scientifically verified as yet.

Steve Weiss

You are quite right. Once one accepts a magical orientation, one sees miracles a plenty. What, however, would "historical" verification be? If lots of ignorant, non-scientific authors repeat nonsense often enough so that myths are commonly accepted, is that historical verification? Historical verification of nonsense is a non-starter. Rather stick with the science and ignore so-called history. History is in the eye of the beholder, sad to say.

Steve Weiss

Religion is a big money-making proposition. If sex sells, how much better does a happy after-life sell?

Steve Weiss

Fellow-loving Christians would have been more than willing to torture and kill Pomponazzi as they have done or would like to have done to others who were even less controversial. Look at Michael Servetus, Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, and others. The Church has ruled for thousands of years through intimidation and indoctrination. We are fortunate to have emerged slightly from its domination. Darwin hesitated publishing his Origin of Species for 20 years out of fear of the Church and that was a late as 1859. Religionists should burn in hell for the damage that they have done. Vive La Revolution!!

LeonMire

I see your point, but most Christians would reply that Jesus' resurrection was special because he raised HIMSELF from the dead. In all the other cases, it was somebody raising somebody else from the dead. But that seems to contradict what I quoted William Lane Craig earlier as saying ("It's not improbable to think that God raised Jesus from the dead"). And certainly in the cases of Elijah and other OT prophets, it wasn't the prophets themselves that were raising people from the dead. Rather, I think most Christians would agree that it was God that was raising the dead, in response to a prayer made by Elijah, Elisha, etc. But then we're back to the dilemma you mentioned: what's so special about Jesus' resurrection?

LeonMire

Thank you. This was very helpful. So what we regard as an ordinary claim in the past is based on what an ordinary claim is today, and if there's no good evidence for such a claim today, the presumption is against the claim in the past. That clears things up a lot. Now, would you say that the presumptive weight against a one-time miracle like the Resurrection is enough such that it cannot in principle be verified?

Virginia-American

I assume the late Vernon Wayne Howell aka David Koresh was a false prophet.

Julian

In The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (or via: amazon.co.uk) Carl Sagan observed that That's the kind of observation that makes me cackle. :devil1:

Julian

Agemegos

Because natural cures are known to happen. We observe them every day, and we (now) know a great deal about how exactly they occur. And therefore the explanation that a priest worked one doesn't require us to assume any hypothetical entities.

But the claim of a miraculous cure asks us to accept the existence of an entity that is not otherwise in evidence. And entities not know to exist must not unnecessarily be hypothesised.

One way to formulate Ockham's Razor is 'the burden of proof falls upon the existence claim'.

Because there are other explanations which have not been ruled out. Mediaeval accounts of miracle-cures by priests could be evidence of miracle-cures by priests. But they are explained just as well by credulity or fraud. So they amount to evidence of 'miracle cures or credulity or fraud'. And both credulity and fraud are known to exist. The evidence is fully explicable without the hypothesis or any other.

Now, it would be a more interesting question if mediaeval accounts of miracle-cures were evidence of either one or other of two hypothetical entities, say, miraculous powers or a forgotten ancient knowledge of defibrillation, and no purely mundane explanation would do. But we aren't in that situation.