Nuwanda

Then I'll ask you the same question since you seemed to dodge the one I posed to Julian. What ancient historians, if any, do you find to be indisputable?

JoeWallack

JW
And what about one of the two Star witnesses for Christianity, Irenaeus of Lyons (yes, "Lyons"), first in Love one another, first in War on "The Jews", first to confuse Baalam's donkey with the colt Jesus supposedly rode on and first to identify the:

Phil: We're waiting Mr. Melton.

Rodney: The answer is...Four?

Phil: ...Riiight.

Four Gospels:

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/...#P6172_1387452

" Chapter XIII.-The Deceitful Arts and Nefarious Practices of Marcus.

I. But 159 there is another among these heretics, Marcus by name, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master. He is a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of men, and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection, and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above. Thus it appears as if he really were the precursor of Antichrist. For, joining the buffooneries of Anaxilaus160 to the craftiness of the magi, as they are called, he is regarded by his senseless and cracked-brain followers as working miracles by these means.

2. Pretending161 to consecrate cups mixed with wine, and protracting to great length the word of invocation, he contrives to give them a purple and reddish colour, so that Charis,162 who is one of those that are superior to all things, should be thought to drop her own blood into that cup through means of his invocation, and that thus those who are present should be led to rejoice to taste of that cup, in order that, by so doing, the Charis, who is set forth by this magician, may also flow into them. Again, handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these in his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated, ) and pouting from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words: "May that Chaffs who is before all things, and who transcends all knowledge and speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in thee as in good soil." Repeating certain other like words, and thus goading on the wretched woman [to madness], he then appears a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen to have been filled out of the small one, so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By accomplishing several other similar things, he has completely deceived many, and drawn them away after him.

3. It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy,163 and also enables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to prophesy."


JW:
Note especially the last part:
"3. It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy"

So Irenaeus Believes that Marcus performed miracles because he Heard that Marcus performed miracles. He just assumes that the Source of Marcus is The Bad Spirit. We see the same mindset in "Mark". Everyone accepts that "Mark's" Jesus does miracles. The only question is Who is the Source, God or Satan?

For someone like me who applies the Same Standards of Evidence to Religion as any area outside of Religion, any claim of the Impossible can only be evidence that someone originally claimed the Impossible. It can never be evidence of the Impossible. When I see the word "Impossible" in the dictionary I have Faith that there is a good reason for its being there.

For the Reader who is willing to consider that the Impossible is Possible at the risk of destroying the whole Time, Warp, Space Continuum, consider the following:

1) There appears to be no extant, non-Christian writing clearly conceding that "Mark's" Jesus did the Impossible.

2) There is an abundance of extant Christian writing depicting non-Christians as clearly conceding that "Mark's" Jesus did the Impossible.

3) The two Star witnesses for the Orthodox Christian Canon, Papias and Irenaeus, were probably the two Stupidest Early Church Fathers. Father Eusebius himself categorizes Papias as Stupid and the Papias the Sailor Story sonofMan. And Irenaeus' Against Heresies is filled with misquotes, poor scholarship and bad logic (this would make a good Thread at II). Interesting that the Stupidest and most Superstitous Chruch Fathers are the best Witnesses for Christianity and the Smartest Early Church authors, "Mark" and Origen are the worst. Now why is that do you suppose?



Joseph

MAGIC, n.
An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Julian

None of them. They are all disputable, however, some are better than others.

Julian

QRUEL

it seems you are limiting your choice of answers on this subject , if your only answer is that it was a "miracle", when in fact it could have been attributed to any number of reasons.

how do you know it wasn't a large dark thundercloud that blackened the sky ?

you don't, and niether do I, and since there is no evidence to support either of our claims, both are conjecture.

andrewcriddle

FWIW Eusebius' position appears to be more nuanced than that see chapter 5 of his treatise against Philostratus Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

From Carrier above.

Is there not a third possibility? Thallus was referring to the 167 th Olympiad and the "Christ" was the Teacher of Righteousness (Ellegard). What eclipses have we around 110 BCE?

Why do we assume Jesus lived approx 0 - 40 CE? How many other writers have we tried to fit their comments into an assumed timeframe?

Nuwanda

Fair enough. So we agree that all ancient historians are suspect. Now the question is "which ones are better (more reliable) and why?" I would love to hear your commentary on which ones are better, specifically, which ones. Which do you take your 'leap of faith' towards?

As a Christ follower its easy to throw my chips in with the gospel accounts, seeing as how there are four different witnesses to the life and times of Jesus (four witnesses will usually cut it a court of law as well). But this discussion is concerning extra-biblical accounts of Christ's miracles, so I digress.

Weltall

Has anyone told you that none of the gospel accounts would be considered eyewitness testimony in a court of law? You might look into research concerning when they were written and who they were (or rather weren't) written by.

FatherMithras

It is absolutely a farce to pretend the four gospels were written by eyewitnesses.

Skeptical

The reason any ancient writer of supposed historical events would be considered more reliable than another is the same reason that any modern writer of supposed historical events would be considered more reliable:

1) Lack of bias, i.e. writer is not writing about something they have a vested interest in or the document doesn't have an obvious POV or "message"

2) Corroborating evidence, i.e. other writers that are roughly contemporaneous tell similar stories without evidence of copying or use of the same source. External physical evidence from archeology that supports the writers claims, events depicted can be inferred from subsequent known historical events, such as Alexander was in India because we know there were Macedonian colonies there

3) A known reputation, i.e. writer has produced other works that themselves have shown to be reliable

4) Lack of inherently unreliable claims, i.e. the writer does not write about events which are highly dubious such as magic, levitation, people flying through the air, raising of the dead, dragons, ogres, etc. etc.

5) Evidence of reasoned skepticism, i.e. writer shows that they do not simply accept any claims that come around from any source, that they attempt some effort to verify claims from others, writer lists source if known

And perhaps the biggest one for ancient works:

6) Known authorship, i.e. we can establish with a fair degree of certainty who the author was and we can place the author in a historical period as specific person. This is critical and sheds light on the other criteria.

Most, perhaps all, ancient historians fail on at least some of these criteria, although some are little better than others. Pliny suffered from some of these flaws and was prone to accept any story anyone told him, but he was an identifiable person and some of his stories are more or less verifiable from other sources.

Ok, so let's see how the gospel stories fair based on the above. (I came up with these off the top of my head, there are probably additional criteria, but I consider all of the ones I listed fair and reasonable)

1) Lack of bias? No, the gospels by their own text reveal themselves to be the work of authors whose purpose and goal was to promote stories about and glorify Yeshua. These sorts of stories are generally called hagiographies. I don't think this can be seriously argued against.

2) Corroborating evidence? Maybe. Josephus is roughly contemporaneous, but the problem is 1) above saying Yeshua was a great guy, not much there and 2) passage is likely interpolated, although it is generally accepted by most scholars that there was a basic kernel about Yeshua. (YES, I am aware that many people dispute this, so let's not go there and get sidetracked)

Other than this, nothing in the 1st century. No archeological evidence, no early non-Christian references other than Josephus. (please note I said "early", must be 1st century) Paul's letters don't really back up much of the stories with the exception of Yeshua being "raised".

Also, it is widely accepted that Mat and Luke used Mark and a "sayings" gospel Q. The stories come from Mark, so the stories about Yeshua boil down to a single gospel source, Mark, and the letters of Paul which don't tell us much at all about an earthly Yeshua.

3) Known reputation from other works? No, even assuming the supposed authorship were verified. (which it's not, see #6)

4) Lack of inherently unreliable claims? No, I think this one is obvious

5) Evidence of reasoned skepticism? No. I think this one is also obvious.

6) Known authorship? No. This is the nail in the coffin. The gospels were circulated psuedononymously, the actual authors are not known according to biblical scholars. I can give you refs for this if you want, no non-Evangelical scholar that I know of makes the claim that the authors of the gospels are known.

So, out of my six criteria, the gospels might meet one, but even that one is thrown into doubt by the fact that Mat and Luke used Mark as a source. By any reasonable criteria, the gospels would be relegated to the bottom of the list of trustworthy historical accounts. This is probably the case for most ancient works of religiously inspired origin.

As for your court reference, please, Please, PLEASE for all that is decent in the world would you and whoever you associate with that told you this rubbish stop making this claim! It physically pains me when people show such ignorance of the legal system. Really, it does.

The documents would not be entered into evidence in the US because they are hearsay not subject to any exception. Hearsay is any out of court statement made for the truth of the matter asserted. Generally, hearsay is excluded because it is inherently unreliable, we don't want Sue saying what Sam said at some bar in kokomo or in Israel. There are certain limited exceptions to the hearsay rule and the gospels don't fall into any of them. You can check the Federal Rules of Evidence 801-804 if you don't want to take my word for it.

Bottom line, "evidence" such as the gospel accounts are probably the lowest form of evidence that someone could try to admit into a court. If that is all one had for evidence, you would have no evidence. Case dismissed.

And for the record, the author of John is unknown as well.

And to answer the original question, no early sources, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. Most people thought that "miracles", particularly healings, occured all the time. Almost no one would have doubted that "miracles" occured, they would only have doubted the authorship of them.