Diogenes the Cynic

There are no contemporary claims for Jesus doing miracles. There is no contemporary testimony about Jesus at all. We don't have a single eyewitness claim about him. The first people who ever claimed he did miracles did so 50 years after he supposedly died, and none of them knew Jesus or knew anybody else who knew Jesus.

Even if magic could ever be a legitimate hypothesis (which it can't), the fact that none of the miraculous claims about Jesus come from contemperaneous or eyewitness sources pretty much blows your whole thesis out of the water. The people who believed them, without exception, believed them without a shred of evidence, so you can't use the mere fact of their belief to extropolate anything about the truth values of the claims.

Even Paul, the true inventor of Christianity, claimed he got his information solely from his own hallucinations and not from other people. His followers took him at his word. That is not remarkable. People have always believed crazy things without evidence and always will. Even today, millions of people believe that John Edward talks to ghosts. One guy was able to talk a whole bunch of people into chopping off their own genitals and then committing suicide in order to fly to a magic spaceship on the other side of a comet. People will believe practically anything. People are credulous. Ancient people even more so.

steve_bnk

Major faiths all seem to have some form of mircales. I believe it was also a common trick in ancient times to create a prophesy and then a few years later fill it.

A stranger having heard of a miriacle walks into an ancient Judean twon and speaks of a miracle worler, as he speaks his having heard about it morphs into having seen it, human nature. The locals are prepped, the miracle worker arrives, a laying of hands and a few words and a woman with arthritus gets a temporary jolt of endorphins, she's cured.

When the original crop circle hoaxsters came forward they were ignored by those who became believers in ET.

There was someone on an old forum who was absolutley convinced that the TM people actualty taught people how to levitate. He had never witnessed it, but he was absolutly convinced.

How the myths took root from someone who existed who was more on the human side is not hard to see.

Recent polls sghow that around 10% of Americans still think Oabama is a closet Muslim, all due to trhe incesenat repitition of Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh.

freetrader

Doug Shaver


Why don't you give us the one you think is the best.

To reiterate: What caused the creators of Christianity to choose Jesus, an obscure unaccomplished nobody (if he did nothing unique, such as performing miracle acts such as described in the NT) to be the savior hero or messiah for their new religious movement? What sense does it make for them to choose this unlikely figure, unless he actually did perform those acts, which then made him noteworthy and brought him to the attention of the local masses who then began spreading the word about him?

What is the best plausible explanation for this, other than the hypothesis that he actually did perform those acts? Surely someone can provide one if so many exist.


Again, the issue more precisely is not about Christianity's origin, but the choice of this Jesus figure to serve as the miracle-working savior for the new movement. How was such a figure chosen if he did not do the miracle acts or anything else of comparable noteworthiness and if he was of such low repute?

The longer it takes for someone to put forth such a hypothesis, the less believable it is that there are any. And it doesn't matter whether I find it credible or not. Failure by anyone to put forth such a hypothesis indicates to any reasonable person that no such hypothesis likely exists.


But why should they think he was enlightened?

And how did they decide which unknown and unimportant figure to choose, of which there were millions? The ones who formed this new cult were surely not a monolithic group who all thought alike. How did they all happen to coalesce around this one unlikely figure as opposed to the several other million candidates for the job (or certainly several hundred or thousand)?

Why didn't we end up with several Christs, why didn't all those factions go in a hundred or a thousand different directions, with each choosing its own unknown and unimportant figure to be its savior Christ figure, instead of them all agreeing to this one obscure Galilean?


Depending on what you mean, I think it would be the only time it ever happened (people believing a totally fictional character was real), except if you're talking about a very small population, like a few hundred people. However, if you'd give an example of what you mean, it would clarify the point.

If you mean people who believe in ancient mythological figures who once did mighty deeds centuries ago, that is not analogous to the present case. To be analogous it must be a legendary figure no more than 100 years prior to the time of the believers.

Also, if you mean gods who people pray to, perhaps at a temple or before a statue, those are non-bodily figures, or at least non-earthly figures, not walking around on the earth, which also is not analogous.

If you only mean human heros to whom fiction stories became attached, that misses our point, because those persons really existed, even though the fictional stories were not true. There are certainly fictional stories about many revered historical figures who really existed.

Let's consider an analogy to Santa Claus. Let's say there may be a hundred thousand adults today who believe Santa Claus really exists -- let's even say a million, so there is a significant number to constitute a real S.C. cult, analogous to the earliest Jesus cult. Even granting all this, the Santa Claus believers, assuming they exist, are choosing a time-honored figure who goes back for centuries. The Christ figure offered to 1st-century Jews or Gentiles was a new figure, who had a time slot in history somewhere leading up to about 30 AD. So the analogy has to be of an historical figure who did not exist 200 years earlier but recently came upon the scene and with no long-established reputation, one who was adopted initially or acquired an instant following (within 50-100 years) without having an established reputation at the time .

You can name cult figures or legends who rose rapidly to fame, but only if the person in question really did have some high mark of distinction, such as being a genius in science or literature or music, etc., or a great athlete or performer, or a great orator or politician who worked his way up for 20-30 years, i.e., not one whose reputation is based originally on fictional stories that accumluted around the name. Yes, fictions may accumulate rapidly around famous figures, but only after there was something real and of great noteworthiness that gave substance to the original high repute of that individual, i.e., that "superstar" figure.

Unless a particular example of such a case can be offered, it's quite unreasonable to suggest people in large numbers would believe stories about someone thought to have lived within the past 100 years but who really never existed. If this happened in the case of Jesus, I suggest it would be the one-and-only case in history. However, I'm curious what example could be offered of such a case.


An already-existing religion? He didn't start it? Where did this cult derive its Christ figure? They didn't believe he did any miracle healings or was even an earthly figure with a physical body and a time slot in human history?


You mean Paul and the other members of this cult did not believe this Christ had ever lived in this world? Or they did believe he lived in this world but they were wrong? You need to give more detail.


How did stories about this non-existent person begin circulating? I believe you said he did not exist? Who started spreading these stories, and why?

About a reputed established figure, like John the Baptist, or Hillel the Jewish sage, or some other revered celebrity with an established reputation -- yes, stories like that can accumulate around such a figure. But around an unknown figure, and even non-existent -- how does this kind of figure become the object of miracle stories? Where is there a precedent for this?


What "central character"? Why do you think they had a "central character"? How did they acquire this figure? Where did they get him or it from? Was their "central character" someone they believed had been a living individual in history? If he was non-existent, where did he come from, or how did they obtain him? How did he sneak into their thought process?


What "Christianity"? By using this language, you're assuming it already was established and had spread, long before the gospels were written. What was spreading, and why? The word "Christianity" or its equivalent surely did not exist at the time you're referring to. So, what "Christianity" phenomenon are you talking about?

All these arbitrary assumptions you're making fall into place if the historical Jesus really did perform the miracle acts and word of this was spreading. But without that basic fact as a starting point, nothing you're saying makes any sense. There was no "Christianity" or any founder of it if the Jesus figure was a fiction.


You mean the gospel writers? They certainly did want to give credentials to Jesus -- they didn't think these were irrelevant at all. They try to trace his lineage back to David, and they tie him in repeatedly with the Jewish prophets, having him quote them again and again to establish his credentials. And they try to identify him with the status-symbol apocalyptic "Son of Man" figure. They also try to establish his status by having John the Baptizer endorse him and play a subservient role to him.

And all 4 gospel writers do this repeatedly -- contrary to thinking credentials are irrelevant, they are constantly falling over themselves trying to establish his credentials and status. It's almost as if they realize he is without any and needs some credentials provided to him, so he will be more acceptable. But why did they want to present him, or sell him -- why instead didn't they just choose a figure who already had some recognition, not just a title, but an illustrious career and wide reputation as a wise man?


So your argument is: either he must have been a miracle-worker, or he did not exist. The former is automatically ruled out, so that leaves only the conclusion that he did not exist.


So then you think the early promoters who created Christianity and packaged it for Gentile consumption believed in the ideas they were promoting. So then they really did believe Jesus performed miracle acts. They were not the ones who made up these stories or this image of Jesus. Rather, they got this from someone earlier.

But then who were these earlier ones who originally promulgated the stories and invented Jesus the miracle-worker? What was their purpose, and why did they choose this Galilean or a Galilean fictional character? They are not the promoters, not the ones who believed in the ideas.

It isn't that we need to explain how miracle stories got started or spread and were believed. What we need is an explanation how they got attributed to this unimportant Galilean instead of to someone of wider repute, which is the usual pattern with such stories. The story-tellers do not choose someone of no standing and with no credentials to be the hero for their miracle stories.


But you're not only saying the original founders or promoters of Christianity didn't predict the future success of their product -- what you're saying is that they did not choose this product, but rather it was handed to them from someone previously, because these founders "believed in the ideas" which means they didn't invent the miracle stories but believed in those stories themselves, and so they did not invent Jesus the miracle-worker, having received this idea from earlier inventors.

What you're doing is just fumbling the ball back to some previous unnamed player without explaining how these miracle stories got attached originally to this Galilean figure; you're insisting that the miracle stories must be fiction, but then you go on assuming they really happened, because you keep assuming they were there previously, never identifying the inventors of them and why they made this unlikely choice of a hero figure for their miracle stories.

What is needed is an explanation why they chose this unlikely Galilean figure, especially if he is a fiction, as you think. If they believed the accounts of him themselves, meaning he was not a fiction for them, then from whom did they receive those accounts? Who were the inventors who knew he was a fiction?

Someone had to be the inventor(s) of this fiction. You cannot say we know fictions like this are common and start up spontaneously and there's no need for an inventor who knew it was a fiction, because in this case the regular pattern for such miracle fictions is broken, and you cannot claim there is a precedent for such a thing. Fiction miracles do not get assigned to unknown people of low repute, but rather to celebrities of long-standing repute, or to ancient legendary figures of centuries ago, but not to a nobody only 50 or 100 years ago.

Toto

freetrader appears to spend all of his time repeating his arguments to himself and not listening to anything else.

There are a number of legendary figures who become historicized. William Tell never existed. Confucius probably never existed. And there is also the case of Ned Ludd, which Richard Carrier discusses here

Solo

Too bad Till Eulenspiegel did not exist (he does have a grave though) : many could use a lesson from him on how to read a psalter.

Jiri

show_no_mercy

You don't seem to understand what's going on here freetrader. None of the "original" Christians seemed to believe in any miracle performing Jesus. These miracle stories are only found in the gospels - and the vast majority of Christians could not read.

The basic plan of proselyzation (according to Paul's letters) seems to be preaching the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus, being the firstfruits of this resurrection, will come back in the immediate future to raise all others who died (or rather "fell asleep") after professing that Jesus really was raised by God. After raising all those who had "fallen asleep" in Christ, Jesus will re-establish the Kingdom of God on Earth and reverse the fortune of all those who believed - since the main proselytes of early Christianity were the lowest of the low class: the uneducated, the slaves, the women, etc. who reviled their "αρχες". Jesus died for them and was going to come back and glorify them and remove them from their squalor.

There's nothing in this salvation scheme that needs a miracle performing, preaching Jesus. Whether Jesus performed miracles or not is totally irrelevant to salvation. Read the letters of Paul, of John, James, Jude, Peter, Hebrews, etc. Nothing in there suggests any sort of miracle performing, preaching Jesus being necessary for salvation.

For the sake of argument and to see if you really know what you're talking about, please cite the first Christian in the historical record who utilized a narrative gospel (i.e. a miracle performing, preaching Jesus) as part of their proselyzation tools.

spamandham

Why must there be examples this specific? The more you argue that Jesus' miracles must be real from a textual perspective, the greater also is the case that Jesus is a fictional character in a story, since the same evidence supports both ideas.

Early Christians were not working in a vacuum. They obviously had the Jewish scriptures , which contain such ideas. So even if there are no other contemporaries of Jesus, it's irrelevant. The Jewish scriptures themselves are the model.

...not to mention, the miracles are nonsense at face value, and extraordinary evidence is needed to overcome that before they can be considered possibly real. Nothing you've argued comes within a light year of the type of evidence that would be required.

Amaleq13

Why should anyone bother when you've made it clear you intend to ignore any substantive response to your argument? You've already been given better explanations. And don't try the standard dodge of requesting others to review the thread for the ignored responses that you should have been reading all along.

To reiterate: The creators of Christianity chose Jesus because he was already chosen by those who initially revered him as a source of wisdom and initially reinterpreted his horrible death. He managed to convince this small group of his divine authority and they subsequently managed to convince others. Paul managed to convince himself but took the show on the road with a new and exclusive focus on Jesus as the risen Christ. Based on Paul's letters, everybody obtained authority for their claims by demonstrating "magical powers".

No need to assume anyone actually had such powers.

To reiterate: He was believed capable of magical feats and those who believed this it were, in turn, believed to have similar abilities.

The longer you continue to post in a disingenuous manner, the more likely it is that you will be ignored as a complete waste of time.

Hey, we agree!!

You need to improve your comprehension of basic logic. The above is a horribly weak argument from silence. You need to do a job imitating a "reasonable person".

Because he spoke words so wise they believed they could only have come from God.

To reiterate: They fall into place if Jesus was only believed capable of magic. You continue to lack justification for claiming he must have actually had them.

Amaleq13

Almost as though he has no genuine interest in a rational discussion.

Doug Shaver

There are two possibilities here.

(1) You already know about those alternative explanations. In that case, you've already made your mind up that none of them is credible and you will learn nothing from any debate about whether your incredulity is justified.

(2) You are truly ignorant with regard to modern scholarly opinion about Christianity's origins. In that case, you have no business joining any debate about the subject. If you sincerely wish to remedy your ignorance, then just say so and I will gladly recommend some Web sites for you to study.

I already answered that. Your repeating the question does not consititute a counterargument.

The question of Jesus' existence is inseparable from the question of Christianity's origin. You can either assume his existence and formulate a theory based on that assumption, or else you can decide not to assume it and then formulate a theory that does not depend on any assumption of his existence.

I already answered that. Your repeating the question does not consititute a counterargument.

Because the opinions they attributed to him were their own opinions. All people, everywhere and at all times, are convinced that any teacher who agrees with them is an enlightened teacher.

We did, and they did. But only one of them became the official religion of the Roman empire. And for about the next thousand years after that happened, its leaders had almost sole custody of the West's historical record.

I'm not speaking in any kind of code. I mean just what I said. If you think it never happened any other time except within very small populations, then you have more to learn about history and human nature than I am capable of teaching you.

Yes. No.

Paul doesn't tell us. We know from other ancient sources, though, that the concept of a god dying and coming back to life had already been around for a long time in pagan religions, and the general idea of messiahship was, as we all know, prevalent in Jewish thinking of Paul's time.

Are you not familiar with Paul's writings? If you were, you'd know the answer to that question.

Paul says not one word about when or where, in this world, the Jesus to whom he was referring might have lived.

I mean they did not believe he ever lived in this world.

What do you think it means for a story to circulate? All it means is that after the story gets told, it gets told again because people enjoy hearing it and some people are good at telling it and therefore can attract audiences who will listen to them tell it. And if there is a written version, it means some people are motivated to go to the expense of making copies of it.

Whether the story happens to be true has nothing to do with whether it circulates. The story about Cinderella has been very widely circulated since it was invented by whoever invented it.

The actual identities of those people are not known, and we can only speculate about their motivations. My own speculation is that the gospel authors were trying to do something like what Khalil Gibran did when he wrote The Prophet. (And if you've never heard of Gibran, google him.)

Are you really that obtuse, or is your reading comprhension really that bad?

Yes.

They heard the gospel stories, and they believed that the stories were true.

I am referring collectively to a number of religious sects that existed during the first and second centuries. What they all had in common was belief in some person, or some divine entity, or some combination thereof, to whom they referred as "Christ." Because of that belief, we refer to those sects collectively as Christian sects.

Whether a word exists at a particular time has nothing to do with whether its referent can exist at that time.

You have no idea what assumptions I am making or whether they are arbitrary. I doubt that you even know the difference between an assumption and an inference.

What I am describing is obviously not anything you would call Christianity. However, absent a stipulation that what you believe about Christianity cannot possibly be in error, it doesn't much matter what you would call it.

I meant whoever you meant. I assumed you meant the gospel writers.

Then I misunderstood your question. By "they," to whom were you referring when you asked: Why didn't they choose someone with more credentials and more popularity and higher profile?

Well, I agree it is not very credible that, if Jesus had been an actual nobody, then the stories that got told about him would have, over the course of a generation or two, resulted in what we see in the gospels. I do think it more credible than the supposition that the stories are true in every important detail, though.

That is not my argument, but let's suppose it were. If it were made about the alleged founder of any other religion, what would be your conclusion?

It depends on what you're referring to by "Christianity." I've already told you what I mean by it. No, I don't think that the creators of the gospel stories believed they were historically factual. I think some of the people who later heard the stories believed they were historically factual.

They were people who wanted to promote certain ideas that were embedded in the stories. The storytellers thought the ideas would be easier to remember that way. Having a good story also makes it easier to get people's attention to start with. You can't tell them anything if they aren't listening.

Too bad, but that's how real history works. If we have no evidence identifying the originator of a story, then we have to say we don't know how the originator was. We cannot infer that the story must be true just because we don't know who was the first person to tell it.

What is the regular pattern for miracle fictions, and from what evidence do you infer it? How many non-Christian stories about miracles have you read, in context and in their entirety?

Oh, but they do. When I was a Christian, I heard lots of stories about miracles performed by people of no repute whatsoever.