Okay, this is a thread about a point I’ve brought up in many threads. I haven’t really gotten much of a response on it, IIRC, I think that at one point ITR Champ did address it, but it was in a much larger thread and subsequently got buried (IIRC).
One of the assumptions about the Gospels/NT that apologists have is that multiple accounts some how equate to better trustworthiness. The argument typically goes something to the effect of:
*We have multiple independent eye witness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, therefore that adds weight to the claim. *
I think that if we **did **have multiply attested accounts that would add credibility to some of the claims of the NT (say, for instance, that Jesus existed - BTW, I’m not a myther, this is just an example).
Now, some of these points have been addressed in other SD threads (such as the Gospels being eye witness accounts) - and to drudge them up again is not the point of this thread.
Instead, my question is, why don’t the same people who trust the Gospels ALSO trust the ancient historians and their accounts of miracles?
Why believe or take the claims of the NT seriously, but dismiss the other miracles that the Pagans reported?
I mean, the sources I listed above are superior to the Gospels since they are from historians (mostly) and they are not anonymous - yet I don’t think anyone bats an eye when dismissing them today? This strikes me as wrong - why expect anyone to believe the new testament when you don’t believe the better attested miracles of Vespasian?
I don’t hold an opinion on the matter. Certainly many early Church fathers didn’t dismiss the possibility of spirits good or evil being worshipped. However, what other people did wasn’t really their concern; they were men on a literal mission from God. Our point is that any being, anywhere, is either in proper accordance with God or not. If not, worshipping it isn’t going to end well. If it is, you still shouldn’t worship it; it’s ultimately not much different from yourself in the grand scheme of things.
And of course, this is an era when people not uncommonly did worship various living and dead people. Pagan worship had a much different meaning than Christian or Jewish worship.
There’s a big problem with historical sources which often means they go back to one original source.In that case (and it’s a problem in modern journalism, too), we just consider that the “multiple” sources are really jsut one. Yet this does not seem to be the case with the Bible, which had three written sources (and more oral) from several authors attesting to its veracity, though they do disagree about some of the details. One was even reordered for a more poetic style.
First off, that’s incorrect. Professional historians of the ancient era were among the very worst sources you can use for any detail, precisely because they quite commonly built their tomes out of myth, flat ignoring anything they didn’t like, and a hefty dose of “whomever paid for this book rocks.” Modern historians do have to use them whenever possible, but have been somewhat dubious on the “professional” sources. Their books are usually correct for the really big events, but they often included a lot of extremely unreliable or unexplained material, including ascribing motives or facts which really make no sense.
A good example is Julius Ceasar’s campaign journal/autobiography/propaganda. With one known exception, he didn’t falsify anything, though he certainly presented it from his viewpoint. Yet, we still know of some very dubious parts to his book. Unfortanately, we also don’t have very good corresponding sources.
His description of Celtic religion is hilarious, as he (in Roman tradition) conflates the native gods with Roman ones, even where utterly inappropriate. His descriptions of Druidical practices are completely unverifiable.* But outside of that, he gets a little loopy. Even after his campaigns, his understanding of French geoography is hilariously bad. When he brings his personal experiences and expertise to bear, he’s been shown to be pretty correct even if he stretches the truth to exxagerate.
*To be fair, I’ve sometimes thought when reading it that he may have been making pointedly cruel and snarky remarks about the Roman upper leadership, and their penchant for metaphoric human sacrifice and placing themselves above the law.
By “people who trust the Gospels,” you’re referring specifically to Christians who put stock in the supernatural elements therein, and not merely people who take them as evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus, right?
If so, I think the answer is that you’re assuming the wrong kind of justifications and motives. Christians don’t accept the descriptions of Jesus’ miracles because they’ve examined the evidence and determined the Gospels to be a very reliable set of histories, in the secular sense. Rather they believe in Jesus as the son of god, and the Bible as divinely inspired, because of their religious faith. Obviously, they don’t have a corresponding faith in the divinity of the Roman emperors, so they’d be no more likely to accept descriptions of their miracles than you or I.
I guess you could say your question is putting the cart before the horse. Christians don’t think “Oh, clearly the Bible is very reliable; I should have faith.” The faith comes first, and is generally a prerequisite for belief in these aspects of the Bible.
My response is that we should take the claims of miracles performed by Vespasian seriously.
Naturally any claims of miracles should be approached with skepticism, and demand a higher standard of evidence. But I don’t believe they should be summarily rejected prima facie. The Bible makes it quite clear that Jesus is not the only person who could do miracles. His followers were also expected to perform them, but even some non-believers could perform apparent miracles through trickery or spiritual power.
I agree with this.
Christians are Christians exactly because the haven’t really thought about their religion.
A broad brush, to be sure, but I think this holds true for 90% of the believers.
Of course a lot of them occasionally wonder about certain aspects, like the story of the ark f.i., but drop these quickly to flee back into the warmth of faith and belonging to the community.
What you might call the “biggest lies” don’t get questioned at all, as they have been drilled into them from birth. It takes an outsider to even draw attention to these and their sillyness.
Then there are of course people that do try really hard to understand God and the Message and what life’s purpose is. And start studying.
A lot of those inevitably become atheists.
Some just can’t shake their childhood indoctrination that “there must be something” and dive into all kinds of woo or they simply change their denomination.
A few become ever more determined to prove to themselves and others that they were right in believing and that humanity hasn’t been wrong for so long on such a big issue. They are so determined that they loose their honesty in the process.
So far I’ve heard that when it comes to the Bible, anonymous 2nd and 3rd hand sources are more reliable than professional historians, and that it is o.k. to believe that other miracles happened not because of the accuracy of the reporting, but because the Bible says it happened.
Fascinating.
We have primary source claims for the miracles of Vespasian. What primary claims do we have for any miracle in the Gospels? What are you asserting came from oral tradition, and what is the evidence for that?
And they don’t believe the Bible is true based on any kind of critical analysis, but because they take it on faith, a priori. That seems like blatant question begging to me.
I don’t a priori reject claims of miracles reported by ancient Pagan historians, nor for that matter those reported by a Jewish historian. Some people hold to a dogma that miracles are impossible. I do not hold to any such dogma, and hence have no reason to make any assumptions about the truth or falsehood of the supernatural events reported by Herodotus or Josephus or any other ancient figure. There are some events in recorded history for which we simply can’t be sure whether they were genuinely historical or not.
Fopr example, that Jesus was a carpenter by trade. This is nto specifically attested to in the Bible. Of course, the Gospels were not written as the primary source, but a means fo educated thiopse already converted and familiar with Christianity.
Yes, I’d agree that the early Church fathers didn’t dismiss the possibility. The fact is that people back then viewed the world entirely differently than they do today. Actually, I would rather say that the majority of people today view the world differently.
I don’t think modern scholarship would actually agree with the multiple sources for the Gospels, if that’s what you are saying.
I think you misunderstand me - I am not making the case that the professional ancient historians were top-level scholars on par with modern scholars. I would think that they are more reputable than anonymous writings though - is this what you are contesting?
Kind of - I’m talking about apologists, mainly, and people who aren’t just arguing ‘faith’.
For the faith only crowd, my questions do not apply. I think there are a bunch of Christians on the 'Dope that do not subscribe ‘faith only’ and that’s the target of my post.
So, if I interpret you correctly, your position is that the Vespasian miracle is equally likely as the Jesus’ miracles?
(I am not saying that you hold either as particularly likely, mind you, only that they have equal veracity according to you.)
Unfortunately this is the meat of what I am trying to find out - is this the case?
Am I missing something here?
I hope I am.
I was hoping that you’d respond to at least a few of the things I’ve brought up. While I don’t agree with you on some crucial matters in ancient history, I do seem to learn a bit from our encounters.
That said, what is your opinions on the ancient miracle accounts I’ve listed? I believe you’ve responded to them in the past, but I don’t remember your response.
Paul was not an eye witness - he never met the ‘living’ Jesus (being charitable here).
I am not so sure. Cocksure Americans, half agnostic and purse-proud, maybe.
Most seem to believe there are two and probably three.
Some are quite reliable. Others… not so much. I don’t think anyone would dispute Thucydides. But you must accept Herodotus with a grain of salt. If ancient sources claim to have witnessed miracles, I don’t specifically doubt them; I was not there. I may find some less likely than others. Some I find reasonably probable.
Edit: Nor do I accept everything written in the Bible as true, particularly the Old Testament. People get confused and make mistakes, but they rarely come up completely wrong.
He certainly claimed to. He personally attested a miraculous occurence by what himself had denounced as a false prophet, said he saw Jesus, and was accepted as having done so in his own time, by people who actively disliked him.
If Lincoln strikes me blind and then I was, in fact, unable to see until healed by a Republican priest, I’d be rather inclined to reconsider my religion.
That tradition comes from Mark 6:3, which, of course, uses the more generic word, tekton (“builder,” “laborer”) rather than a more specific word for “carpenter,” but Mark (and subsequently Matthew) are what gave rise to the tradition. It can’t be shown to have predated it.
Well, the degree to which they were intended to “educate” is debatable. They were certainly intended to indoctrinate, but the narratives themselves do not appear to be factual historical accounts, but hagiographies constructed largely through extrapolation from the Septuagint, from saying sources and from their own imagination. The authors themselves had no access to primary sources. They appear to have been trying to construct a biography of Jesus by inference from scripture and a priori Christologies rather than from empirical sources.
My answer is that all works, including scriptures, are works of God given for the benefit of man. But not all works are for the same purpose, as such one has to learn (really be taught by God), how a particular work is to be used. misuse causes difficulty, proper use makes things easier.
This is analogous to man using tools, use the right tool in the right circumstance and things go well. But using the wrong tool, or a unknown tool and things could go very wrong.
People who have learned (were taught by God) to use the scriptures can indeed use them to find truth about the world. But just because you may be a trained expert in scriptures does not mean it carries over to other, such as pagan works, and that is best reserved for people trained by God to use pagan sacred writings (I don’t know if they call them scriptures).
That being said, God works throughout the world, and over all religions, beliefs, practices and faiths (or lack of). God does not change, and there is commonality of events and repeating patterns, so much of what you ask, such as curing of the blind probably happened in many societies and written about.
I think that if we have historical sources reporting that a miracle occurred, we have to evaluate it based on the trustworthiness of the source and any other collaborating evidence we might have. A reported event should not be dismissed just because we cannot explain it.
As a historian, the best we can say is that both Jesus and Vespasian performed acts that others took for miracles. Personally, I consider Jesus’ miracles more likely but it’s because of who I believe he was, but not because of the historical record.
