Eyewitnesses to Jesus' miracles

Great Debates
41

Just to be clear, when I say that “Luke knew Josephus,” I mean that he knew his writing. Here is Richard carrier’s piece on the case that Luke used Josephus as a source.

Not as glaring as that one, but they exist, particularly in Luke-Acts. For instance, The first two verses of Luke 3 contain three factual errors.:

(Lk 3:1-2)
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar–when Pontius Pilate was Procurator [Gr. Hegemon] of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene– 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…

  1. Pilate was a Prefect, not a procurator.
  2. Lysanias of Abilene died in 36 BCE
  3. Caiaphas was the only high priest at this time. Annas had been deposed years before. There was no tradition of dual high priests in any case. Annas and Caiaphas were never “co” high priests.

The Nativity stuff has been well worn around here, so I’ll skip it, but the same “historian” also made historical mistakes in Acts. In Acts 5:36-37, Luke has a character named Gamaliel talking about a revolt by Theudas which had not happened yet relative to the alleged setting of the story. “Gamaliel” is supposedly talking in the 30’s CE but the revolt he speaks of happened in the mid 40’s. Moreover, he claims the revolt of Judas the Galilean happened after the revolt of Theudas but it actually happened 40 years before.

In Acts 21:38, Luke has Roman commander ask Paul if he was the “Egyptian” who led a band of sicarii into the desert. Although Josephus does mention a “false prophet” called “the Egyptian” he does not associate him with the sicarii, who were assassins, not followers of prophets. In Jewish Wars, Josephus talks about the sicarii directly prior to talking about the “Egyptian” leading some followers to the Mount of Olives and Luke (who used Josephus as a source) probably conflated them.

I mentioned John’s anachronistic placement of the expulsion of Christians from the synagogues (aposynagogos during Jesus’ lifetime.

It’s also arguable that Mark might be wrong in his dating of the execution of John the Baptist, since Josephus seems to date it to 36 CE (but Josphus’ wording is ambiguous in this regard).

John Crossan estimates that 95-98% of the Palestinian state was illiterate during the time of Jeusus. The literacy rate was higher in Egypt, but I don’t know how much higher. It certainly wasn’t anything close to universal literacy (something that wasn’t very common anywhere in the ancient world).

The facility of Palestinian Jews with Greek is not known with certainty, but because the area had been fairly well Hellenized by the time of Jesus, it’s argued by some historians that the average Jewish peasant probably had some degree of Greek (much the same as you won’t have that much trouble finding cab drivers who speak English in Tijuana). Not many would have known Latin outside of Rome, though. Greek was still the Lingua Franca in the Roman Empire outside of Rome, and even the Romans used Greek in the provinces.

42

I did some quick googling and Wikipediaing, and while Christianity was doing well in Egypt, I didn’t see anything saying it was the actual majority religion. It looks to be like Emperor Constantine was pretty much the force for getting Christianity to start taking over.

43

Maybe so, but it’s hard to deny that it’s propaganda.

44

Matthew most certainly was a disciple of Jesus. As for the timeframe, opinions vary on the exact amount of time that elapsed. More importantly, while 30 years is a substantial amount of time, it’s actually considered pretty small by the standards of ancient history. For example, the two principal biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than four centuries after the fact, and yet they are considered to be reliable.

Laypeople would look at a thirty-year gap and say, “Horrors! They must not be reliable!” but that’s a naive and overly simplistic approach to ancient history. The same problem occurs when people object to alleged bias within an account. Laypeople would be inclined to dismiss historical accounts due to time lapses and apparent bias, but historians understand that these are practically inevitable – especially when it comes to ancient history. (For a deeper understanding of how historians evaluate the reliability and accuracy of historical accounts, I recommend Justifying Historical Descriptions by C Behan McCullagh.)

45

I can believe it. I’ve seen it.

46

Your restatement, here, is not in any way “all” you “were saying.” What you originally posted was the same sort of inflammatory claptrap that other zealots and dogmatic fundies of all stripes post that lent nothing to this discussion. Your broad brush characterizations demonstrate a lack of critical thinking and your hostility is unnecessary in this forum.

47

Indistinguishable: Nice catch. FWIW, dictionary.com agrees with you.

glee: Well, my tongue was in cheek. I was underlining that concerns regarding Biblical literalness are fairly modern: the authors of the Bible simply put little or no effort into reconciling their various accounts. I doubt whether this was due to carelessness: rather it seems to me that establishing literal truth simply wasn’t a high priority at the time. They were not journalists and they were not court-appointed investigators.

I was also suggesting that interpreting the Bible on a literal basis in exclusion to eg its spiritual, literary, canonical, liturgical or social contexts isn’t especially good religious practice.

sqweels: Ok, but lots of Ancient and modern texts push an agenda. Personally, I’m partial to the writings of Paul, since they at least give a decent and relatively straightforward account of what one particular early follower of Jesus of Nazareth actually believed.

I trust that you’ve thought about this longer than I have - and I have a dim memory of reading one of your earlier posts on the subject - but I find it difficult to reconcile with Paul’s letters.

Yes, I find such an interpretation plausible. But it seems unlikely: 1 Cor 4-5 makes pretty clear reference to the Lord’s return, which seems to me to indicate an acceptance of the miraculous. And I understand that prophets who reportedly healed the sick and performed various parlor tricks were not exactly uncommon in the ancient world. Though Paul never met Jesus, he did live contemporaneously with many of his disciples; I see no evidence that Paul was pushing a more supernatural account than his contemporaries: quite the contrary, he seemed intent on tamping down the theatrics.

48

Perhaps he was, but he didn’t write the Canonical Gospel of Matthew.

It wasn’t 30 years, it was 40 for Mark, 50 for Matthew, 65-70 for Luke and 70+ for John.

Your points about historical accounts have some validity but the Gospels were never intended to be historical accounts (though the author of Luke-Acts mimics the form). They’re also demonstably ahistorical and mutually contradictory in many instances, so they can’t be history.

Historians do not assume that ancient hisrians like Plutarch, Josephus, Herodotus, Suetonias, Thucydides, etc. are necessarily accurate either, by the way. They look for corroboration. One thing they dismiss regardless of the author is any claim of anything supernatural.

49

As long as JThunder has seen it and is an eyewitness, that’s good enough for me. I don’t need a cite or anything.

Oh wait, I do need a cite. Since I know JThunder just as well as anyone in the 2nd century knew John Mark and Luke.

50

Were I in a position to actually have a chance to run for and win the office of the President of the United States of America, I would profess to believe whatever would get me the votes. I present, not Barak Obama, but John McCain as Exhibit A.

Yes, the statements to which you alluded were ham-handed and insensitive, on that point I agree. I also believe, however, that the vast majority of enlightened Christians (that is, the vast majority of Christians) live uneasily with their beliefs and choose to ignore the illogical nature of them or, like myself, accept them as theoretical and moralistic spiritual guidelines, not as hard fact.

51

Regardless of Christian traditions about who wrote the NT, when , and what actual evidence they claim, nothing in the NT could even remotely be considered a credible eyewitness account concerning the life of Jesus in any historically reliable way.

I’d suggest reading Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman

52

Notice that I used the phrase “physical resurrection.” Look what Paul actually says in 1 Corinthians 15:

  • 3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter,** and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.*
    Paul claims that Jesus appeared to Peter, then the 12, then 500 people at once (an incident which is found nowhere in the Gospels) and then Paul himself. The question is, what was the nature of these “appearances.” Paul does not say that Jesus appeared in a physical body, and later in this same chapter, Paul says that physical resurrections don’t happen – that people can only resuurect with “spiritual bodies.”

Paul also does not mention anything about an empty tomb anywhere in his letters, nor does he reiterate any of the physical proofs that the Gospel writers claim that Jesus gave. Furthermore, he draws no distinction between the nature of Jesus’ appearances to the apostles and to himself.

To sum up, there is nothing in Paul’s letters to indicate that he saw these appearances as physical rather than spiritual that the nature of the appearances to Peter et al were not visionary (as Paul’s were) rather than physical. Paul does not offer corroboration that the apostles he knew ever claimed they saw a dead body walk out of a cave, but only that they claimed he “appeared” to them after his death in a manner that Paul does not distinguish from how Jesus appeared to him.

I do not offer this as an attempt to prove that Jeus’ direct followers did NOT think he had physically written from the dead. I’m only pointing out that there are no primary or secondary claims that they DID. We don’t know exactly what they thought. They left no writings, and Paul is ambiguous in what he tells us.

53

The most recent scholary consensus (See The Oxford Companion to the Bible) is:

Matthew was written by an unknown Christian, perhaps a disciple of the Apostle Matthew, around 85CE. At best it’s the writings of a man who knew and was taught by one of the Apostles, but it’s not eyewitness, nor is that claimed in the book.

*Mark *was supposedly written by one of the Apostle Peter’s scribes/interpreters, likely around 70CE. The actual author is unknown, but he was certainly not an Apostle of Jesus.

Luke was possibly written by “the beloved Physician” of Paul,sometime after Matthew and Mark. It seems clear that Luke was not a constant companion of Paul as some have inferred, but the current consensus is that the Luke was likely a sometime companion of Paul. There’s no reason to ascribe a work to a virtual unknown, as happened in Matthew. In any case, Luke was not an eyewitness to Jesus.

John is the latest Gospel, but it still appears to have the voice of the beloved Apostle by that name in it. Yes, it was written around 100CE, but John was younger than Jesus and is reliably thought to have lived until he was almost 90 (even older by some versions), so that year presents no obstacles and even explains some gaps and errors- the memory of an 90yo some 70 years after the occurances is bound to have gaps and inconsistancies. The Gospel of John was certainly edited and transcribed by the disciples of the Apostle John at Ephesus. Most assume John dictated most of it while John was an old man. If any of the Gospels contains an eyewitness account to the Miracles, it’s John. But at best it’s the very old memories of an old man, which were edited and transcribed by others.

James perhaps was started by the brother of Jesus. The early parts could date as early as 50CE, (James died about 62CE), and there are portions that show it was written by a man whose first language was Semitic. It is clearly several letters, sayings and homilies edited together, and the editor was not James the Just, 1st Bishop and brother of Jesus. No mircales by Jesus appear, and in fact it’s not a history of Jesus at all. Certainly James was an eyewitness to part of the life of Jesus, but this is not an eyewitness account. (James is considered an Apostle, but likely not one of the Twelve, unless he’s mixed up with “James the lesser”, do not get him mixed up with the other Apostle James son of Zebedee , who was the brother of the Apotsle John).

Peter was very likely not written by the Apostle Peter. It dates to around 120 ce.

54

DtC: Thanks for the commments.

I think I can walk my remarks back and agree on the ambiguity. Paul was making an argument for a human afterlife, and he may have been blurring differing reports of Christ’s post-crusification appearances on the earth. Polemicists are known to do such things. Or not: we are left with ambiguity.

Either way though, it seems to me that when the dead appear to the living we’re operating in the realm of the highly unusual or miraculous – even if it’s a mere vision. At least, that’s the way I think that the resurrection is being framed.

Still, it’s noteworthy that there are no reports of parlor tricks in Paul’s letters, AFAIK. Are there places where a Paul would have mentioned them in all likelihood had he known or believed in them, but for some reason did not? Or was faith healing and the like not something that Hellenic and cosmopolitan Jews liked to talk about?

55

I wanted to add a little more. From my reading I gather that highly educated and intelligent scholars don’t always agree on what the available evidence means. Different groups have their favored theories. So, when you hear or read phrases such as “scholars agree” or someone is quoting a biblical scholar or a certain archaeologist take it with a grain of salt, keeping in mind other scholars likely see things differently. In studying subjects like this I try to get a cross section of available views and form my own opinion. I like Bart Ehrman’s writing and he is a very well respected Biblical scholar but other scholars disagree about his conclusions. Someone provided a link to an article written by a Christian scholar in response to Dr Ehrman so I read it. I find the Christian scholars tend to be defensive. Their approach seems to be that even though X, Y and Z are factual, it does not really change or disprove Christian doctrine. That may be true, but the facts should be out there so people can draw their own conclusions.

My point is that while there are relevant facts in the end we just don’t know with certainty if Jesus was an actual person who lived at all. Even if he was, and as a teacher or Rabbi of some note, still the writings of the Gospels should not be seen as historical. They are not. It’s a story written by men long after Jesus supposedly lived. It’s very likely that his story was embellished and the evidence in the many copies of the NT that we have show that’s true. Ehrman cites the story of the woman taken in adultery that Jesus saves from a stoning by saying. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” That story does not appear in early copies. It is written in the margins of some copies and then becomes part of the main text in later copies. That indicates it was added.

The defense seems to be that none of the evidence definitively disproves Christian theology. Well ok. It’s been taken on faith for 2000 years so it’s ok to continue to do that, but please, believers, look at the factual evidence and consider what it means, because after all, it is the truth that we are seeking right? IMO the principles that Jesus taught are not diminished by rethinking the details about what his life may or may not have been. We can look at his story and realize that much of it is mythology and still value the lessons and teaching it contains and try to incorporate those things in our lives. It’s okay to acknowledge that those things may or may not be true. IMO it’s a step in the right direction to do so. It’s simply not necessary for me to believe Mary was a virgin, Jesus raised the dead and walked on water and healed the sick with a touch or a word, in order for me to strive and love my fellow man and be more forgiving and compassionate to others.

56

Commentary from period historians like Josephus and Tacitus suggest that “magicians” and faith healers could attract large followings, but both those historians (i.e. educated people) regarded such people as con artists and charlatans, so it looks like the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Paul doesn’t mention any miracles except for the resurrection. I think it’s most notable that he doesn’t mention Lazarus or either of Jesus’ other two alleged raisings from the dead since, if those stories were known by Paul’s audiences, he would have to address them in his discourse on physical vs. spiritual resurrections (they would appear to contradict him), but Paul doesn’t really say much about Jesus’ life at all, other than that he was “born of a woman,” and that he was crucified. I think the miracle stories just didn’t exist yet, but more curious to me is that (with one formulaic exception), Paul never quotes Jesus, even when it would suit his argument to do so.

Paul’s lack of biographical detail when he talks about Jesus is one of the cornerstones for the (still fairly fringe-y) school of Jesus Mythicists.

57

[Rubs hands together and cackles maniacally.]

I was wondering how long it would be before someone brought up this topic in this thread. As it happens, the conflict between the dates for Herod and Quirinius is old news. What Sampiro mentions here is what researchers used to think. More recently, archaeological evidence has come to light which establishes that there were two governors of Syria named Quirinius, the first living at a time that overlapped the lifetime of Herod. So far from a historical contradiction, we have dramatic evidence in support of Matthew’s accuracy. Score one for the Gospels!

(Covered in The Case for Christ if you want the details.)

58

Well, I think the point is (for Christians) that if Jesus was just some guy who taught that we should be forgiving and compassionate, but also claimed that there’s a god and we’re supposed to be forgiving and compassionate because that god said so. That’s not philosophy, that’s mysticism. So if you’re basing the teachings on the supposed word of an otherworldly being, then what differentiates Jesus from Mohammad, Joseph Smith, or L. Ron Hubbard, who most Christians would hold as being wackos?

Ad hominem attacks work because people care about who did the talking just as much as they care about the message. If the message came from a nutball, people don’t want to be associated with him, even if the message was a good one.

Though I’ll note that Jesus’ message was not just to be forgiving and compassionate. It was also that money is evil and that it is/was wrong for the Jewish people to hold any other god than their own higher than theirs. Both of these have rather been left to the side since the rise of capitalism and the fact that the Jewish people didn’t convert to Christianity for the most part.

59

Cackling with glee because one out of dozens of factual errors wasn’t a factual error seems rather missing the forest for the trees.

60

Luke and Mark used a lot of drugs. See, Luke was a physician and he had access to drugs. Matthew and John were okay, but Luke would ride anything.

-George Carlin