Your statement only makes sense in the context of assuming the healing took place.
Assuming the healing might have taken place. Useless word games are down the hall, take a left turn, straight on till morning.
This makes two assumptions for which there is no evidence:
- That any actual healing was done at all, and
- That hypnosis played any factor at all.
When you hear of “healings” done by modern faith healers, do you assume that healings actually are happening?
I’d like it if the quote being replied to here wasn’t falsely attributed to me.
Although it does provide an interesting example of how documentary evidence can get corrupted.
You claim that it’s >95% likely that Jesus of Nazareth existed and was a famous healer. You then claim that:
was psychological in basis.
Now, you’re saying that the unspoken assumption that the healing actually happened is “word games”.
Sorry about that, screwed over again by defective cut-and-pasting. The quote was actually from septimus.
My apologies.
This might be the worst argument that has ever been made for a historical Jesus (and this is coming from an atheist that doesn’t doubt that he existed). How, exactly, would the Romans “show” that the records don’t reference the crucifixion? “Hey, everyone, this is bullshit and we can prove it: if you travel 1,100 miles to Jerusalem and inspect the vital statistics tablets, you’ll see why didn’t crucify Jesus. But if you don’t want to go, just take out word for it.”
How do we know Elvis really existed? Oh wait, the black velvet paintings. Well that’s proof enough for me.
They didnt have to show the records. They could have just claimed Jesus never existed. They made up other scurrilous lies about Him and his worhipers, so why not claim he never existed? Why wasnt it until around the 20th century that anyone made that claim? Rise of atheism , that’s why.
Does anyone here think my posts are better than nonsensical? If so, Please state it publicly — I could use the feedback. If mine are too incomprehensible or blatantly wrong for any defense, I’d better withdraw from the thread.
Your posts make sense.
The problem is that they assume something which has not been proven.
When someone points this out to you, you accuse them of playing word games.
What do they assume? That Jesus healed people.
You’re trying to explain how Jesus could have healed people.
The problem we’re having is that there’s no good evidence Jesus healed people.
Therefore, the simplest explanation is that his healings are completely mythological.
And/or fraudulent.
“Fraud” is such a fraught term. If there’s no expectation that religious stories be factually accurate, or an expectation that drawing people into the faith is more important than facts, a pious lie would be seen as laudable, especially if it can be used as a parable to illustrate some point the author sees as important. People back then knew the difference between truth and lies, but the line between a harmless or benevolent lie and a fraud is always in flux.
People back then were just as susceptible to advance agents pretending to innocent bystanders telling wondrous tales, staged “miracles”, and audience prepping as are the audience of faith healers today, and they didn’t have to ability to check out claims online.
Why would the romans bother to attempt to convince people that he didn’t exist, again?
And it was standard procedure, not just with religions but with those writing about the natural world or those writing history. I read a (recent) biography if Alexander the Great which noted that historians living not long after him attributed miracles to him.
And remember, Parson Weems attributed miracles to Washington just a year after he died. Of course people would attribute miracles to Jesus after he died.
Because, again, his existence isn’t important. His existence doesn’t make the miracle tales any more credible, because we have abundant examples of miracle tales about other people that nobody believes, in spite of having no doubt that those people existed.
The attribution of miracles to persons who may well have never performed them can also be seen by looking at Paul.
“Luke” in Acts gives several instances of Paul healing or something similar.
What about Paul in his own writings? Nada. He never lists a single act of him healing anyone. He barely mentions healing and similar deeds. In 1 Corinthians he lists healing as one of the gifts of the Spirit. And that’s the most explicit he is.
Furthermore, he comes across a couple of sick folk (Trophimus and Epaphroditus) and doesn’t heal them.
It seems that Paul didn’t heal anyone. (And didn’t seem to think Jesus healing anyone either happened or was notable.) And yet a mythos of him healing folk soon sprung up after his death.
Acts, from a historians point of view is a mess. It clearly deviates from the known historical information many times. More so than any comparable text in the New Testament. So trying to assert any historical truths from it is problematical. And this is from the author of Luke which people take as … gospel.
Because the Christians were a thorn in their side. They spread rumors like Jesus was the bastard son of a roman soldier and such.
Then why do so many atheists work so hard to spread their idea that Jesus never existed?