Why didn't Jesus write anything down?

[HansMustermann]

Which is just as well, because I didn't say YOU were doing the argument from authority, but that Ehrman does it repeatedly. Just like most of the bible studies domain actually. The argument being basically, listen to the guys who are professors, don't listen to the rabble. In fact, not just "basically", but Ehrman does it very literally again and again.

And while I don't expect any particular qualifications from him or anyone else to have an opinion on the matter and present his arguments and reasoning, I'm saying that

A) something boiling down to 'I'm right because I'm a professor' is a broken argument anyway. Einstein was a professor at one point, and still was wrong about the cosmological constant in his GR. But

B) it doesn't even work, if one's professor title is in the wrong domain. I don't care how great he is in that other domain. He can't pull authority as a historian because of his Ph.D. and professor position, unless they are actually in history. Until he actually gets that, he's just another guy who's free to present his arguments and data, but that's about it. Basically I don't take a professor of chemistry to be an authority of physics, no matter how much the subjects touch each other, and no matter how great a professor of chemistry he is. Same with history vs bible studies.

And be that as it may, I don't think that discussing someone's titles and qualifications is an attack. In fact, it's a fundamental part of using any authority in informal logic.

It would be an irrelevant attack IF basically you copy his argument and it is supported by following from the premises. THEN it's irrelevant which guy or girl does the argument, since nothing about the conclusion follows from his/her authority.

But every time you take X as (provisionally) true because Y said so, then it's very relevant how good an authority Y is. Qualifications, expertise, conflicts of interest, and generally a heck of a lot of stuff which would be an ad hominem in formal logic, are actually relevant every time you go informal and take anything on an authority's word.

 

[eight bits]

Well, of course, Hans is correct that there is a heavy intersection between the worthless "fallacies" of demonstrative reasoning (formal logic or calculation) and the valuable "heuristics" of reasoning about contingent uncertainties. "Arguments from authority" aren't necessarily much different from other kinds of arguments from evidence. There are good ones and bad ones of both species.

An American Ph.D. (what both Ehrman and Carrier have) is primarily a certificate that the person in question did, at least once in the past, make an original contribution to human knowledge in some specific named field. While that can only enhance a person's credibility in the field itself, the issue that possessing the degree resolves isn't necessarily relevant to any particular question the person might address today. It follows that the lack of such a degree isn't necessarily relevant, either.

Similarly, having taught a course in a subject primarily attests that somebody else was, at least once in the past, willing to pay the person in question to hear what they had to say about the topic. Ditto the interpretation of that.

People cross disciplinary boundaries all the time. This is especially obvious in mathematics, which pops up as infrastructure for so many other fields. Unsurprisingly, many non-mathematicians have made contributions to human knowledge in mathematics, and many more have an expert grasp of some parts of mathematics. Carrier, for example, feels confident enough about his grasp of probability theory, which is "not his field," to opine on how Bayes' Theorem applies to history, which is his field.

If I take something as true, even provisionally, solely on the basis of somebody else's say-so, then I think that means that I have little knowledge of the matter myself, and am either unable or uninterested to pay for further evidence on point. That lack of interest may reflect satisfaction that the person knows what she is talking about. However, when I am so satisfied, usually I will have more to go on than simply an expert's conclusory statement.

Examples: 1. When Ehrman explains why he thinks that a certain gospel verse is a copyist's mistake, rather than a deliberate amendment, then I can assess the cogency of what he says. His "credentials" serve mainly to reassure me that he is not simply a fiction writer who has done his homework. I might adopt the same conclusion he does, not because of his "eminence," but rather because I believe the truth of the facts he recites, and agree with the reasonableness of the conclusion he draws from them.

2. When Ehrman explains why he thinks it is a certainty that a historical Jesus lived,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

then, too, I can assess the cogency of what he says. While his credentials reassure me that he is not simply making up his facts, I cannot adopt the same conclusion he does, not because his "doctorate is in the wrong field," but rather because the facts he presents do not lead persuasively to the conclusion he draws from them. On the contrary, the matter is plainly an uncertainty, and his arguments actually reinforce that plainness, rather than overcome it.

 

[maximara]

Well, of course, Hans is correct that there is a heavy intersection between the worthless "fallacies" of demonstrative reasoning (formal logic or calculation) and the valuable "heuristics" of reasoning about contingent uncertainties. "Arguments from authority" aren't necessarily much different from other kinds of arguments from evidence. There are good ones and bad ones of both species.

An American Ph.D. (what both Ehrman and Carrier have) is primarily a certificate that the person in question did, at least once in the past, make an original contribution to human knowledge in some specific named field. While that can only enhance a person's credibility in the field itself, the issue that possessing the degree resolves isn't necessarily relevant to any particular question the person might address today. It follows that the lack of such a degree isn't necessarily relevant, either.

Similarly, having taught a course in a subject primarily attests that somebody else was, at least once in the past, willing to pay the person in question to hear what they had to say about the topic. Ditto the interpretation of that.

People cross disciplinary boundaries all the time. This is especially obvious in mathematics, which pops up as infrastructure for so many other fields. Unsurprisingly, many non-mathematicians have made contributions to human knowledge in mathematics, and many more have an expert grasp of some parts of mathematics. Carrier, for example, feels confident enough about his grasp of probability theory, which is "not his field," to opine on how Bayes' Theorem applies to history, which is his field.

Actually historians deal with probability theory all the time ie how likely is it to find a document of a particular type from a particular time period from a particular group. What are the odds (probability theory again) that they will exaggerate or downplay what they observe and so on.

The actual field Carrier dovetails into is historical anthropology (Ethnohistory) which is even more into probability theory then "normal" history is.

What Ehrman is doing is akin to a doctor in heart surgery giving an option about how to do brain surgery. Yes they are both types of surgery and are somewhat related but the crossover of the specialties is effectively nil.

 

[eight bits]

What Ehrman is doing is akin to a doctor in heart surgery giving an option about how to do brain surgery. Yes they are both types of surgery and are somewhat related but the crossover of the specialties is effectively nil.

While I bow to nobody in my respect for historians, what they do is not brain surgery.

We seem to be in agreement that there is some well-foundedness to what Carrier proposes as an approach to improving historical method. Bayes Theorem involves more, especially more formality, than a verbal habit of referring to "confidence" as "odds," but agreement is good.

Happy New Year, max.

 

[maximara]

While I bow to nobody in my respect for historians, what they do is not brain surgery.

You really don't understand analogizes very well do you?

Again: What Ehrman is doing is akin to a doctor in heart surgery giving an option about how to do brain surgery. Yes they are both types of surgery and are somewhat related but the crossover of the specialties is effectively nil.

We seem to be in agreement that there is some well-foundedness to what Carrier proposes as an approach to improving historical method. Bayes Theorem involves more, especially more formality, than a verbal habit of referring to "confidence" as "odds," but agreement is good.

Anyone familiar with Bruce Trigger's A History of Archaeological Thought (1989, 2006) will recognize the methodology Carrier is using--its good old System Theory which has been around since the 1970s (James Burke Connections and later series all use system theory).

The problem always had been finding enough to reconstruct enough of the culture to figure out what the system looked like and how each part effected each other.

Carrier's Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997) is one such attempt and avoids the modern mind back then mindset seen in way too many studies of the period.

 

[eight bits]

You really don't understand analogizes very well do you?

I understood it just fine, max. I rejected the applicability of your analogy to the problem at hand.

See the diference?

As to Carrier, I was writing specifically about his recent thinking which applies somewhat formal Bayesian uncertainty representation to historical reasoning. Bayesian theory can be used within many approaches in a variety of disciplines, so I wasn't too worried about Carrier's larger methodological framework. Nevertheless, I do thank you for spelling that out.

 

[maximara]

I understood it just fine, max. I rejected the applicability of your analogy to the problem at hand.

See the diference?

As to Carrier, I was writing specifically about his recent thinking which applies somewhat formal Bayesian uncertainty representation to historical reasoning. Bayesian theory can be used within many approaches in a variety of disciplines, so I wasn't too worried about Carrier's larger methodological framework. Nevertheless, I do thank you for spelling that out.

In the realm of Historical Anthropology what Carrier is doing would be considered old hat...it wasn't cutting edge even in 1989 when Trigger put out the first edition of his book.

Historical Anthropology is the one field the whole historical Jesus debate needs and yet is next to totally absent (Carrier's work is primitive even by 1989 standard but it is better then what anybody else is doing)

The whole muddled mess regarding Isis being a virgin goddess case in point on how bad things are. Yes, the Isis the Ancient Egyptians worshiped was not a virgin but that is not the Isis the Greeks and later Romans worshiped.

The Greek and later Roman Isis had picked up traits of various Greek goddesses such as Io and Demeter (both of whom to the Greeks were regarded as virgins)

"my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the mother of the Gods: the Athenians, Minerva: the Cyprians, Venus: the Candians, Diana: the Sicilians, Proserpina: the Eleusians, Ceres: some Juno, others Bellona, other Hecate: and principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustom to worship me, do call me Queen Isis." ('The Golden Ass,' 2nd century CE).

Minerva, Diana, and Hecate were all virgin goddesses in Greek mythology so to the people who revered Isis under those names she was a virgin.
So the Isis the Romans knew was as much Greek as she was Egyptian and picked up traits that were totally alien to her Egyptian portrayal in the Book of the Dead. Yet detractors of the whole Virgin Isis point to the Ancient Egyptian version and not the one known to be worshiped by the Greeks and Romans; in short they are using the wrong version of Isis.

 

[eight bits]

Well, yes, Bayesianism, the only aspect of Carrier's proposal I commented upon, isn't new. If Carrier's interest in the subject is simply an indicator of one particular practitioner "catching up," rather than a true innovation on his part personally, then that's OK with me, too. Better late than never.

I don't think the Isis discussion was addressed to me, was it? I'm checked out on the Greco-Roman taste for syncretism, seasoned with a fascination for Egypt. Also, I do not understand the status of virgin for a supernatural being to be comparable with what the status of the same name means for a human being (young, never having had sexual intercourse, or both).

The Nicene provision is that a named human woman had a human child of her body without previous exposure to human seed. Since that story speaks for itself, IMO, I've never had much interest in closely comparing that belief about a flesh-and-blood woman with what other people in the surrounding culture thought about how their favorite supernatural beings might manage whatever "childbirth" means without having a human body to do the birthing.

After all, Zeus arranged to have a goddess of his body - such body as he might be said to have; obviously mere virginity would present no special difficulty for a female supernatural mother. Aphrodite, who really liked her sexcapades, seems to have had a standing order for supernatural-virginity restorative wash, well into a ripe age and after "childbirth." No human body, no problem.

For a woman, however, the feat would be miraculous, and so I think it is the story about the woman that needs to be addressed by the counterapologist. That "miracles" combine "things that divine beings might be said to do" with "alleged happenings to people in time and space" isn't innovative. Yup, gods (not even just goddesses) can "give birth" without "having sex" (or having had sex, still be virgins or become virgins once again, or function like males again - whatever).

The story about woman Mary is a miracle story, all right. As to the thread, however, Jesus didn't write anything about his mother's sex life. So, where do we go from here? "We?" Nowhere, it seems. Isis' many manifestations wasn't a point of mine. Nice to know, though.

 

[maximara]

Well, yes, Bayesianism, the only aspect of Carrier's proposal I commented upon, isn't new. If Carrier's interest in the subject is simply an indicator of one particular practitioner "catching up," rather than a true innovation on his part personally, then that's OK with me, too. Better late than never.

I don't think the Isis discussion was addressed to me, was it? I'm checked out on the Greco-Roman taste for syncretism, seasoned with a fascination for Egypt. Also, I do not understand the status of virgin for a supernatural being to be comparable with what the status of the same name means for a human being (young, never having had sexual intercourse, or both).

The Nicene provision is that a named human woman had a human child of her body without previous exposure to human seed. Since that story speaks for itself, IMO, I've never had much interest in closely comparing that belief about a flesh-and-blood woman with what other people in the surrounding culture thought about how their favorite supernatural beings might manage whatever "childbirth" means without having a human body to do the birthing.

After all, Zeus arranged to have a goddess of his body - such body as he might be said to have; obviously mere virginity would present no special difficulty for a female supernatural mother. Aphrodite, who really liked her sexcapades, seems to have had a standing order for supernatural-virginity restorative wash, well into a ripe age and after "childbirth." No human body, no problem.

For a woman, however, the feat would be miraculous, and so I think it is the story about the woman that needs to be addressed by the counterapologist. That "miracles" combine "things that divine beings might be said to do" with "alleged happenings to people in time and space" isn't innovative. Yup, gods (not even just goddesses) can "give birth" without "having sex" (or having had sex, still be virgins or become virgins once again, or function like males again - whatever).

The story about woman Mary is a miracle story, all right. As to the thread, however, Jesus didn't write anything about his mother's sex life. So, where do we go from here? "We?" Nowhere, it seems. Isis' many manifestations wasn't a point of mine. Nice to know, though.

One idea that occurred to me is if Christianity was some form of mystery doomsday cult then that would go a long way to explain as to why Jesus didn't write anything down and why 1st century Christian writings are so vague.

If you believe the world is going to end "soon" there is no reason to record thing for future generations and the whole mystery cult status would push much of everything else off the general radar.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm not sure what the point is in distinguishing between miracles a god does alone, and miracles a god does to a human, though. In both cases it's supposed to indicate divine intervention just the same. And yes, that the god is not restricted by the exact same laws of nature.

I mean, it's not like Mary is the one suspending the laws of nature, but God does it. Hence, what is the real difference between that and when Artemis does it? I mean, I'd see a major difference if they were trying to say that a purely natural and non-divine woman can do that, but if it's a God that does it in both cases, what's the difference?

Plus, according to the Catholics, Mary herself is a special and unique woman created by God for that purpose. How do you know her body doesn't include the same divine DNA that Artemis had, so to speak? If having a different, divinely built, body is making a difference, then Mary has that difference too.

Plus, when you think about it, even gods doing exactly that for other women is also a fixture in that area. E.g.,

- Danae is impregnated by Zeus via a golden shower, also without ever even touching a human male.

- Alcmene, while not a virgin, has her baby (Hercules) basically teleported out magically by Zeus in Plautus's version, without any help or problems, somewhat like Mary. And probably wouldn't have affected her virginity if she were a virgin

- Leda is raped by Zeus in swan shape, and again pretty much gets pregnant without having had sex with a man at that point. (Though later that day she does consummate the marriage with her mortal husband.) Even more miraculously, she lays eggs from which her children hatch. In some versions, Helen (of Troy) is also hatched from an egg.

- Pyrrha and her husband, upon being informed that as the last surviving humans after the flood, it's up to them to repopulate the Earth... apparently don't know how (no, seriously) and are given some cryptic advice that they eventually figure out that it means they should throw stones over their shoulders. At any rate, they produce a whole lot of descendants by throwing stones, no sex or childbirth involved at all. (Leave it to the Greeks to take the fun out of procreation)

- Taygete is SOMEHOW impregnated by Zeus (who, classy guy as he was, had just finished raping every single follower of Artemis there, one after the other, Taygete being the only one left) although she had invoked the protection of Artemis and had been transformed into a doe. And then somehow the doe hunts herself and offers her own corpse to the goddess as an offering, yet gives birth to a human child at some point anyway. AND still lives as a doe long enough to be hunted again by Hercules.

Really, try not to think about it too much. It makes me go cross-eyed just trying to figure out how that worked.

At any rate, if the gods could do all that and more with human women, a supernatural impregnation of a virgin by a god being the most mundane of all those claims, I don't think there is much left to be unique about Mary. If getting impregnated by God while being a virgin counts as a miracle for Mary, it would seem to me like it counts as a miracle for Danae's precedent too. And if not, well, then it's natural for both

 

[maximara]

I'm not sure what the point is in distinguishing between miracles a god does alone, and miracles a god does to a human, though. In both cases it's supposed to indicate divine intervention just the same. And yes, that the god is not restricted by the exact same laws of nature.

I mean, it's not like Mary is the one suspending the laws of nature, but God does it. Hence, what is the real difference between that and when Artemis does it? I mean, I'd see a major difference if they were trying to say that a purely natural and non-divine woman can do that, but if it's a God that does it in both cases, what's the difference?

Plus, according to the Catholics, Mary herself is a special and unique woman created by God for that purpose. How do you know her body doesn't include the same divine DNA that Artemis had, so to speak? If having a different, divinely built, body is making a difference, then Mary has that difference too.

Plus, when you think about it, even gods doing exactly that for other women is also a fixture in that area. E.g.,

- Danae is impregnated by Zeus via a golden shower, also without ever even touching a human male.

- Alcmene, while not a virgin, has her baby (Hercules) basically teleported out magically by Zeus in Plautus's version, without any help or problems, somewhat like Mary. And probably wouldn't have affected her virginity if she were a virgin

- Leda is raped by Zeus in swan shape, and again pretty much gets pregnant without having had sex with a man at that point. (Though later that day she does consummate the marriage with her mortal husband.) Even more miraculously, she lays eggs from which her children hatch. In some versions, Helen (of Troy) is also hatched from an egg.

- Pyrrha and her husband, upon being informed that as the last surviving humans after the flood, it's up to them to repopulate the Earth... apparently don't know how (no, seriously) and are given some cryptic advice that they eventually figure out that it means they should throw stones over their shoulders. At any rate, they produce a whole lot of descendants by throwing stones, no sex or childbirth involved at all. (Leave it to the Greeks to take the fun out of procreation)

- Taygete is SOMEHOW impregnated by Zeus (who, classy guy as he was, had just finished raping every single follower of Artemis there, one after the other, Taygete being the only one left) although she had invoked the protection of Artemis and had been transformed into a doe. And then somehow the doe hunts herself and offers her own corpse to the goddess as an offering, yet gives birth to a human child at some point anyway. AND still lives as a doe long enough to be hunted again by Hercules.

Really, try not to think about it too much. It makes me go cross-eyed just trying to figure out how that worked.

At any rate, if the gods could do all that and more with human women, a supernatural impregnation of a virgin by a god being the most mundane of all those claims, I don't think there is much left to be unique about Mary. If getting impregnated by God while being a virgin counts as a miracle for Mary, it would seem to me like it counts as a miracle for Danae's precedent too. And if not, well, then it's natural for both

Based on Paul's writings the whole virgin thing seems to be an add on as demonstrated by Romans 1:3 her certainly didn't know of it:

περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα,

This is one the rare cases where the KJV translation actually gets it right:

Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;


Now "seed" (or Sperma from which our modern word sperm comes from) refers to the male line because it was believed that a woman was the "soil" into which a man planted his "seed".

This view is reinforced by Galatians 4:4 which refers to Mary as a "woman" and not a virgin."

Some bibles try to disguise this by claiming σπέρματος is translated as descendent but that is the Greek word απόγονοι.

Marcion's Luke (c140 CE) has no birth story at all (it starts at what is now Luke 3:1). Now Justin Martyr (c150 CE) acknowledges virgin births before Jesus but dismisses them "The devil had the foresight to come before christ, and create his characteristics in the pagan world" which to our modern eyes is laughable at best.

Martyr admits: "And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter."

The whole virgin thing IMHO is a false trail - something added to the concept of Jesus between Paul and Martyr and likely pulled from pagan sources.

 

[HansMustermann]

Oh, I know that -- and for that matter most of Jesus's miracles -- were added later. I mean, forget Paul for the moment. Even Mark has Jesus's mom and family know nothing of his divinity. Mark 3:21:

When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."​

Just to recap, that was their reaction when Jesus drives out a demon, and then gathers a whole bunch of people to preach to.

Does that sound even remotely like the reaction of a Mary and Joseph who've had angels telling them about their baby's divinity, prophets proclaiming it, and had a miraculous birth too?

Anyway, yes, it's pretty clear to me that a lot of dumbasses at the time simply went by which religion has the most miracles. In fact we have people from that era saying it point blank. E.g., when not understanding why the Jews would follow the less miraculous one. And it even goes back to Paul for whom it was pretty clear (when addressing the Corinthians) that he doesn't have enough miracles to convince the Jews. Well, give the Christians a couple of decades, and they made up tens of miracles that Paul probably had never heard about.

And, yes, Mary's virginity is such a late miraculous detail.

What I was saying is basically just that they weren't even original. A virgin mother was even more common than the virgin goddesses you and 8bit were talking about.

 

[Craig B]

Oh, I know that -- and for that matter most of Jesus's miracles -- were added later. I mean, forget Paul for the moment. Even Mark has Jesus's mom and family know nothing of his divinity. Mark 3:21:

When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."​

... And, yes, Mary's virginity is such a late miraculous detail.

Quite so, and I have argued this with you before: the earliest sources lack many of the "miraculous details". Mark doesn't even have an explicit resurrection, and his Jesus has a family who think he's nuts. But the later Synoptics add all manner of statements turning him into a more fully supernatural figure. John makes him godlike, and fills his mouth with grandiose claims about his superhuman singularity. By the time Pliny the Younger encounters his followers a few decades later, they are singing hymns to him "as if to a god". What then lies behind this progression?

The HJ proponents argue that a human Jesus may be discerned here, for the accretion procedure would have perhaps been superfluous if only a mythical Jesus (sensu Doherty et al) underlay these sources. For to such a Jesus, cut from whole mythical cloth, could be attributed from the very first any features, however supernatural, that the mythographers wished to assign to him. Yet this is not what we find.

 

[HansMustermann]

I would think it's obviously nuts to think that ANY story would start not just fully fleshed with all the details, but also with all the fanfic. The fact is, it just doesn't work that way. Ever.

E.g., Vader started in the early drafts as just another general in the Empire's army. Han shot first. The "miracles" of the Force, are still being fleshed out. Midichlorians didn't even exist until the prequels, some two DECADES after the Force was introduced. (Incidentally, about the same time interval as between the generally accepted dates for Paul and Mark.) The force itself starts as something believed to be just a hokey ancient religion that certainly wouldn't be of much use against modern technology like a blaster, to something which had been so prominent and extensively used in a recent war that Han Solo couldn't have possibly missed that yes, it is more than a match for a blaster. The exact nature of Vader's betrayal took even longer than that to be revealed. "True Sith", as in the species, didn't exist until the comics and animations. Even "Sith" was not defined in Episode IV, or even mentioned on screen actually, it was just something alien sounding that Vader was dark lord of, in an offshoot novel (ghost) written by a different author: Alan Dean Foster. Several lightsaber colours and the lore behind them (e.g., yellow) are only introduced in offshoot video games. Etc.

You have the same accretion without needing a historical Darth Vader, for fork's sake.

Even in the Bible's case, you can see some accretion around other made up persons. E.g., the centurion Longinus. Originally he's just a generic nameless and faceless soldier, a background character in a story. Then gradually people give him a name, a rank, a place of birth, a whole story of what he did afterwards... and even change that story around 180 degrees at least once. And we can be sure that none of those details come from a real person, not the least because they're all derivatives of the name of his weapon, the longche, the lance of an auxiliary.

Even if there was a soldier there who proclaimed the divinity of Jesus -- although probably not even that, because you couldn't worship anything but one of the approved gods in the Roman army -- there wasn't a historical Longinus. None of those details which would define and determine a real person are coming from any real soldier.

What on Earth gives you the idea that you need a real person to accrete around?

If you think about it, it's fully irrelevant, since none of the people involved could easily verify the existence of that person. In Jesus's case too. Paul's rudimentary character Jesus Christ is as good a center to accrete around as anything else.

 

[OCaptain]

Because he didn't exist.

Would you then approve of applying the same standard to all figures taken as historical? If they wrote nothing, they didn't exist?

 

[OCaptain]

There's only one reference in the Gospels to Jesus writing anything, and it's John 8:8. This is also in one of the most contested passages of the canonical Gospels, and most scholars consider it a later interpolation or a different tradition that's been inserted in the text at this point.

The alleged adulteress incident.

 

[OCaptain]

I would think that people would be hanging on Socrates's words and recording them as quickly as they could.

And Socrates was important, at least to his followers. It's odd that Jesus didn't impress even one scribe to the point where his words were recorded, or at least one impressed person would hire a scribe. They couldn't have all been stone broke.

This is the problem with anything ancient, and it is called the accident of preservation. What we have is because it was preserved. Nothing else can be said about it. We can't say it was the first, or the last.

Too often, we incorrectly assume that the copies we have were definitively the first composed. And, from that, we build houses of cards built upon that premise, leading from one speculation, to a less likely one, to another even less likely one. And so on.

We've got a small amount of writing regarding Jesus from within a generation. We've got more of it from within 2 and 3 generations.

We have to be careful not to excessively speculate.

 

[OCaptain]

"The winners write the history." So Jesus would have been noted as a loser somewhere along the way, if he'd been crucified.

Your logic forgets Constantine. His conversion would have turned the tables at least politically, making Jesus and the Christians the winners. Anything recording otherwise would have been either destroyed outright or declared a heresy.

 

[eight bits]

I'm not sure what the point is in distinguishing between miracles a god does alone, and miracles a god does to a human, though. In both cases it's supposed to indicate divine intervention just the same. And yes, that the god is not restricted by the exact same laws of nature.

Since it did come up, I understand a "miracle" to be a reported temporal event that violates some confidently held natural constraint. Since a god isn't subject to natural contraints, then whatever a god is said to do outside of space and time isn't a miracle, even if it were somehow true, and even if the story of the god's doing it was supposed to be received as a fact-report by the first audience (which seems suspiciously like turning polytheists into proto-Protestants, a bald anachronism if ever there was one).

Also, the report that a "miracle" has occurred raises a seperate question from any proposed explanation as to how or why the "miracle" occurred. An attribution of a temporal event to a supernatural cause would be an inference, just as it would be an inference to attribute a natural cause, and a separate inference from any finding that the event in question actually happened.

I see no value in conflating these distinctions.

On a matter arising closer to the topic:

As to when something interesting about Mary's sex life became Christian doctrine, I noted its inclusion in the Nicene Creed, which is Fourth Century, without trying to locate any earliest usage. Celsus wrote against the idea in the late Second Century, if Origen is to be believed (mid Third Century), so it apparently wasn't a recent thing which the councils introduced ad hoc.

The canonical roots of the doctrine would be Matthew, whenever you care to date that, and from whatever community of Christians whose traditions you think that the book transmits. Although Luke has a birth narrative, it doesn't actually commit to a virign birth, just that Mary agrees to the angel's proposal, an agreement reached while she describes herself as a virgin. No other Gospel even considers the question.

It is very difficult to judge what traditions Paul knew of, and of those, which he believed to be true, or thought important, or found useful for his mission, except for the death and resurrection story. We have only seven business letters from him (assuming those are genuine and well-transmitted), and no idea how those were selected from what body of actual work.

Among the distinctive things about the resurrection "miracle" is that it was (if true) public (500+ witnesses, says Paul) and personally verified by Paul's own experience, as he understood his experience. Rumors about an elderly or dead lady's girlish sex life are neither, and couldn't possibly have added to Paul's credibility if he had chosen to discuss them.

Thus, he simply is not a reliable witness to the absence of contemporary interest in that about which he is silent.

 

[HansMustermann]

I suppose there is some use in defining what a miracle is. After all, we wouldn't want each to be talking about something entirely different.

Still, I feel that such lines can't be drawn outside of the contest of what it was supposed to mean to the faithful. I think the whole point was to illustrate the power of a god. That he or she was not constrained by the normal rules of the universe in the first place.

A god being unconstrained by the normal working of the universe was what they were peddling. And what made one a god.

I suppose we could call it "miracle" when a god suspends the rules of reality for Mary or Danae, and, dunno, "supernatural" or "being divine" or just "xyz" when it's about a god's body or realm which never were constrained by the same rules as us. And it would probably serve well to point out differences in some discussions. But here the whole point is that a god is supernatural, or being divine, or xyz, in the first place. Miracles are just a way to show that. If some other claim goes directly to the god's being xyz by being unconstrained by reality in the first place, well, all the better. It reached the goal in one less step.

For example, is heavens a miraculous place? I'm sure a lot of believers would say "yes". By your distinction, I suppose it would be "no", as it was not subject to the constraints of the natural world in the first place, so no suspension or violation of those rules ever took place there. It would be "yes" all over again though, if God were to just rewrite the laws of physics and convert Earth into the place where you spend eternity. As was actually expected by many Jews at the time to happen in the messianic age.

And again, I can see how that distinction could bring something to the table in some debates. But here I feel it's somewhat less relevant, since what matters, what is being 'sold' to the believers, is the end result and that God has the power to do that. If it's via a miracle or via some place being supernatural in the first place, well, who cares?

I think it's more or less the same about virginity, really. In both cases it shows that said god or goddess is somehow above the normal procreation constraints. Being so by being supernatural in the first place or by being able to suspend the laws of reality, well, did it actually make a difference for what that religion was peddling?

As for polytheists, well, the term is just about as generic as monotheism is. If I told you that Jack is a monotheist, would you be able to tell by that if he's taking his religion literally or not? I think the same applies to polytheism. Some polytheists seemed closer to taking it literally, and some did not.

Plus, as you undoubtedly know, things are a bit more blurry than taking everything literally or everything metaphorically. Even Protestants take some things as just an opinion or just some unmarked parable or such, and even Catholics take a lot of stuff literally. If you asked a Catholic priest whether Mary was literally conceived by God in a special way that kept her free of that pesky original sin, he can't answer anything but that it's literal. Answering anything else is being instantly anathema in his church for contradicting a doctrine proclaimed ex-cathedra and for which papal infallibility had thus been invoked. I.e., to take it as some symbolic spiritual thing would be to disagree with something held by his church to be a fundamental truth which can't possibly be wrong. Or at that, ask him about the resurrection or most of Jesus's miracles. You don't have much of a religion left if Jesus only symbolically lived on in his followers' hearts, but stayed as dead as a door nail otherwise.

I think most polytheism runs into the same problem. If you don't take at least SOME acts of god as, you know, actual acts of that god, then you have a god who never did anything showing supernatural power. You have to keep SOME supernatural stuff as either literally having happened that way, or being close enough.