Good question--did the NT author's invent the miracle stories in the gospels

Were the Miracles of Jesus invented by the Disciples/Evangelists?

Updated: Dec 21, 2002 | Back to the Miracles Index | Summary

13. Even if we grant that these miracle stories are meant to be understood literally, and that these accounts derive ultimately from eyewitness accounts, doesn't the pervasive gullibility of the ancient world reduce the credibility of these accounts to virtually nil? The countless 'eyewitness testimonies' to things like centaurs, live births from males, miraculous healings at temples, teleportation and metamorphoses should render the evidential value of the gospel 'eyewitness accounts' similarly zero.

A published version of this can be seen from Evan Fales [Philsophia Christi, Series 2, Volume 2, Number 1, 2001, p. 22):

"Perhaps most surprisingly, he [David Clark] fails to see the evidential force of the concessions he makes in considering alternative explanations for miracle stories. It is a truism that the fact that some miracle stories are fabricated is logically consistent with the possibility that some are true. The issue is evidential: given that so many are fabricated, what reason do we have to believe those of the home religion?"

Fales referred in the preceding paragraph to Richard Carrier's piece on Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html).

Carrier will say there:

"If the people of that time were so gullible or credulous or superstitious, then we have to be very cautious when assessing the reliability of witnesses of Jesus. As Thomas Jefferson believed when we composed his own version of the gospels, Jesus may have been an entirely different person than the gospels tell us, since the supernatural and other facts about him, even some of his parables or moral sayings, could easily have been added or exaggerated by unreliable witnesses. Thus, this essay is not about whether Jesus was real or how much of what we are told about him is true. It is not even about Jesus. Rather, this essay is a warning and a standard, by which we can assess how likely or easily what we are told about Jesus may be false or exaggerated, and how little we can trust anyone who claims to be a witness of what he said and did. For if all of these stories below could be told and believed, even by Christians themselves, it follows that the gospels, being of entirely the same kind, can all too easily be inaccurate, tainted by the gullibility, credulity, or fondness for the spectacular which characterized virtually everyone of the time."

Now, much of modern scholarship would already disagree with this position, as can be seen from a couple of authors:

"In antiquity miracles were not accepted without question. Graeco-Roman writers were often reluctant to ascribe miraculous events to the gods, and offered alternative explanations. Some writers were openly skeptical about miracles (e.g. Epicurus; Lucretius; Lucian). So it is a mistake to write off the miracles of Jesus as the result of the naivety and gullibility of people in the ancient world." [GAJ, rev 2, p.235, Stanton]

"This period [Hellenistic] may well have been the least superstitious period of antiquity, even if we have to allow for the continued existence in concealment of an undercurrent of the usual superstitions and belief in miracles. However that may be a change sets in with the beginning of late antiquity. Popular belief in miracles and superstition revived." [MSECT:269, Theissen]

"On the other hand it must be admitted that in the relatively peaceful and stable period of the first two centuries the irrationalism which first appeared at the beginning of the first century was unable to strike roots. There continued to be rationalist movements alongside it. In his dialogues Lucian mocked his contemporaries' belief in the miraculous. Oenomaus of Gadara mocked the oracles, and Sextus Empiricus once more brought together all the arguments of scepticism. Even where increased irrationalism was notable--for example in Plutarch's development--it remained within bounds, without eccentricity or fanaticism. There was no decisive change before the great social and political crisis of the 3rd century. AD. [MSECT:275, Theissen]

"Primitive Christian belief in the miraculous thus has a crucial role in the religious development of late antiquity. It stands at the beginning of the 'new' irrationalism of that age. Our brief outline of this development may have done something to correct the widespread picture of an ancient belief in the miraculous which has no history. What we have found here is not a rampant jungle of ancient credulity with regard to miracles, but a process of historical transformation in which forms and patterns of belief in the miraculous succeed one another. If we accept this picture, we must firmly reject assertions that primitive Christian belief in the miraculous represented nothing unusual in the context of its period." [MSECT:276, Theissen]

"particularly in the Augustan age, when intellectual life was inspired by the example of Alexandrian scholarship, there was a general desire for increasingly exact knowledge, and historians, like poets, were always on the alert to correct their predecessors." [X02:RCH4S:93, Woodman]
"It is in this light that we must judge the accounts we possess of other miracle-workers in Jesus' period and culture. We have already observed that the list of such occurrences is very much shorter than is often supposed. If we take the period of four hundred years stretching from two hundred years before to two hundred years after the birth of Christ, the number of miracles recorded which are remotely comparable with those of Jesus is astonishingly small. On the pagan side, there is little to report apart from the records of cures at healing shrines, which were certainly quite frequent, but are a rather different phenomenon from cures performed by an individual healer. Indeed it is significant that later Christian fathers, when seeking miracle workers with whom to compare or contrast Jesus, had to have recourse to remote and by now almost legendary figures of the past such as Pythagoras or Empedocles." [X:JATCH:103]

"In the second century C.E. there is a fair amount of evidence to support the thesis that philosophers were generally inclined to be less critical in assessing extraordinary phenomena than in the centuries immediately preceding and more cordial toward religion generally and mainstream piety and its wonders specifically." [X04:PCCM:104]

"In the Second-Sophistic period [beginning 2nd century AD] the pagan gods were extraordinarily active. They not only appeared to humankind in person or in dreams. They were also diligent in giving out oracles. The paganism of the High Empire does indeed have a vibrant feel to it." [HI:AREPJC:167]
"The rituals we studied [exorcism, love rites, alchemy, and deification] all point to the importance of the first three centuries [AD]. Ideas which only appeared in embryonic form before the turn of the millennium undergo tremendous development by the beginning of the fourth century [AD]". [HI:MRW:98]

And above all, Ramsay MacMullen would argue that the trend began around 100 AD or so, and yet that even during this time of increasing 'credulity', Richard's 'virtually all' would be quite in error:

"Plutarch tells the story (the explanation does not concern us), calling it an instance of superstition. He uses the word to express his disagreement with those who would take a perfectly ordinary event, as he saw it, and ascribe divine dimensions to it. The more a person saw the gods at work in the material world--moving things around, for instance--and the less a person explained in terms of natural causes, the clearer was the presence of superstition…Over the course of the centuries chosen for examination here [100-300], superstition with this meaning certainly increased. This fact is best sensed (to say 'measured' would imply a degree of accuracy beyond our reach) in the greater prominence of magic; for magic, after all, is most shortly defined as the art that brings about the intervention of superhuman powers in the material world--'moving things around, for instance." Proof of the practice of the art grows more abundant, most obviously in recipes and handbooks written on papyrus. It is to be found in every province, for example, in leaden curse tablets. And people who should have known better come to credit invocations with an efficacy that, in some previous century, would never have been believed. It means nothing that a late orator attributed an ineffectual speech to hexing by jealous detractors; an early orator, consul in Cicero's day, offer the same excuse; but when the very emperor resorted to wizards to aid him in his wars, times had changed. Perhaps no new ideas are to be discovered, but old ones are found in circles previously immune to them…" [HI:PTRE:70]

"That was the test: ridicule. Fully to sense the meaning of Constantine's preposterous pontification, he must be imagined speaking at Plutarch's table. There, his views would have produced delighted grins; likewise, no doubt, in the company of Lucian or Apuleius. Lucian knew of opinionated ignoramuses in very high places indeed, followers of the pious fraud Alexander. They were the equal in gullibility of the population of Abonuteichus where Alexander set up shop. Lucian expects his readers to laugh at them, as Apuleius could hope (a little anxiously, in a small town like Oea) to raise a laugh at yokel accusations of magic. He practiced no magic, he insisted in his defense, but scientific experiment in the tradition of Aristotle. Who but a clod could misinterpret that? With his trial, we have passed the mid-second century. We still feel a difference--the difference between "religion" and "superstition" --separating the literate few of Athens, Rome, or Carthage from the people of remote centers like Oea in Tripolitania or Abonuteichus in Pontus. Another hundred years pass, and gullibility is no longer a target for ridicule. In the most educated circles that the Empire has to show, enchantments, trances, and wonder-working raise no laugh; rather, fear and awe. It is rationalism, as we would call it, that now must defend itself; and it is easily put to rout by Constantine. Most of his listeners--not all, for such large changes come about very gradually--no doubt shared his views." [HI:PTRE:72]

"We must remind ourselves, of course, of the spectrum of temperament and the degrees of exposure to a diversity of ideas, already emphasized. It was not a world in which absolutely everyone trembled on the edge of believing absolutely anything." [CRE:17]

Note that Fales and Carrier are not arguing that any of the scriptural miracle narratives are actually untrue, but only that our grounds for believing them (e.g. eyewitnesses) to be true might be entirely faulty, and indeed, the "extra evidential weight" normally assigned to eyewitness testimony might need to be completely removed--given the 'virtually universal' gullibility of the period.

One might also note at the outset that:

They assume the gospel narratives of miracles are 'entirely the same kind' as the stories Richard discusses in his article (as we will below).
Carrier still holds to the position that miraculous elaboration of a simpler non-miraculous narrative could have been 'easily added' (which we have seen in this series was neither done, nor would actually have been 'easy to do', given the way textual transmission/survival mechanisms worked).
The extent of 'high gullibility' was considerable: "virtually everyone"
The fabrications of the some ('the many') implies that the credibility of self-proclaimed eyewitnesses must be discounted--almost proportionally. In other words, the more liars there are, the less we should believe anyone--and even regardless of the evidence they adduce (i.e., evidence itself is subject to this vicious circle, since almost all evidence has a 'source'--including, btw, self-experience and personal perception).

There are several issues here that need to be considered:

Some initial remarks about terminology
A quick discussion of Richard's examples
Methodological issues involved in assessing ancient gullibility
Data about the gullibility of this period
Situating the NT miracle narratives within this "credulity context"

…………………………………

A. Some initial remarks about terminology.

There are actually three separate "events" under discussion here:

1. Creation: Initial fabrication of an embellishment (of an existing story), or creation of a de novo miraculous story (e.g., deliberate deceit, error of memory, literary motive, overactive imagination, psychoactive bagel)

2. Reception: Hearing such a 'tall tale' and believing it (i.e., credulity, gullibility, suggestibility)

3. Relay: Hearing such a 'tall tale' and (believing it or not) transmitting it to others (re-telling) with or without further embellishment (i.e. "Creation").

Given these distinctions, one must note that Fales' position is only about "Creation". He is not arguing anything about 'gullibility' but about 'fabrication' (e.g., deceit). This is not actually an issue of gullibility (or at most only obliquely--as a 'market' for increasing fabrications). His argument is that 'given so many deceitful claims, why believe formally-analogous claims from even comrades?'

Carrier's article seems to be somewhat more focused on Reception and Relay, since he often combines terms like 'ready to believe or exaggerate'. Creation of bogus elements does enter for Richard, of course, in the Relay Step.

These distinctions may be relevant for us, since when we try to assess 'gullibility' in the period, we are dealing with Reception (and to some extent , Relay--although many times 'tall tales' were told mostly for entertainment, as we have noted earlier in the genre of paradoxography and in the remarks on the "ghost" in the letter of Pliny). On the other hand, when we try to assess Fales' argument, we have to focus largely on the 'relative quantity' of fabrications (and the relevance of those fabrications to the situation of the gospel stories, of course).

So, with this in mind, let's turn to Richard's examples…

B. A quick discussion of Richard's examples

Richard divides his evidence into two categories: (1) Minor and (2) Major.

He gives as his minor evidence (of widespread gullibility and 'fondness for the spectacular') the following bits:

1. The ascription to Paul of divinity in Acts 28.6

2. The ascription to Paul and Barnabas of divinity in Acts 14.8-18

3. Some of the messianic claimants discussed in Josephus (i.e., The Egyptian, Jonathan the Sicarius, Theudas)

4. Simon Magus in Acts 8.9-11

5. The speaking of the statue of Tyche--Plutarch

6. Vespasian's healing (from Suetonius/Tacitus)

7. Statues at which healing occurred (Lucian, Pausanias…Athenagoras)

8. Asclepius

He gives as major evidence the stories of Apollonius, Peregrinus, and Alexander.

Let's take a quick look at each of these:

· The ascription to Paul of divinity in Acts 28.6 and to Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14.9ff:

The text of Acts 28.6 here reads thus:

After we had reached safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta. 2 The natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us around it. 3 Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. 4 When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.

Richard comments: "Even in Acts, we get an idea of just how gullible people could be. Surviving a snake bite was evidently enough for the inhabitants of Malta to believe that Paul himself was a god…"

A couple of observations about the passage:

1. This is not a case of fabricating a miracle story at all--its only about their interpretation of 'extraordinary evidence'. All their past experience led them to believe that Paul should have suffered and/or died, and when their cumulative experience of natural law was extraordinarily violated--not just 'surviving a snake bite' but showing NO EFFECTS of a fatally poisonous snakebite whatsoever!--it was perfectly reasonable from them to come up with some extra-ordinary explanation.

2. To call Paul a G-R 'god' wasn’t really saying much in those days--the concept was so watered down that it could be 'voted upon' any rich donor to a city (see the discussion in mq2.html).

3. The interesting thing is that they seemed genuinely surprised at the outcome. They were NOT, therefore, accustomed to seeing or believing miracles stories at all. This was not in any sense 'gullibility' at believing a 'tall tale' told to them (a la Reception). Their interpretation of the miracle might be faulty, but their belief in the experienced miracle was not 'gullible' in the least.

The text of Acts 14.8ff:

In Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet and had never walked, for he had been crippled from birth. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. And Paul, looking at him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, 10 said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And the man sprang up and began to walk. 11 When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates; he and the crowds wanted to offer sacrifice. 14 When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. 16 In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; 17 yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them.

Richard comments: "And Paul and his comrade Barnabas had to go to some lengths to convince the Lycaonians of Lystra that they were not deities -- for the locals immediately sought to sacrifice to them as manifestations of Hermes and Zeus, simply because a man with bad feet stood up (14:8-18). These stories show how ready people were to believe that gods can take on human form and walk among them, and that a simple show was sufficient to convince them that mere men were such divine beings. And this evidence is in the bible itself."

Some observations about this passage:

1. This is not about somebody simply with 'bad feet' (!), but someone either with a congenital birth defect or having experienced an accident in infancy (cf. Mephibosheth in the OT). This is an instantaneous healing, which was rightly interpreted as 'extraordinary evidence'. They were amazed to the point of having to interpret such an extraordinary experience.

2. And, again, the "error" is in the interpretation of the miracle, not in the admission of its reality. It is entirely reasonable to use para-normal, supra-normal categories to attempt to describe this.

But this narrative data doesn’t really support or undermine Richard's thesis--its just irrelevant to his point. But the literary data in the these passages actually carries some 'bad news' for Richard's thesis. Compare the comments of commentators on these:

· "It is not difficult to detect Luke's quiet humor in his account of their [Acts 28] sudden change of mind. We may compare and contrast his description of the change of mind among the native populace of Lystra, who first greeted Paul and Barnabas as gods, and then stoned Paul nearly to death (14:11-19). Luke probably implies that only uncultured people like the Lystrans and the Maltese---"barbarians", as he calls them--would think of Paul as a divine being." (Bruce, Acts, NICNT)

· "Whenever similar stories were told, those who survived bites from poisonous snakes or lizards were considered holy men (e.g., the pious Jewish holy man Hanina ben Dosa); Greco-Roman paganism often considered such holy men to be divine or semidivine. The change of mind on the part of Paul’s viewers could strike the ancient reader as humorous, as in some similar accounts in antiquity where a human was mistaken for a particular divinity." [BBC, at Acts 28] and "Like most early Jewish and Christian writers (cf. also Is 46:5–7), Luke is not above making fun of paganism’s stupidity." [BBC, at Acts 14]

· "The reactions of the local people reflect superstitions of the day, and are treated by Luke with an ironic humor." [Hemer, [NT:BASHH:153]]

Interesting…Luke here is actually 'making fun of' their 'interpretive credulity'! It seems that Luke may be agreeing to a certain extent with Richard, about the pagan response to miracle.

But this creates a rather serious problem for Richard's position--for Luke is a Christian writer, and even a writer of one of the Gospels (with the miracle narratives about Jesus). This would mean that Luke has a self-conscious distance between his 'belief' and the 'credulity' of the pagan-world-at-large (as described by Richard). Luke is accordingly 'sensitive to' the issue of gullibility, and indeed, is positioned against it (as being in itself 'ludicrous'). This is a major argument against Richard's identification of Christian acceptance of miracle with Pagan credulity/gullibility. In fact, since Luke wrote a gospel, this also strikes a major blow against the position that the gospels are 'entirely the same stuff' as the pagan miracle stories.

But there's more…This literary observation can now be extended to Luke's readership, for (as BBC noted above) his ancient readers would have found the pagan response similarly comical. How would Luke know that his readership would find these ascriptions of divinity as comical as he did? By his knowledge of literary educational praxis…

We have noticed several times earlier in this series that G-R education (above basic reading skills) involved 'debunking' of G-R myth. The students would practice 'debunking opposing legal counsel' by working over and discrediting stories told in G-R myth. Anyone who could write above 'merchant level' (and many/most who wrote only at that level) would have had practice in 'skeptical' thinking, and almost anyone who could read (above that level) would have too. Luke could, therefore, presume upon his readership the knowledge that such 'credulity' was laughable.

But notice that Luke does not portray the miracle itself as ludicrous, but rather as something 'matter of fact'. Paul shakes the snake off and gets back to work building the fire--there is no 'speech' or 'oracle' or 'divine manifestation' at the time. There are no amulets or magical rites. It was just a protective act of Paul's God, with no fanfare or spectacular adornment. Luke does the same at 14.8--the miracle event is rather straightforward, without omens, portents, thunder and lightening, incantations, sacrifices, etc…just a matter-of-fact act of God in helping someone…And Paul himself does the de-bunking for the populace, explaining to them that although something extraordinary did happen among them, their elaborate mythological interpretation of it was simply wrong.

There are miraculous elements throughout Acts, of course, but none of these have the 'trappings' of G-R myth, which would have tipped the reader off that debunking and discounting were necessary.

So, oddly enough, these first two examples actually do not provide any support for Richard's thesis of "universal gullibility" (since the people in the stories were not recipients of miracle stories), and indeed provide evidence against his assumption that Christian praxis was no different from pagan (at least at the time/level of NT authorship, I might add). We have positive literary data that suggests that (some) Christian authors were sensitive to and opposed to pagan credulity (at least at the interpretive step).

We will come back to this issue later, too…

· Some of the messianic claimants discussed in Josephus (i.e., The Egyptian, Jonathan the Sicarius, Theudas)

The main problem with this data is chronological--they are all after the NT gospel traditions are 'established'. As we discussed in mq7.html, these figures are too late to the party…

When we discussed several of the alleged parallels to Jesus, we noted that the period immediately before Jesus was a devoid of any major or patterned miracle claims. None of the Messianic claimants of the pre-Jesus period made claims to miracles. There are no literary 'heroes' of the immediate period doing wonderful works. All the supernatural events of the period are basically oracular/prophetic. We noted that Theissen had called this one of the most skeptical periods in Ancient History.

However, as soon as the gospel stories of Jesus get circulated--then miracles by others start popping up all over! Apollonius gets 'rehabilitated' as a wonderworker (although it doesn’t actually look like it was intended to be a factual account--see mq5.html). And these Jewish messianic claimants all start offering 'a sign' as proof of their messianic status…

These post-Jesus messianic claimants are pre-Destruction (70ad) and therefore are of the generation that witnessed Jesus' many miracles. Why wouldn't they be open to the miraculous after that Larger-than-Life Love? As we noted earlier, there is a high probability (argued by Theissen and others) that the miracle stories of Jesus--widely and early circulated and argued by Christians with pagans--created a 'miraculous expectation' that led to an increase in 'actual credulity' of Late Antiquity.

We should also note the 'scale' of this phenomenon, relative to population size--to see to what extent it might be reflective of 'virtually everyone' (smile)…

If we use Gray's list of Messianic figures in Josephus which offered some kind of sign (not all did, and none of the pre-Jesus ones did, as noted above), we can get a quick overview [HI:PFLST, chapter 4]:

Name	Ref	Time	Type of figure	Locale	# of Followers	Type of sign	Notes
Theudas	Antq 20.97f	45AD	Prophet (like Moses?)	Syria-Palestine	Small (overcome easily by 500 cavalry)	Promise of parting the Jordan	We don't know which direction he approached the Jordan from, so we don’t really know where the followers were from
The Egyptian (Jew)	War 2.261f; Antq 20.169f	56AD	Prophet (like Joshua)	Palestine, "countryside" and around Jerusalem	Uncertain: War: 30,000, most killed or taken prisoner; Antiq: "masses", but only 600 killed or taken prisoner; [Acts 21.38: 4,000]	Promised the walls of Jerusalem would fall down at his command (but I wonder if this is figurative, since War said he intended to 'break through by force'?)	Contradictions in the accounts (source, size of following)
Unnamed figures under Felix	War 2.258f; Antq 20.167f	Post-56AD; Pre-60AD	Prophet	Jerusalem-only	Less than the Egyptian	'signs of (political) freedom'
Unnamed prophet of 70 CE	War 6.283f	70 AD	Prophet	Jerusalem-only (during the battle!)	6000 women and children (the men were fighting in the battle)	Promised delivery from the Romans that day	Not sure how much 'conviction' versus 'desperation' was involved here--taking refuge in the Temple, during the middle of the battle, may have been the ONLY 'reasonable' thing to do!
Jonathan the Sicarius	War 7.437f; Life 424f	In the 70's, after the Destruction	?	Cyrene (North Africa)	2,000	Signs and apparitions	Cyrene was the Roman Capital of the province there. Very large city--220k were said to have been killed in the Jewish uprising in 115AD, implying a population much, much larger.
Unnamed figure under Festus	Antiq 20.188	60-62CE	?	Palestine		'salvation and rest from troubles'	(not enough data to study, but the description 'looks like' a sign-prophet

Now, given that the Jewish*.* population of Syria-Palestine at this time is somewhere in the 1-2M range, even the huge number for the Egyptian (30k) represents only 1.5-3.0 % …and if the number is actually closer to the number in acts (i.e., 4k), it doesn't even register…The Cyrene case is down in the sub-one percentage category also…

I really don’t feel comfortable at all extrapolating from these tiny numbers to something like 'virtually everyone'. I can find greater percentages than these in every modern society of the world. [The recent (2002) legal action in the USA against the psychic hotline of Miss Cleo involved 6 million callers, out of an adult population base around 200m--3%.] These ancient examples simply cannot be used to support the quantitative-aspect claims of Richard's position.

(I personally tend to discount the qualitative aspect as well, since I do not believe that 'acts of desperation' are in any way representative of 'acts of conviction'…The modern medical practitioner, whose daughter develops a disease not treatable by 'scientific' medicine, and who in desperation turns to 'alternative' solutions, does not do so because he has become convinced the cure will work, but does so in desperation--in grasping at straws however flimsy…it would be a misnomer to call this 'faith'…and many of the cases above--in the years before the Destruction (especially during the very battle!) , may well be such 'non-faith' acts of despair… more on this later…)

We should also note that 'hopefulness' is not the same as 'credulity'. These Sign Prophets are not said to have actually performed any signs, but only to have promised them--compare Meier's comment:

"It cannot be stressed too much that when Josephus polemicizes against "false prophets" and "charlatans" like Theudas (Ant. 20.5.1 §97-98) or the unnamed Egyptian (Ant. 20.8.6 § 160-70; cf. J. W. 2.13.5 §261-62), he presents them as promising the people signs of deliverance. Shortly before the final storming of Jerusalem a "false prophet" promises "signs of deliverance" and persuades many desperate Jews to flee to the temple (J. W. 6.5.2 §285). Josephus likewise speaks in more general terms of "deceivers," who enticed people into rebellion by promising them that if they followed them into the wilderness, there God would show them "the signs of deliverance" (J W. 2.13.4 §259; cf. Ant. 20.8.6 §167-68). In A.D. 73 a weaver called Jonathan persuaded the Jews of Cyrene to follow him into the wilderness, so that there he could show them "signs and apparitions" (J.W. 7.9.1 §437-42). All of these popular leaders, whatever their precise agenda, are sometimes referred to by scholars as "sign prophets." In one sense that is correct, since they all promise "signs" or the equivalent thereof. But the phrase "sign prophets" can easily lead the unwary reader astray. Josephus never says that any of these "deceivers" actually performed miracles. Strictly speaking, they do not belong under the rubric of "miracle-worker...Thus, Jesus of Nazareth stands out as a relative exception in The Antiquities in that he is a named figure in 1st-century Jewish Palestine to whom Josephus is willing to attribute a number of miraculous deeds (Ant. 18.3.3 §63). " [MJ:2:592]

So at least this data deals with post-Jesus 'credulity' at best, and certainly doesn't support Richard's claims to ubiquity.

· Simon Magus in Acts 8.9-11

Acts 8 reads as follows (NRSV):

Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word. 5 Philip went down to the ("a") city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. 6 The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, 7 for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured. 8 So there was great joy in that city. 9 Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. 10 All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11 And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. 12 But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.

Notes:

1. We don’t know where this 'city' is, but we know where it is NOT. It is not the capital Sebaste, since that is a Greek city (not Samaritan), and it is not Neapolis (built near their holy site Mt. Gerizim) which wasn’t founded until 72 ad. It MIGHT be Sychar (of John 4 fame), but we don’t know, and the encounter in John 4 didn’t manifest any 'magical tendencies' in that part of Samaria (suggesting that our case here is not necessarily representative of 'all Samaritans' by any means). In any event, there are no 'large cities left' after these two--in Samaria, and so the 'population base' for this incident is very, very small.

2. Whatever he did to 'amaze' the populace was obviously dwarfed by the healing and exorcisms done by Philip. This introduces an interesting dimension to this story. If Simon is impressed by the relative difference between the miracles of Philip and his own (low-grade versus high-grade miracles), then the people of this city have been 'amazed' at low-grade miracles. BUT THIS MEANS that they were obviously not 'anesthetized by familiarity' to low-grade miracles. In other words, low-grade miracles were rare enough in their experience to bear evidential force. This needs to be seen clearly. If the world of the time was literally filled with (a) events seen as miracles; and (b) claims about miracles being believed wholesale; then the low-grade miracles of Simon should have been very un-amazing…This argues the opposite of Richard's position here, obviously.

3. Notice that it never actually says that Simon did anything miraculous. It only says that they were "amazed" at him, because of his magic practice. If you remember from our discussion of magic in mq6.html: "Of the 540-odd tablets listed in the Greek Magical Papyri ([NT:GMPIT]), a mere 68 (12.6%) of them have any relationship to healing-type miracles. And of these 68, a full 40 deal with headache, fever, stings and bites, coughs, and eye problems. Most spells are largely of the 'attack/counter-attack/preclude attack' types (apart from the 'coerced love' spells, of course)." I should point out that 'amazement' can be generated as easily by showmanship as by results--as the clever architectural designs of some of the Mithraic worship-centers [HI:PTRE:126] (and even Medieval church buildings) illustrate.

At any rate, the data is once again unsupportive of massive gullibility, and indeed suggests that miracle claims were not even remotely 'a dime a dozen' in this period.

· The speaking of the statue of Tyche--Plutarch.

Richard makes a factual error in introducing this case, with his "Miracles were also a dime a dozen in this era." We noted at the beginning of this article (and the reader is encouraged to also see the historical data in mq6.html) that miracle claims were exceptionally rare in this period (with the major exception of divination--only partially miraculous, and not on a par with the kinds of miracles under discussion). This is a serious weakness in Richard's position, unfortunately, since his position would predict quite the opposite. We should see reams and reams of literature debunking (or endorsing) these paranormal events --but we don’t until after Jesus' miracles are widely known. We do get the occasional treatise against magical medicine (a la Galen and Pliny), but nothing against really 'big' miracle claims. And, needless to say, Richard cannot argue from this single example of Plutarch to some kind of 'dime a dozen' scope of conclusion!…But on to Plutarch…

Unfortunately, Plutarch is another bad example. Not only is he post-Jesus (writing after 96AD), but he is also part of the 'growing credulity' trend. [One of our opening quotes pointed this out, although the quote mentioned that it was somewhat restrained in his writings.]. In fact, in this passage, after explaining that many non-verbal 'signs' can be given by gods through statues, Plutarch goes on to argue that God could still communicate supra-sensually (miraculously) to communicate messages to the faithful, and he never actually "explains away" the speaking statue (contra the implication of Richard), but refers it to the direct action of a god upon the mind of the faithful. Look at the text:

"The senate, much commending their public spirit, caused the temple to be built and a statue set up in it at the public charge; they, however, made up a sum among themselves for a second image of Fortune, which the Romans say uttered, as it was putting up, words to this effect, "Blessed of the gods, O women, is your gift."

"These words, they profess, were repeated a second time, expecting our belief of what seems pretty nearly an impossibility. It may be possible enough that statues may seem to sweat, and to run with tears, and to stand with certain dewy drops of a sanguine colour; for timber and stones are frequently known to contract a kind of scurf and rottenness, productive of moisture; and various tints may form on the surfaces, both from within and from the action of the air outside; and by these signs it is not absurd to imagine that the deity may forewarn us. It may happen, also, that images and statues may sometimes make a noise not unlike that of a moan or groan, through a rupture or violent internal separation of the parts; but that an articulate voice, and such express words, and language so clear and exact and elaborate, should proceed from inanimate things is, in my judgment, a thing utterly out of possibility. For it was never known that either the soul of man, or the deity himself, uttered vocal sounds and language, alone, without an organized body and members fitted for speech. But where history seems in a manner to force our assent by the concurrence of numerous and credible witnesses, we are to conclude that an impression distinct from sensation affects the imaginative part of our nature, and then carries away the judgment, so as to believe it to be a sensation; just as in sleep we fancy we see and hear, without really doing either. Persons, however, whose strong feelings of reverence to the deity, and tenderness for religion, will not allow them to deny or invalidate anything of this kind, have certainly a strong argument for their faith, in the wonderful and transcendent character of the divine power; which admits no manner of comparison with ours, either in its nature or its action, the modes or the strength of its operations. It is no contradiction to reason that it should do things that we cannot do, and effect what for us is impracticable: differing from us in all respects, in its acts yet more than in other points we may well believe it to be unlike us and remote from us. Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity."

Regardless of the understanding of this passage, though, there is no way to extrapolate from this to some 'dime a dozen' hypothesis, since Plutarch does not indicate in any way how widespread the 'speaking statue' incident reports are, nor does his argumentation in the passage require it to be large at all. In other words, a single notable example would be adequate cause for such a passage--there is no way of knowing whether he is responding to a claim of extraordinary quality or a claim representative of extraordinary quantity. Richard will need to look elsewhere to back up his claim.

· Vespasian's healing (from Suetonius/Tacitus)

We have already discussed this case in mq2.html, along with the general theme of 'divine leaders'. Even if it were "true", it was so unique of a situation that it could hardly be used to support a "Miraculous healings were also commonplace" conclusion.

· Statues at which healing occurred (Lucian, Pausanias…Athenagoras)

Now, when we come to the healing statues, Richard is certainly on better 'quantitative' grounds. We do have mentions of shrines and temples and statues at which healing was supposed to have occurred. MacMullen can say:

"Those particular shrines (Asclepieia) were very numerous and, if all other places of resort for healing were counted in as well, drew to themselves more supplicants than any competing category of belief. What could be found there? Dreams and health. The chief business of religion, it might then be said, was to make the sick well." [HI:PTRE:49]

But we now have the problem of the qualitative aspect--did those who sought healing at a statue or shrine really 'believe' anything? Remember, "credulity" is about "belief"--not 'experimental behavior'. We noted in mq6.html that a healing transaction was a 'quid pro quo' transaction (Kee's phrase), and that the sick would try one deity, then another, then another (i.e., Aelius Aristides) --until they got results, ran out of resources, gave up, or perished. There was generally no 'belief' required, and no post-healing 'commitment'. MacMullen can express this, and still hold up cases of 'sincerity':

"More proof of this sincerity (of prayers to deities) appears in plague times, when city senates tried to enlist the direct help, or at least the advice, of some god in their salvation. Again, we ourselves may be skeptical. In desperation, any measure might be tried, however little credited. Yet some of our inscriptions, to say nothing of Aristides' report on his private efforts, declare after the event that salvation (healing) had been really won by prayer: plagues or earthquakes had been ended, unspecified benefits bestowed, the Goths scatter. That partnership, mutually respectful, between the powers above and the leadership below, was seen actually to work." [HI:PTRE:59]

But the examples of 'sincerity' he gives are almost without exception post-NT…

The data about religious commitment in paganism of the period is just too contradictory to assume that belief was a core element. For example:

"…the same ardent Romans who burnt the 'atheist' Justin should, in Juvenal's day, have laughed at anyone professing faith in an altar or temple." [HI:PTRE:62]

The inscriptions describing the healing were written by the paid priests in the temple, who also published the various stellae and inscriptions proclaiming the wonders of their patron deity. However, it did not involve belief (as would be assumed under the topic of 'credulity'):

"But such activity (stellae) represented no system of beliefs; it sought to change no one's life; and it quite took for granted, and assumed that listeners likewise took for granted, the true divinity of the god advertised. It focused rather on the attractions to be had at the shrine: healing, foreknowledge, or a feast." [HI:PTRE:98]

In the cases mentioned by Richard, we do not have any indication of how many healing stories were 'recorded' there, but unless they were significantly more successful than Asclepius (below), there could not have been many.

But the reference to Athenagorus is really interesting, for here again we have a Christian discounting credulity! One can see it in the word choices in the passage:

"The one has statues of Neryllinus, a man of our own times; and Parium of Alexander and Proteus: both the sepulchre and the statue of Alexander are still in the forum. The other statues of Neryllinus, then, are a public ornament, if indeed a city can be adorned by such objects as these; but one of them is supposed to utter oracles and to heal the sick, and on this account the people of the Troad offer sacrifices to this statue, and overlay it with gold, and hang chaplets upon it. But of the statues of Alexander and Proteus (the latter, you are aware, threw himself into the fire near Olympia), that of Proteus is likewise said to utter oracles; and to that of Alexander…sacrifices are offered and festivals are held at the public cost, as to a god who can hear. Is it, then, Neryllinus, and Proteus, and Alexander who exert these energies in connection with the statues, or is it the nature of the matter itself? But the matter is brass. And what can brass do of itself, which may be made again into a different form, as Amasis treated the footpan, as told by Herodotus? And Neryllinus, and Proteus, and Alexander, what good are they to the sick? For what the image is said now to effect, it effected when Neryllinus was alive and sick."

This, again, suggests that whatever level of gullibility we assign to the pagan world on the basis of Richard's data, that level does NOT apply to the Christian group. And accordingly, no discounting of reliability of the Christian testimony is warranted on the basis of Richard's data (even if taken at face value).

MacMullen offers interesting confirmation of this. He has this passage in [CRE:8]:

"What is likely first to attract notice are the blunt words of contempt and disapproval with which the lettered aristocracy, in talking about religious views, belabor the simple, unthinking, ordinary folk, the unlearned."

But when he footnotes this 'disapproval of common credulity', his ancient sources are Tertullian, Ireneaus, Minicus Felix, Lucian, Athenagorus, Eusebius, and Porphyry. More than half of these are Christian…

· Asclepius

Asclepius is called the 'above all' by Richard, and used to support his argument that healing tales were 'not remarkable at all'.

Now, I have discussed Asclepius at length in mq6.html, but let me point out how 'small' the scope is even here:

"The Epidaurian Temple Record is a list of cures, and of miracles going further than cures, which took place there…Most of the recorded cures are no more than cures, which might be put down to natural causes, or to skilful treatment by the priest. Others, such as the disappearance of the spear-point and the transfer of Pandarus's mark, at least seem miraculous, and the latter has a moral as well. The record shows that the miracles were few, and even the simple cures were not numerous. There were enough to sustain hope and faith, and to attract funds for maintenance. But obviously, if the priest had been able to improve Asclepius's score themselves, or even pretend to have done so in the past, the number claimed would have been greater. It was clearly understood--too clearly to leave room for major deception--that beyond a certain point, human agency had no power in the matter. If Asclepius chose to work a miracle, then he would, but it was the god's doing and he did not often choose." [Miracles, Geoffrey Ashe, RoutledgeKeganPaul:1978, p.18,19]

I might also make a comment about the 'more reliable evidence than anything we have for the miracles of Jesus' remark: it's just not true (smile). From a historiography standpoint, multiple textual witnesses (especially non-collusive ones), of much longer length than epigraphic mini-texts, without clearly defined literary exemplars and social 'pressures' (i.e., temples had 'template' documents and expectations--like many modern day 'healing' events), and written/transmitted by a original checks-and-balances group (as opposed to a 'testimony' written by a priest after the cured had left…e.g., we KNOW of forged testimonies in such temples) is a much more reliable base to work from…

So, at the end of the minor evidence section, we don't really have any scope-data: we cannot tell how pervasive these beliefs are, nor can we be very sure they really ARE 'beliefs', nor do most/many of them even fall into the pre-NT-writing period. At best, they witness to a pan-cultural belief in the supernatural, and some of the data (e.g. Acts/Luke, Athenagorus) actually differentiates the credulity of the lower-level pagans from the Christian position anyway…This data would actually support the view that the NT authors did not 'follow cunningly devised fables' in the writing of the canonical NT documents.

……………………………………………………………..

On to the Major evidence…

In this section, Richard describes certain aspects of the traditions about Apollonius, Peregrinus, and Alexander. This piece is dated in 1997, and I strongly suspect that Richard would have written this differently had it been more recent.

Several observations are in order about this material:

First of all, we do NOT know 'more about these than we do of Jesus'. Most of our information about Peregrinus and Alexander come from the bitterly polemical writings of Lucian and even the source that Richard refers us to comments to that effect (Culture and Society in Lucian, C. P. Jones, Harvard:1986):

"A more difficult question than the dating is that of Peregrinus' history and personality. For most of his career the only witness is Lucian, who is obviously not concerned to give a sober account." (p.120)

"Though evidence from elsewhere can be used to correct, confirm or supplement Lucian, particularly in what he says of Glycon, for an account of Alexander's career he is the inescapable, if heavily biased, source." (p.134)

Secondly, we have already seen earlier in the series that our knowledge of Apollonius is exceptionally poor. Hagg can refer to Philostratus' "biography" in these terms: "the historical core almost disappears in the romantic pulp" [HI:TNIA:115], and the work is characterized as a 'romance' or 'early novel'--hardly a favorable comparison to Greek bioi of Jesus.

Next we should note that two of the figures are outside our period, by at least a century. No one disputes that interest in the supernatural and magical increased after the New Testament, and both Pergrinus and Alexander are later figures. Whatever evidence their impact provides on mass-credulity, it will not apply to our pre-NT period.
On this last point, the source Richard recommends consistently indicates the prevalence of the 'miracle claims' in the post-NT period:

"The belief in curative statues flourished as vigorously in the second century as the belief in magic." (Jones, p.49)

"It was in this period that Platonists and Pythagoreans began to import into philosophy the demonology and the oriental lore that were so strongly to color later Greek thought." (Jones, p.51)

But even in that period, belief was not always 'fashionable':

"Another Platonist of the same epoch is Apuleius of Madaura, who was accused of using the black arts himself, and whose Metamorphoses contain incidents of magic and the supernatural that often recall Lucian. Apuleius leaves his reader uncertain whether to understand his story as fantasy or autobiography, and it is likely that other philosophers were similarly evasive." (Jones, p.51)

The continuance of a cult/following for a religious figure for some time after him/her is no indication of the scope of 'suggestibility' at the time of the figure himself/herself. The data is simply irrelevant to the question.

By now, I am sure Richard has abandoned using the Historia Augusta as a reliable source of information!

The data from Lucian needs to be kept in perspective--he is a satirist, often (a) selecting the most "grotesque" of real examples and (b) caricaturing others:

"Just as Lucian's ostensible date has been suspected [On Writing History], so also have his depictions of contemporary historians, the accusation being that their errors or absurdities are so gross that they seem more like caricatures than real people. Lucian claims to take his examples from recitations which he had attended personally and solemnly assures the reader of his veracity. But though he avoids invention, he is free to choose the most grotesque targets that he could find, while modern readers are used to works that have survived the sifting of ancient and medieval critics. In some instances, moreover, history helps to verify his claim to truth [about his grotesque targets]." (Jones, p.60f)

"Many of these charges [in Mistaken Critic] are familiar, and Lucian may not have intended them all to be believed. " (p.111)

The miracle-working statues of Peregrinus are obviously in the low-level category of 'miracle' (like we saw in Simon Magus):

"The statue there was believed to give oracles and to heal the sick, and this confirms another of Lucian's predictions: that Peregrinus would be supposed to cure his devotees of quartan fever . All this is well within the bounds of ordinary belief. Statues were thought to be invested with all kinds of numinous power, but particularly with the cure of fevers, a belief mocked by Lucian elsewhere ." (Jones, p.130)

Richard's source on Peregrinus (Jones) points out that the effects of his 'ministry' were actually small, and short-lived:

"Peregrinus and his followers seem to have been far less successful than other religious innovators like Alexander, and though his memory lived on for centuries the cult is only mentioned within a few years of his death. This hybrid of Cynicism and popular religions was perhaps too monstrous to survive." (Jones, p.130)

This last point leads, in fact, to two conclusions opposed to that of Richard: (1) it was hardly widespread, even in this 'higher superstitious' age; and (2) credulity obviously has its limits, if something can be 'too monstrous' to be believed! There are limits to how far even a less-skeptical age can go…

Even the age of Lucian--less critical in its thinking than the first-century AD--saw intense debates about such matters:

"The connection with Apollonios and with Pythagoreanism brought Alexander's oracle directly into the philosophic debates of the day, in which the reputations of Apollonios and Pythagoras, and the reliability or oracles, were hotly contested, and Lucian's essay can be understood partly as a volley in such an intellectual battle." (Jones, p.135)