I received this question recently...
First, congratulations on what must be one of the best apologetics sites on the net. I understand what "backlogs" are all about, but if you can find a way to notch this one up any on your list, well, I'd just be flabbergasted.
The basic argument presented by Steven Carr (one of the more formidable atheist debaters on the net, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), is that most or many of the miracles of Christ did not in fact occur, but are simply retellings of OT stories.
My reason for contacting you on this is that I have yet to see a rebuttal argument either on the net or in the apologetics literature. Whenever a skeptic notices such a thing, he obviously feels obligated to shout it from the rooftops, you know "what the Xtians don't want you to know...".
If you can find the time to do it justice, I'd be most appreciative.
Thanks much,
XXX
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This article examines many of the most famous miracles of Jesus.
If, as I maintain, knowledge of the real Jesus died out rapidly, then where
did the miracle stories come from?
We need to note here that the objector's starting point is that the miracle stories cannot be (or are not) true accounts from the life of Jesus, passed on through tradition or literature. Once one makes this assumption, then one is quite obviously forced to come up with a source of the stories, and one is obviously forced to conclude that they must be fabrications (assuming that one disallows later prophetic revelation of historical facts about the past, but I suspect that the objector would hold to this assumption).
[I personally disagree with the assumption of non-historicity, and have written reams on it, but in this piece I want to simply show that the argument for radical literary dependence (to the point of 'origination') of the NT miracle stories on the OT miracle stories--as the sole source for the miracle stories--is (1) unsupported by the specific examples the objector gives, (2) is actually contradicted by the textual data; (3) is too vague and limited of a theory as to have any superior explanatory power; (4) contradicts what we know about the general literary praxis and historical setting of the period; (4) cannot provide adequate warrants for moving from 'similarity' to 'rewrites'; and (5) is inferior to other theories, especially other skeptical ones]
Now, at a very basic level, the objector is simply forced into this position--there are simply very few options. If the stories are not based on Jesus' history, then the only possible sources are (1) imagination, (2) transference [of one developed miracle story to a different agent], or (3) development of a miracle story from some non-miraculous historical event.
Currently, few scholars would opt for number 1 (pure imagination or hallucination), and often for the obvious reason that both require 'seeds' from which to "grow the dream." Most scholars today who would not accept the nature miracles as either possible or actual, opt for number 3 (addition of miraculous elements to a historically-based non-miraculous source), and most of the sources cited by the objector take this position, as opposed to number 2 (the objector's position). Option number 2 (that entire settings and characters are made up, without any historical anchor, to fit some OT miracle story held to be prophetic about Jesus), which position is held by the objector, is mostly an ancient view, held before the resurgence of research into the Jewish background of Jesus' day. The reason option number 2 is not widely held today will become apparent from our interaction with the data below.
The question will not be "are there similarities between OT and NT miracle stories?", but rather are these similarities adequate warrant to believe that literary plagiarism/transference was the source of those similarities.
Let's dive in...
Ruth Tucker is an evangelical Christian. In her excellent book, 'Another Gospel', (Zondervan,1989), she examines the beliefs of Mormons, Moonies, Jehovah's Witnesses etc. Here is what she says about the Book of Mormon.
A quick methodological point--what seems "obvious and
clear-cut" still needs to be demonstrated with evidence and
argument. And each case must be cross-examined to see what data counts
against
the position. So, even Tucker refers to scholarly works in making her observation,
instead of appealing to "appearance"...
Or take Chapter 2 Verse 249 of the Qu'ran (sic), which is about the first king of Israel, called Talut in the Qu'ran (sic).
Actually, I consider myself a Christian and I don't "recognise" this
to be the case at all...the details aren't close enough to the story, nor
clear enough in their referents. Let's cite the story first:
"So when Talut departed with the forces, he said: Surely Allah will
try you with a river; whoever then drinks from it, he is not of me, and
whoever does not taste of it, he is surely of me, except he who takes with
his hand as much of it as fills the hand; but with the exception
of a few of them they drank from it." (trans. Shakir, WR:TQS)
If we look at the points of discontinuity, they are rather pervasive:
2. In Judges, God is trying to reduce the number of soldiers; in the Quran it is a test of actual faith.
3. In Judges, the nature of the screening is kept hidden from the soldiers; in the Quran it is announced to all as a test of loyalty.
4. In Judges, the issue is drinking by hands versus drinking by tongue;
in the Quran it is drinking versus not drinking
[I hasten to add that the issue of Islamic borrowing from Jewish scripture and culture is a fascinating and complex one, and there appear to be significant borrowing from the rabbinic tradition (but less so from the actual text of the OT). For example, this passage above contains at least a confusion of Saul (the first king), Gideon (the water test), and Saul again (forbidding food). See Abraham Geiger, "What did Muhammad Borrow from Judaism?" in WR:OK:216f]
So, close attention to the details shows that the passages are not even remotely close enough to suggest 'literary borrowing' of the type suggested by our objector. [Also, a literary relationship would likely to have been much closer in detail and structure to the OT narrative. The radical departures make the connection remote at best.]
[Tank Note, May 23, 1999: I have been copied on a number
of rather strange emails and Usenet posts, suggesting that I am in disagreement
with a corresponding
piece on this issue at Answering
Islam. Let me try to be a bit clearer on this issue (without changing
my wording above):
1. My intent above is simply to argue on the basis of detail that the
Talut passage is NOT a straight one-for-one borrowing from the Gideon passage,
as the thesis
I am discussing in the paper asserts. [It is not even an example of
'changing' the character--it still purports to be the story of what really
occurred.]
2. I am absolutely in agreement with Answering
Islam (cf. #7) that there are reminisces of the Gideon passage, but
modified by other borrowings (e.g., the
abstinence motif of I Sam 14.24ff).
3. In my 'skeptical' perspective, the 'hand' element by itself is NOT
adequate indication of borrowing--only the confluence of the elements of
the hand, the
testing, the other (semi-biblical) events surrounding it, and (possibly)
the number 300 (which shows up in a hadith about the Battle of Badr, and
which fits well with
Jochen's argumentation about the event being created to inspire troops
of approximately 300 to begin fighting!). At most, Jochen and I would disagree
over the
intensity of the similarity.
4. The reference I made above about Abraham Geiger's work SHOULD have
made this clear. I commented specifically that the passage was a
'confusion' of the stories (implying some borrowing and definite modification
or faulty memory). [Geiger's work, of course, is an older work (some of
his arguments
would be outdated), and at times overstates the connection with the
Rabbinic materials (in my opinion), but in this passage he is NOT talking
about "possibly
later" Rabbinic materials, but the "unquestionably earlier" biblical
materials. His arguments with Rabbinic parallels would have to be examined
case by
case (to verify the dating of the Rabbinic traditions), but in this
case that limitation would not apply.]
I hope this clears my position up adequately on this...the intent of
my analysis here was simply to address the issue of did the Qur'an pick
up a story, chop off its
head, and graft another one on--at the level suggested by the Objector.
End Note.]
It is very easy to spot when old religious stories have been recycled to produce new religious stories about other people.
If the previous passage was supposed to be a good example, then I absolutely
disagree...I know from forays into comparative mythology (in the Tank)
that it is very easy to make facile identifications based on superficial
similarities. (One biblical scholar created the term 'parallelomania'
to describe this!) A good deal of critical rigor needs to be applied to
each case. It may be easy to spot "candidates" for further analysis, but
merely pointing out common words, themes, and even settings will not be
enough for the critical thinker.
And the relevance to the Bible is?
Take the feeding of the 5,000.
In 2 Kings 4:42-44, Elisha has a great many people to feed with only
a few loaves of bread and a little other food. He delegates the task of
feeding. There is a complaint that the quantity is too small. The feeding
continues and everyone is fed. There is surplus bread left over. This older
story from Kings has exactly the same plot as the feeding of the 5,000
- only the numbers are different.
Okay, let's pay attention to the detail first:
Now when Jesus heard it, He withdrew from there in a boat, to a lonely place by Himself; and when the multitudes heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities. 14 And when He went ashore, He saw a great multitude, and felt compassion for them, and healed their sick. 15 And when it was evening, the disciples came to Him, saying, "The place is desolate, and the time is already past; so send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." 16 But Jesus said to them, "They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!" 17 And they *said to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish." 18 And He said, "Bring them here to Me." 19 And ordering the multitudes to recline on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes, 20 and they all ate, and were satisfied. And they picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets. 21 And there were about five thousand men who ate, aside from women and children. (Matt 14.16-21)
And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.
4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Jesus therefore
lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to Him,
*said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?" 6 And
this He was saying to test him; for He Himself knew what He was intending
to do. 7 Philip answered Him, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not
sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little." 8 One of His disciples,
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, *said to Him, 9 "There is a lad here who
has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?"
10 Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in
the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. 11 Jesus
therefore took the loaves; and having given thanks, He distributed to those
who were seated; likewise also of the fish as much as they wanted. 12 And
when they were filled, He *said to His disciples, "Gather up the leftover
fragments that nothing may be lost." 13 And so they gathered them up, and
filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, which
were left over by those who had eaten. 14 When therefore the people saw
the sign which He had performed, they said, "This is of a truth the Prophet
who is to come into the world." (John 6.1ff)
2. In the OT, they have bread and corn; in the NT, bread and fish. (notice that Matthew does not make the 'barley' connection, like the later John does.)
3. In the OT, the donor was a man; in the NT, a lad.
4. In the OT, the donor had just come from a trip; in the NT, the lad was with them.
5. In the OT, the loaves/ears were a religious sacrifice (first fruits); in the NT, it was the kid's family's lunch (probably).
6. In the OT, there is no indication that E. handled the food, nor blessed it; in the NT, Jesus was explicit in both.
We need also to remember that 'feeding miracles' were not altogether uncommon at the time:
Now this is a speculative leap that would make Kierkegaard proud...
To jump all the way from 'reminiscences' and 'backgrounds' to 'obvious rewrite' would require much more evidence than simply observing surface similarities!
Some of the data and arguments against are easily seen:
First of all, all the data we have about Jesus of Nazareth suggests that he thought himself to be the Messiah. And as such, he was to be the Second Moses and prophet of prophets. There is absolutely no reason to believe that he could not have deliberately structured this miracle after the miracle of one of his predecessors. He was consistently putting himself in the line of succession of the OT prophets (e.g., Luke 13.33; Luke 11.50; Matt 13.57; Matt 21.11). He was certainly familiar with the stories of Elijah and Elisha (Luke 4.25ff), and was deliberate in his efforts to fulfill his destiny as he saw it written in the OT/Tanaakh. The entire Jewish culture expected the messianic age to be filled with "echoes" of the OT history. There is all the reason in the world for Him to deliberately emulate OT stories, when the appropriate occasion arose, and this would certainly be no exception.
Secondly, although there are elements in continuity with the Elisha story, the stronger link is that with Moses and the manna (as noted above). Jesus as the "new Moses" (cf. Deut 18.15) is a theme in John, and in this passage the people respond in this way, as opposed to anything relative to Elisha. Cf. EBC:
Thirdly, there are enough strong discontinuities (noted above) between the two passages to discount literary borrowing at such a radical level.
Fourthly, the comment about 'guessing the bread' is cute, but misleading--the same approach to any of the discontinuous areas (or even to the Matthean account itself!) would fail 'obviously.'
Fifthly, we run into all the difficulties with ethics of fabrication, the difficulty of escaping detection in a closed literary circle (the apostolic church), and the logistics challenge of making it up and trying to 'edit it into' an existing gospel! The sheer difficulties of doing this successfully count against the plausibility of such a theory...but more on this later...
And strangely enough, the "barley" comment actually points out a problem for the view...
The "barley" element of the story, and the "little boy" element of the
story only show up in John's version of the story--it is NOT in the
earlier three Synoptic accounts. What this means is that these alleged
"deliberate similarities" are NOT present in the story when it is first
"created", but only show up much later, when the Gospel of John is
composed! This historical progression of not-there-when-created to there-at-the-end
looks
MUCH MORE like either (1) it is the fruit of reflection and later
notice by the evangelists (an evangelical view) or (2) it is the fruit
of legendary embellishment of an existing story (non-evangelical view),
but either case argues against the story having originated with those
"rip-off similarities" present. So, in the one case in which we can
have this historical progression (the one miracle recording all four gospels),
the data is the reverse of what we would expect if the objector's view
were correct.
But let's go on...
On page 176 of the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, written by a raft of Catholic scholars, it says that 2 Kings 4:42-44 is 'obviously the inspiration for the NT multiplication miracles'. I like the word 'obviously'.
So what? I can find a raft of scholars to support positions all along the spectrum of dependence, from "none" to "background/reminiscent" to "linguistic shaping" to "theological explication" to "outright plagiarism"...and remember, I am arguing (on the basis of Jewish expectation, Jesus' self-concept, book production logistics, and early NT tradition) that the Elisha story WAS part of the "inspiration of the miracles" but of the miracles themselves--not of only the stories of the miracles. [Your citation leaves it ambiguous whether it was the 'miracle' or the 'story' that it was the 'inspiration' for, BTW.] The particular passage in the NJBC you cite was not written by a 'raft' but by one professor of the OT (Begg). I can just as easily cite another professor (Hobbs, WBC) with "The actions of Elisha also find echo in the ministry of Jesus"--a much milder statement.
Besides, most of the scholars on that particular raft would believe
in a historical kernel to the NT story (option 3) instead of simple appropriation
of the OT story wholesale (option 2). And one doesn't arrive at truth by
counting noses...
But one story is just a coincidence
Here are some more examples of Old Testament stories which have been rewritten to become stories about Jesus.
Below, LXX stands for the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This translation was done at least before 200 BC.
(In his list of similarities below, I will intersperse points
of discontinuity or other comments in [ ])
In 2 Kings 4:27-37 a distraught parent [mom] of an only child
[a son] comes to Elisha [a journey on a donkey, of around 25 miles]
just
as in Mark 5:22-24 (which continues in verses 35-43) a distraught parent
[a father] of an only child [daughter] comes to Jesus [a
short cross-town journey, walking distance], pleading for help.
In both stories someone tries to discourage the parent from bothering Elisha and Jesus.
[in the OT it is the servant of Elisha, trying to protect his master;
in the NT, it is friends of Jairus, trying to break the bad news to Jairus;
in the OT the 'discouraging' occurs BEFORE the request for help is made;
in the NT it is AFTER the request is made, and WHILE they are already going
to the house.]
In both stories it is unclear to some people in the story whether the child is dead ,dying or asleep.
[I cannot find this stated in the text at all, and it would be irrelevant
anyway. Most diseases in the ANE resulted in death, so very often the progression
was sick-dying-asleep-dead...The fact that "some people" wouldn't know
would be a trivial one altogether. The mother in the OT knew the son was
dead, and Jairus learned of the death during the walk. In any event, this
is not central to either of the stories' plots.]
In both stories the child is in a house some distance away.
[In the OT, the distance is substantial (25 miles), and the child is
male; in the NT, the distance is close, and the child is female. "some
distance away" would ALWAYS be the case--it lacks enough specificity to
be a distinguishing trait of a narrative or plotline.]
In both stories a second source comes from the house and confirms that the child is dead.
[In the OT, the source is the servant of the healer; in the NT, the
source is unspecified, but from the house of the "heal-ee". In the OT,
the source informs Elisha of the problem--he previously has no detailed
knowledge of the problem; in the NT, the source provides an 'update' to
Jesus and Jairus.]
In both stories Jesus and Elisha continue anyway to the house.
[Would you expect something otherwise, in a general healing miracle?!
This is something we would be surprised to find missing from such
stories! (Although we do have 'healing at a distance' done by Jesus in
the NT.)]
In both stories the parent precedes Elisha or Jesus so that the miracle worker finds both parents present when he arrives at the house.
[This is factually wrong. In the OT, there is no mention of the father
at the house (the earlier mention of him was as he was reaping in the
field, requiring servants as communicators between him and his wife,
cf. 4.18-22). In the NT, Jesus and Jairus arrive at the same time (they
were walking together, remember), as were Elisha and the Shunammite woman.
]
In both stories Elisha and Jesus seek a high degree of privacy by turning people out of the house before their miracle
[There is a vast difference here. In the OT, Elisha admits no one into
the room, neither parents nor servant; in the NT, Jesus invites both the
parents and the Inner Three disciples. In the OT, there is no crowd to
even deal with; in the NT, there is the professional mourning crowd. "High
degree of privacy" is too ambiguous to be useful, and any further precision
brings out the differences between the accounts.]
To the above group of differences let me add some others:
2. the OT lady had a long-standing relationship with Elisha; Jairus would likely have been a stranger to Jesus.
3. Elisha sent his servant to ask about her before she even arrived; Jesus has no prior contact with Jairus.
4. Elisha sent his servant to try the healing; Jesus did not involve the disciples except as final observers.
5. Elisha performs an elaborate physical contact routine to raise the
kid (probably learned from his mentor Elijah, cf. 1 Kings 17); Jesus simply
speaks.
The story in Mark is such an obvious rewrite of the story in Kings
that if I remind you that Jairus in Mark 5 falls at Jesus's feet, you can
guess what the parent in 2 Kings 4 did.
This is much, much flimsier than the case of the multiplication of the loaves, actually, and simply cannot be maintained in light of the mass of differences noted above.
These differences are much more substantial--virtually everything is different except a couple of things that must be there for a 'healing' event or 'revivification' event to occur at all: a dead person, a concerned person, a healer, going to the scene of the body, healing/raising them up, and witnesses! These elements are present of course (it IS a healing/revivification story after all!), but almost every crucial aspect of these elements are different:
It is difficult for me to see even why this parallel would be suggested
as being close enough to establish literary dependence, given the almost
bi-polar divergences in even the basic structural elements...
The name Jairus has 2 meanings. 1 is 'he enlightens'. The other is
'he awakens'. Is not 'he awakens' a remarkably apt name for someone in
a resurrection story, where Jesus says that the child is not dead but sleeping?
I got a chuckle out of this...it made me think of some fundamentalist's noting (with delighted paranoia) that "Satan" and "Santa" were anagrams...
Your author's imagination is most active here, since 'he awakens' is by far the rarer meaning (BAG give the translations as "'he-God-will enlighten' or rarely, 'he will arouse'"). "He enlightens" is the Greek rendition of a Hebrew root; "he awakens" is from an Aramaic root. Commentators either don't find it important enough to mention, since the evangelists don't make any point of it (many commentators), or point out that it is more likely a historical reminiscence (Nolland, WBC, Luke) or comment that "such a symbolic use is subtle at best" (Guelich, WBC, in.loc.).
...............................................................................................................................................
Just to summarize in the words of another commentator:
Jesus greater than Jonah?
[Same here: I will point out some of the differences as I go along]
In Jonah the sailors (professional sailors) and Jonah are
in a boat [Jonah is running away from obeying God!] during a dreadful
storm [sent as a judgment/discipline by God on him] just as in Mark
4 the disciples (professional fishermen) and Jesus are on a boat
(in between ministries, and in complete obedience to God). The sailors
[actually only the captain] look for Jonah [below deck] and find
him asleep. The disciples look for Jesus [they didn't "look" for him--he
was there on the deck with them] and find him asleep.
This could be a coincidence except that this story is the one and only time Jesus is ever shown sleeping in the entire New Testament. Sleeping in a tiny boat on the point of sinking, during a storm of such severity that experienced sailors were unable to cope, is quite a feat.
I am not sure that (1) it is such a feat, nor that (2) this constitutes adequate grounds for deciding this was not a 'coincidence' [I think we need to bring in Robby Berry as a statistical consultant on this one, :>)]...
Let' me point out some background material at this point, from REF:BBC:
"Storms often rose suddenly on the lake called the Sea of Galilee; these
fishermen had usually stayed closer to Capernaum and are unprepared for
a squall this far from shore. The only place one could sleep in a small
fishing boat with water pouring in from a storm would be on the elevated
stern, where one could use the wooden or leather-covered helmsman's
seat, or a pillow kept under that seat, as a cushion for one's head. Jesus'
sleep during the storm may indicate the tranquility of faith (Ps 4:8;
cf. 2 Kings 6:16-17, 32; Prov 19:23); in some Greek stories, the genuineness
of philosophers' faith in their own teachings on tranquility was tested
in storms.
Why do I get the impression that somehow the "recalls" is going
to be grossly extrapolated into an "obvious rewrite" in a few minutes?
(smile)
He says about Matthew 8:25:- 'they went and woke him, saying, Save (soson), Lord (kyrie), we are perishing. (apollymetha) Cf Jonah 1:6, So the captain came and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call upon your God (Kyrie)! Perhaps your God will give a thought to us. (Greek 'save us' diasose), that we do not perish (apollometha). He says about Matthew 8:27 'And the men (hoi de anthropoi)... Are they an echo of Jonah 1:16 -Then the men (hoi andres) feared the Lord exceedingly.?'
Will "echo" be fed steroids until an "obvious rewrite"
has developed? (same smile as before)
When else does Matthew call the disciples 'the men'?
This bothers me a little. I know enough from the material at the bottom of this piece (not included here), that the objector believes in Marcan priority, and that Matthew drew from Mark in this passage. But the "the men" phrase only occurs in the Matthew passage, not in the Mark or Luke one. If the story originated from the OT passage, the parallels should have shown up in the earliest versions (i.e., Mark). That the objector only draws attention to the data that allegedly supports his position (i.e., that it shows up in Matthew), without offering some explanation for the contrary data (i.e., that it does NOT show up in Mark), is a bit disturbing. [He will also later argue from the "fear" clause, but Matthew doesn't even use the word "fear" at all...]
As for the argument from a single-mention here, this is methodologically flawed. Single instances of unique words (unless emphatic) are more likely to be due to linguistic factors (e.g., repetition, style, etc.) and/or to semantic or content issues, than they are to be due to factors of 'source borrowing'. In other words, the data is simply too flimsy to support such an infrastructure. [John puts "the men" on the lips of Jesus in John 17.6, where it obviously refers to the disciples, in the only such reference in his gospel...is there some deeper meaning to it there? Is it also alluding to the Jonah passage?! To prove so would require much more data than is available.]
And, in fact, leading commentators on the passage understand the switch to "the men" in a completely different manner. Some understand it to emphasize their fear, but Gundry makes the best exegetical case:
Notice how he flips back to Mark, since only Mark has the phrase he is advancing as data ('feared with great fear'). Matthew and Luke don't have it, but Matthew is the one with the "the men"--why?
To really build a better case for his position, the objector would need to make some defensible arguments as to why the redactional arrangements sometimes support and sometimes argue against his position.
[In the section below, I have removed the images and simply transliterated
the words.]
In this picture of Marks' Gospel, I have underlined the relevant words. [I bolded the underlined words]
[Mark 4:41: kai ephobethesan phobon megan kai elegon pros allalous...]
[Jonah 1.10 (LXX): kai ephobethesan hoi andres phobon megan kai eipon pros auton..."
The objector is simply trying to make too much out of too little (and being more than a little selective in his use of the textual data). There is nothing magic about "and they feared with great fear"--it shows up in this exact Greek form in 1 Maccabees 10.8 ("Then Jonathan came to Jerusalem and read the letter in the hearing of all the people and of those in the citadel. 8 They were greatly alarmed when they heard that the king had given him authority to recruit troops.") and in Luke 2.9 ("And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields, and keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.") This is common enough to not require 'inspiration' from the OT LXX...
Now, it should be "obvious" to anyone that is familiar with the story of Jonah that any similarities conjectured above (e.g., sleeping prophet, stormy seas, great fear, calming of water) are dwarfed by (1) the major discontinuities between the stories, and (2) even the discontinuities in the elements in common.
The major discontinuities between the stories include:
the purpose of the trip, the obedience/disobedience of the central figure,
how the sea is calmed, the fate of the central figure, the agent of the
calming, the teaching component in the story, and others.
The major discontinuities in the common elements are:
Not at all--there are several possible ways of accounting for similarities:
2. Another is that God could have orchestrated these providentially to manifest Jesus' continuity with the OT predictive streams to his people. Under this scenario, similarities would seem 'accidental' to the situation, but 'revelatory' to His people.
3. Another is that the event was experienced by the gospel authors, and as they wrote the event down, similarities to OT stories became obvious, and so they drew attention to data, which was already there in the event (they would not have needed to fabricate this, if this was already implicit in the event itself). This would be in keeping with experiences like Emmaus in Luke 24.
4. Another is that many OT images were already overlapping in semantic fields. Messianic prophecies often would mix the individual images of king, priest, prophet, sage, victim, rejected messiah, suffering servant, triumphant warrior together, creating 'echoes' to large numbers of passages (without deliberate intent).
5. The whole issue of typological reality (present in the Old and New Testaments, as well as extra-biblical literature) provides a firm foundation for 'accidental' similarities or 'thematic continuity and development'.
6. Many basic aspects of religious and/or messianic mission would bear similarities to one another without ANY level of dependence on one another. All healings will have some basics in common, as will all rescue miracles. These similarities would flow from the nature of the activity--NOT from any kind of literary dependence. [For a list of all the various motifs that comprise the 'family resemblances' of NT miracle stories, consult Thiessen, MSECT.]
7. Fabrication of stories (Option 2, as advanced by the objector)
or legendary/mythic embellishment of existing historical accounts
(Option 3, a more common position than the one advanced by the objector).
It should also be pointed out that Jesus' explicit references to Jonah
had nothing to do with the calming of the sea, but rather (1) the response
of Nineveh and (2) the three-day fish-stomach experience...The 'greater
than Jonah' remark would probably act as a deterrent to casting Jesus as
a Jonah-look-alike, which might result from drawing such a close parallel.
This would militate against making up a story that identified Jesus with
Jonah in (at least) the first chapter of Jonah!
Jesus, Elijah and Luke
Jesus in Luke 7 raises the son of a widow from the dead. In 1 Kings
17, Elijah raises the son of a widow from the dead. Both stories employ
exactly the same words - and he gave him to his mother. The Greek is 'kai
edoken auton te metri autou', copied word for word from the Septuagint
version of 1 Kings 17.
An illustration page [no longer exists] was available for readers to double check my claims
[Here the objector provides a helpful page of images of pages from the relevant texts. I will have to illustrate, and I hope not to diminish his intended force of the illustration]
I Kings 17:10: (6 "non-copied" words), "ton pulona tas poleos kai
idou" (2 "non-copied" words), "chora" (skip 300+ "non-copied"
words), "kai egeneto" (14 "non-copied" words), "kai edoken auton
ta matri autou"
Jesus himself had made an implicit comparison:
Did Luke use 1 Kings 17 as a basis for his story?
[As before, I will annotate the argument with observations of discontinuities
and comments in non-bold.]
Jesus met the widow at the gate of a city. Elijah met his widow in 1 Kings 17:10. It should come as no surprise that it was at the gate of a city.
[By now it should come as no surprise... that the discontinuities are huge, and much greater than the similarities....
2. In the NT, the woman is passing through the gate, in a funeral; in Elijah, the woman is gathering firewood at the gate (there should be no surprise about meeting at the gate, anyway--the gate was a central site of community life anyway. It functioned as a legal, cultic, commercial, and social site. It might be surprising if Jesus met her somewhere other than a gate, a market, or a well).
3. In the NT, the woman is accompanied by a crowd of people; in Elijah, the woman is alone.
4. With Jesus, there is no conversation about anything first; with Elijah, there is a conversation about food and water.
5. With Jesus, the revivification occurs at the gate; with Elijah, it is in her house much later.
6. With Jesus, the miracle is done in plain sight of the crowd; with Elijah, it is in private in his bedroom.
7. With Jesus, the son is a grown-man (ages 24-40, BAG); with Elijah, it is a small child, who could be carried in his arms (teknon, in LXX).
8. With Jesus, the healing is simple, direct, and with a simple spoken command; in Elijah, it involves an elaborate physical identification process.
9. In the NT, Jesus is not even approached by the widow for any healing; in the OT, the widow confronts Elijah with the calamity.
10. In the NT, the widow is a perfect stranger; in the OT, the widow and Elijah have a long-standing and close relationship.
11. With Jesus, the spoken words are to the deceased; with Elijah, they are to the Lord.
12. With Jesus, the mother gets her son back at the gate; with Elijah, she gets him back at the house.
Again, the differences are massive, the similarities are what would
be expected in ANY revivification miracle, and the one tight link is more
suggestive of the evangelist's perspective than of creating the
entire story from the OT paradigm.
Luke 7 also copies other phrases from the Septuagint version of 1 Kings 17.
Luke copies 'kai egeneto' (and it came to pass). Luke writes 'tay pulay tays poleos kai idoo' (to the gate of a city and behold), which is almost identical to the Old Testament Greek of 'tou pulona tays poleos kai idoo'.
(I have already covered this material above.)
Curiously, John 4 uses the elements of 1 Kings 17 that Luke does
not. In John 4, Jesus, while in a foreign land, meets a woman who no longer
has a husband, just as Elijah does [one is a widow, one is not...what
happened to the 'chora' (widow) argument? Elijah was sent to the
woman (doesn't just 'meet' her!), Jesus simply encounters her at the well.
]
Both Elijah and Jesus are thirsty and have to ask the woman for a
drink . In both stories, though, it is the woman and not the prophet who
is in true need. [This is factually wrong. It WAS Elijah who was in
need--he had been specifically sent to the woman to be taken care of (I
Kings 17.9-10)]
Both Elijah and Jesus promise her a never ending source. [Factually
wrong again. Elijah promises flour and oil only "until it rains" (vs.14),
and Jesus' promise is, of course, related to the Holy Spirit.]
Both 1 Kings 17:24 and John 4:19 make the women certify the miracle
worker as a true prophet. [This is scarcely surprising--this motif
shows up in most miracle scenes (MSECT:71ff, "acclamation"), hardly
evidence of ripping off the OT!]
Overall, the argument from this last passage (John 4) is speculative
(and selective in its use of data) to the extreme. Besides the obvious
question as to why Luke didn't use more (assuming he ripped it off, using
only 14 words out of a passage of close to 400 words in the OT
LXX!), the same question needs to be posed of John. The dissimilarities
between the two events are too numerous to detail, and I cannot find a
commentator of any persuasion that even mentions this alleged "use" of
the Elijah passage. There are many, many background elements in John 4,
mostly from Jewish theology of his day, but nothing that could be linked
to the Elijah passage with any plausibility.
Conclusion
Just as Joseph Smith did in the Book of Mormon, the early Christians drew upon the one source that they held to be infallible - the Old Testament. They felt quite justified in taking stories from the Old Testament and applying them to Jesus.
This point was not discussed, advanced, or demonstrated in the above
piece, so I will assume that he has argued this elsewhere. As an unproven
assertion in this document, it needs to be recognized as such and not taken
as 'proven' in ANY sense of the word! And, for the record, I doubt seriously
if such a proposition ("felt justified") could be demonstrated from the
historical and literary data we have available about the gospel authors.
After all, they knew that the Old Testament was full of coded 'prophecies' and that they could, if they examined them cleverly enough, work out what Jesus must have done.
Historically, this is doubtful relative to Jesus' day. Jewish exegesis of the time was a good bit more subdued than would appear in the later rabbinic literature. Pesher exegesis was reasonably conservative at this time, and the wilder forms of midrash would only become pervasive a little later. And the Christian sub-culture even tended to be more conservative, as I have discussed elsewhere.
And there certainly would not have been any practical way to do this...A
simple comparison of the lists of miracles in the OT with the miracles
of Jesus will show the practical problem. The more spectacular/important
miracles of the OT (e.g., parting of the Sea, parting of Jordan, collapse
of Jericho, fire from heaven on Sodom, fire from heaven upon the Baalites,
Elijah's fiery chariot, feeding Elijah with ravens, the exodus plagues,
handwriting on the wall of Daniel, Moses' bringing water from the rock,
healing of a poisonous stew) are not used, and many of Jesus'
miracles have no "obvious" OT precedent (e.g., healing blindness and
deafness, coin in the fish's mouth, the withered fig tree, large catches
of fish, reattaching a severed ear, water into wine). Most of Jesus'
miracles are healing miracles, which are the vast minority of miracles
in the OT. These factors would make the decision process of 'which
OT' miracle to make into a story about Jesus a very complicated affair.
And, judging by the pattern of miracles either (1) not applied to Jesus
or (2) not found in the OT, this alleged process was quite unsuccessful
or at least not utilized much...
They certainly never needed to ask eyewitnesses what happened. Why should they, when they had a written record, in the Old Testament, of Jesus's life? All they had to do was tidy up a few of the miracle stories, exaggerate the numbers and they had ready-made miracles for Jesus to have done.
This is no doubt overstatement for rhetorical effect, and so I will
simply note for the reader that the examples given above involved much
more than 'tidy up' and 'exaggerate the numbers' (!)...The fact that
the vast majority of the details were actually radically different means
that this 'creative' process must have been quite demanding. Starting with
the story of Elijah multiplying the food of the widow, think of how many
details have to be changed to get John 4 and the "theological dialogue
with the woman at the well" story...
Rewriting old books to create new books is a well-known Biblical technique. The books of Chronicles were pieced together from the books of Kings. It is no surprise that this process continued into New Testament times.
There is a huge fallacy of equivocation here, in case you didn't notice it. The example of Chronicles uses sources--and preserves ALL historical facts. The names are the same, as are the places and the events. It omits some data, and adds some new items, and gives a theological understanding of those facts, but the items in continuity are presented without modification. The author doesn't take a feat of David and assign it to Josiah (as the theory above suggests that the NT writers did). The two are not even remotely the same.
The use of historical sources and incorporating them into later works is standard writing--it is nothing like the process the objector is talking about. "Rewriting" in the case of Chronicles is re-telling the same events, from another theological perspective; "Rewriting" in the objector's theory is creating a new event, from the historical particulars of a different event. Big difference!
There IS a special category of the "Rewritten Bible" in scholarly research
today [e.g., HI:JWSTP, HI:IIW:99--121]. This refers to "a narrative that
follows Scripture but includes a substantial amount of supplements and
interpretive developments." The examples often advanced for this (and discussed
in HI:IIW) would include Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, Pseudo-Philo
(Liber
Antiquitatum Biblicarum), and Josephus' Jewish Antiquities.
They are basically interpretive readings, rendered as an alternative narrative
version of the biblical story. As such, they basically keep the textual
facts 'steady' as a baseline, and add elements to them. These works keep
the original stories (and the historical details) but generally embellish
them with fictional, unknown, or legendary elements. The objector's view
of 'rewrites' would thus not fit this genre.
What this means is that there are no major genre examples that the objector
can point to for validation, within the period and culture under discussion.
..................................................................................................................................
Summary:
The objector advances five NT passages (only four of which are miracles) as evidence of "rewriting":
2. The revivification of Jairus' daughter (based on the revivification of the Shunammite woman's son by Elisha)
3. The stilling of the storm (based on Jonah and the calming of the sea)
4. The revivification of the son of the Widow of Nain (based on the revivification of the widow's son by Elijah)
5. The woman at the well encounter of John 4 (based on the same revivification
of the widow's son by Elijah)
His argument can be structured syllogistically as:
(Premise 2). There is no way to account for these similarities except by postulating a rip-off plagiarism process (in which the NT authors started with the OT stories, 'tidied up' some of the details, cut out the hero's name and pasted in the name of "Jesus" and then injected them successfully into the tradition stream from which the later gospels arose)
(Conclusion) Therefore, the rip-off plagiarism process must be
true.
Premise One...
The analysis of this article indicates that the similarities between the OT and NT passages advanced as evidence are quite insignificant for his thesis. The points of alleged correspondence were either only in agreement at a very high level of abstraction (and literally turned into contrary data at the next level of specificity!), or if real at a literary level, only occurred in a tiny fraction of the passages, enough to generate "echoes" only. The 'real' correspondences were neither systematic enough to indicate structural dependence, nor extensive enough to indicate some kind of 'paraphrasing' plagiarism.
The contrary data (inconsistencies and discontinuities) were much greater in number, detail, concreteness, "density", and pervasiveness.
This is enough, of course, to render the syllogism false (and we COULD
stop the article right here).
Premise Two...
Although this original piece did not argue this, I would like to sketch
out some of the situations that would render this premise false (or inconclusive)
as well. [These would be the areas that the objector would need to "beef
up" in order to have a sustainable Premise Two.]
First, you would need to invalidate all the competing theories of how to account for the "real, but minor" detail similarities.
This would involve showing that:
2. there was not/could not have been miraculous situations in the life of Jesus that were similar enough to display such correspondence;
3. there was not/could not have been miraculous events in the life of Jesus that were (incorrectly) embellished with OT overlays by the gospel authors;
4. there could not have been non-miraculous events in the life of Jesus that were (incorrectly) embellished with legendary accretions and with OT overlays by the gospel authors;
5. there were not/could not have been 'transmitters' of the stories
who took previous material and added (correctly or incorrectly) legendary
elements and/or OT overlay elements.
Then, when you had boiled the theories down to 'pure origination' theories, as opposed to "historically true theories" (#1-2) or "transmutation during transmission theories" (#3-5), you would need to eliminate other 'pure origination' theories.
In other words, if you assume they "made it up" from some source, you would then have to defend the OT as source as opposed to Hellenistic or Jewish lore as source, and this would be much more difficult that might first appear.
To illustrate this difficulty, consider the four miracle stories advanced by our objector. If you are forced to find a parallel for each of these in the ancient world, from which to base a fabrication about Jesus, you have to consider the possibility that the sources might be from "Hellenistic" lore or from Jewish lore, rather than from the OT text. Consider the four examples given above:
2. The Stilling of the Storm: In j. Berakoth 9.1, there is a story of a Jewish boy traveling with Gentiles in a ship. They get in a storm and he prays for deliverance and God calms the storm. In b. Baba Mezia 59b, R. Gamaliel also calms a raging sea in a ship with a prayer. And in Plutarch's Moralia ("Obsolescence of Oracles", 30), there are the descriptions of Castor and Pollux, the twin-sons of Zeus, who protect sailors and "sooth the raging sea, and tame the blasts of the winds" (also appears in Lucian).
3. The Widow of Nain: This has the notoriously famous parallels in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius 4.45 and Apuleius of Madura (Florida 19.2-6), which are vastly closer to the NT account than the OT 'background'. A Jewish parallel can be found in Paraleipomena Jeremiou 7:12-16, with funeral procession and revivified corpse.
4. The raising of Jairus daughter falls into the category
of general revivifications, like the Widow of Nain account above.
In fact, the scholars today who do NOT accept the miraculous stories as authentic (who are faced with the same or similar problem the objector is) opt for other sources instead of the one suggested by our objector [ BLOM:81]:
I might also point out a historical problem the objector might be faced
with (depending on his dating of the gospels), in opting for OT-source
versus Pagan-sources: the later the production of the gospels,
the
less relevant the OT 'correspondences' are to the milieu of the Church,
and the more likely that pagan parallels would be used. As the
church became increasingly more Gentile-than-Jewish, the forces in favor
of pagan-embellishment would grow. The objector's view of OT-source
makes
more sense the earlier the production of the gospel materials is,
due to the more Jewish character of the church, and its earliest mission
focus. But this creates another problem for the objector: the earlier
the production of the gospel materials, the closer the sources are to "real"
knowledge about the person of Jesus, and the less likely the need for "generating
a life" for Him! In other words, the initial assumption made, of
lack of first-hand knowledge of Jesus' life, which CREATED THE PROBLEM
under discussion to begin with, is weakened the 'farther back' we go to
find the origination points for the allegedly OT-based invented fables
about Jesus.
Thirdly, when you have isolated the OT-as-source theory as the only candidate, you must then show that it actually "solves" the problem.
What this means is that it (1) "predicts" the pattern of similarities observed in Premise One; and (2) can plausibly be said to fit in the culture and praxis of the relevant period.
What (1) would entail is showing that the theory explains how the similarities "got there", how the dissimilarities "got there", why certain texts were chosen to be 'Jesus-ized' (and some not), and how we have Jesus miracle stories WITHOUT identifiable OT originating bases.
Perhaps you can imagine how difficult this would be to show, given just the few examples we have seen above (presumably the strongest examples the objector could advance at the time). How would this theory explain the hundreds of missing words in the alleged Widow of Nain incident? How would it explain the changing of a mother to a father, and a son to a daughter, in the alleged Jairus parallel? Why was Jonah chapter 1 Jesus-ized and not the lion's den of Daniel? Why is there not more of Moses' miracles, given the NT theme about the "second Moses"? Where in the OT could we find a plausible and non-circumstantial origin for the changing of water into wine, or the reattaching of an ear?
Actually, the objector would be faced with a rather daunting research
program (or "programme") here. You see, there is a ton of existing research
and theory by semi-skeptics on (1) how "natural" stories get embellished
during
transmission into "supernatural stories" [e.g., folklore studies] and
(2) how conquering nations appropriate local myths wholesale for their
gods, but without changing the details of the myth [e.g., comparative mythology],
but I do not know of a single line of research in the area of complete
appropriation of miraculous stories for use by another hero (with massive
modification of the details at the same time!). [But let
me quickly add that my ignorance of someone working in this
area in no way 'authoritative'. Our objector friend here might easily
be more resourceful than I am in finding such pockets of research. I just
do know that such research is certainly not published in the mainstream
works of the English-speaking world dealing with biblical-studies.]
I would submit that this would be a considerable problem for this position
(the Synoptic problem is probably simpler than this one!).
Item (2) deals with how the theory could be implemented in the times
of the day, and it has two parts as well: (A) what motive and
precedent
could have existed to prompt someone to apply this method to an OT text;
and (B) what processes were in place
that would allow
such an invented story to become part of authoritative tradition,
ending up in the NT.
The motive part of Part A would seem to be "obvious" at
first glance: the commendation of the teacher to others, but this is certainly
not as obvious as it might first appear. Think about this from the standpoint
of the evangelist or tradition-starter. This person is presumably already
"impressed with" Jesus, since he is (in most theories) already a follower
of Jesus. There is accordingly, no need to make up such a story for
the original author. Also, the circle of believers in which the person
lives would also be believers and not need additional reasons to follow/worship
Jesus, from whatever convinced them to begin with. [Remember, we
are talking early Christianity here--persecution, non-respectability, one's
life on the line for this Messiah. Without "being impressed" with Jesus,
one doesn't "take up his/her cross and follow Him"...] Again, there
would be no need to make up such a story for the believing community in
which the author lived. The wider Christian community (i.e., the church
at large) would also not need additional "impressive data" for the same
reasons. And the gospels were written mainly for either (a) Christian local
communities (the current majority view, although it is being strongly challenged
by the next view), or (b) the church at large [NT:GAC]. This, if this is
the major motive for the production of the gospel writings, substantially
eliminates the need for such a process!
But, one might object, but this only applies to the writing of
the
gospels and not the origination of the material which was
later
written down in the gospels. It might be that the fable-weavers of the
oral stories used this method to create the stories, and the church who
transmitted these stories accepted them, and then that the gospel publication
was only for 'memoir' purposes and 'edification' purposes and not for 'impression'
purposes.
But this possible scenario creates a historical problem for the objector.
For, as we push the fable-weaving earlier and earlier, to
be able to allow a process of acceptance to take place BEFORE the material
is written down in the pre-gospel sources (often assumed to predate the
canonical gospels), then we get closer and closer to 'real
historical knowledge' about Jesus. And the closer we get to 'real historical
knowledge' about Jesus, the less plausible the objector's initial
assumption becomes.
Now, we know that the gospels were also used for evangelism purposes ("commending to outsiders") and there the motive might more reasonably be assumed to have existed. But oddly enough, we have substantially the same problem as above--that of "what more data is needed". Think about this for a second. Any person "witnessing" to another person would already be a believer, and accordingly already have some "impressive" (and personally convincing) data to begin with. This data, which was adequate to convince the believer to 'convert' from unbelief to belief earlier, might be quite adequate to present to the person being witnessed to. In fact, this was indeed the pattern of the preaching of the apostles in the earliest years (if you accept the basic historicity of the speeches, or their content, in the Book of Acts). They appealed to "impressive data" done in public, that had convinced them:
You know the message God sent to the people of Israel,
telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.
You
know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee
after the baptism that John preached- how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and
healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was
with him. "We are witnesses of everything he did in the country
of the Jews and in Jerusalem. (Act 10.36ff, Peter preaching to Cornelius
the Gentile)
And, if we wait a bit later, as the Gentile mission swells
in volume, any "commendation" motive swings away from the OT
and over toward the pagan and hellenistic sources...
But there might be a third possible motive--curiosity over the life of Jesus. We know that later NT apocryphal works 'filled in' the NT gaps, so why couldn't the same curiosity that provoked that literature have been responsible for people inventing the miracle stories of Jesus, from the OT?
Several problems come immediately to mind.
So, even the issue of "motive" is more problematic than it might seem
at the outset... [I do not deal with the "conspiracy" motive here, since
the objector painted a picture of the disciples legitimately believing
somehow that the OT contained the life of Jesus.]
The precedents part of Part A is even more problematic.
The objector would need to (1) show here that other Jews of the day
used this method, or (2) come up with an explanation of how the
Christians departed from precedents otherwise, and thought up this idea
and method from scratch.
As for (1), I have shown elsewhere from the historical sources that Christians basically used the same exegetical procedures for messianic passages as did the non-Christian Jews, actually tending toward the conservative side. And, it can be seen from the Jewish legendary material that the Jewish writers did NOT use this "rip-off the OT" stories for their heroes either.
Just to illustrate this last point, three of the more famous 'charismatic'
heroes of the period, that we have data on, are Bar Kochba (accepted
as Messiah by a prominent rabbi in the literature), Honi the Rain-maker
and Rabbi Hanina ben-Dosa (who was the husband in the bread-making
miracle cited earlier).
There is nothing in this story that would indicate 'origination' in
some OT story. Any similarities would be at such a high level of generality
("winning impossible battles") as to be useless in supporting or disproving
such a view.
Honi the Rain-maker (or Honi the Circle-Maker) is more promising (B.Ta 19a and 23a]. Honi is famous for two things: he prayed for rain during a drought, and God answered him, and he fell asleep for 70 years and woke up (although there is a contradictory account of him being stoned to death for not performing a requested curse.). [It should also be mentioned that various members of his descendants were also able to pray for rain and be answered.]
The latter incident has nothing remotely precedent in the OT, so the theory would not predict it, of course, but the drought-ending sounds suspiciously like Elijah. However, the rabbinical sources connect him explicitly with Habakkuk instead, and make so mention or allusions to the Elijah cycle. In fact, praying for rain is the ONLY miracle Honi performed, and if that is somehow supposed to 'connect him' to Elijah, then it is significant that Jesus never performed this type of miracle!
Plus, the discontinuities between Elijah and Honi are considerable (e.g.,
Elijah actually created the drought!, there is nothing about him standing
in a circle like Honi did, etc.), and the power of prayer example that
Elijah affords is even applied to all Christians in James 5.17f ("Elijah
was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and
it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed,
and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.")
Rabbi Hanina ben-Dosa performs more miracles than Honi, but none
of them (with the possible exception of the miraculous bread appearance)
seems to 'echo' any OT scenes:
I am struggling to think up a way for the objector to show this. Given that the examples cited above only involved extremely minute 'similarities' (after careful examination), he would have to come up with a method that perhaps paralleled the growth of midrash, but went in a different direction. Later Jewish midrash often started with minute segments of passages (even individual letters), and built an infrastructure from there, so you might could try to find how THAT process started and come up with a theory analogous with that. But that would be a huge undertaking in itself...Since it is highly controversial whether the NT documents as they exist today manifest any midrash at all [JSOTGP3], the objector would have to find evidence of an hitherto-undiscovered exegetical method, developing quickly and without precedent (or even rebuttal by the rabbinic methodological sources). This would be a formidable task in itself.
Finally, in "what processes were in place that would allow such an invented story to become part of authoritative tradition, ending up in the NT", the objector would have to show that expansion of the body of authoritative traditions was easily done prior to the actual writing down of the gospels. I have argued in several places that the logistics of book production, early church leadership, social communication models, and literary evidence count against this position, so I will not repeat the material here.
So, as you can see, establishing Premise Two would be a monumental
undertaking for our objector, and with a large mass of historical data
and scholarship of all persuasions already against it...
.......................................................................................................................
So, where does this leave us...
Premise One (significant and major similarities) is unproven, and actually contradicted by the evidence of the texts;
Premise Two (these similarities are best explained by the 'rip-off theory' of the NT miracle stories) is unproven (but not attempted in the piece by the objector), surrounded by a host of better-supported explanations (both evangelical and not), faced with some very difficult historical data to account for, and too vague a theory to predict the actual patterns of texts that we find.
Accordingly, I find no reasons to accept his conclusion, and plenty of reasons to reject it.
........................................................................................................................................................
[Now, let me be quick to point out that the objector's document was
a mere 1,800 words. It would be grossly unreasonable of me to expect a
piece of that size to present a detailed and thorough case for its position.
One might have hoped for more attention to detail, eliminating the factual
errors, and for at least a sketch of how he would deal with the contrary
data, and perhaps an indication of knowledge of rival 'skeptical' theories.
But in 4-5 pages it is difficult to do much more than draw the basic outlines
of such a complex position, and therefore my analysis above can only address
what
I understand him to mean, on the basis of the limited data advanced...He
may well have other arguments to advance, and adequate explanations for
the errors/omissions/generalizations in so short a piece, and I will be
happy to correct any misunderstandings I have portrayed of his position,
as they are brought to my attention. His noting that there are some similarities
between Jesus and His predecessors, shows sensitivity on his part to the
texts (at some level), but the similarities noted are hardly remarkable,
are noted by most observers of the texts, and are not considered as adequate
warrants to support such a theory of the origination of the NT miracle
stories.]
I hope this helps,
Glenn Miller
May 5, 1999
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