Luke's Minute & Extraordinary Historical Accuracy

[Minimalist]

Both Publius Cornelius Tacitus and Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus give us written descriptions of miracles performed by the Emperor Vespasian.  The accounts are remarkably similar in describing the Emperor restoring sight to a blind man and healing the hand of a cripple.

They thus give us something which we do not have for this jesus character.  Two known and generally well regarded historians giving separate accounts of the same miracles in different books written some years apart.  Tacitus' Histories generally written between 100-110 and as it covered the period from 69-96 CE and Vespasian was in Alexandria in 70 where the miracles took place we can make the assumption that this story was written closer to 100 than 110.  Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars was written in 121.

Contrast that with Dave's precious gospels.  Four anonymous works, written in Greek, somewhere, at some time.  The people who wrote it may have been mere hirelings.  Scribes commisssioned to write down the oral tales of some loony christard for his particular community or sect whenever it was that they decided they had to write this shit down.  We'll never know.  

Still, I think we both know, Patty that Dave will insist that his boy's "miracles" are real but that Vespasian's are impossible.  I don't  regard the tales reported by Tacitus and Suetonius  to be factual either and I sure as hell dismiss any of this nonsense attributed to an illiterate, Galilean peasant!

But, if historians of the stature of Suetonius and Tacitus had reported on jesus it would have given the tale a little more credibility than it has.  But they didn't.  Neither of them ever heard of fucking jesus.

Good show!

Would love to know to what degree they assure us of the Imperial miracles and to what extent they merely pass along what they were told. Also: percentage. A high percentage of 'Luke' is miraculous; I'm sure that a very tiny sliver of a percent of Tacitus and Tranquillus is miraculous. Plus, from the sound of it, those miracles could be psychosomatic; so maybe the events really happened, but were natural......

Well Will, here is the Tacitus passage posted a while ago in a different thread where we had a different xhristard whining about his fucking bible and his fucking god.  You can read Tactitus for yourself and see.

https://atheistdiscussion.org/forums/sho...#pid323259

[AutisticWill]

Well Will, here is the Tacitus passage posted a while ago in a different thread where we had a different xhristard whining about his fucking bible and his fucking god.  You can read Tactitus for yourself and see.

https://atheistdiscussion.org/forums/sho...#pid323259

Quit convincing as actual historical events, with slight expansion in the telling; and if 'Luke' had written like that, about apparent miracles like that, then yeah, I'd be like, ''Luke' was an amateur historian.'

[Minimalist]

About as convincing as a modern jesus-freak faith healer planting a cripple in the crowd for him to heal and then watch the dolts throw money at him!





I always liked how Tacitus let it be known that Vespasian was not convinced himselfbut figured "what the fuck, why not give it a go."

Note how Tacitus mentions his "source" at the end being persons who were actually present - i.e.  the famous unnamed "eye-witnesses" which xhristards are so fond of citing!  Assuming the dates are correct and using 100 CE as the terminus a quo it would be at least 30 years later.  A witness who was 25 in 70 would have been 55 in 100.  In an age when life expectancy was about 28 it is possible but not really probable that Tacitus found an eye-witness to the event.  But he is already skeptical.  And when it comes to their holy horseshit, xhristards are never skeptical.

[pattylt]

Honestly, I think ancient miracles..or any miracle before modern science is unprovable or provable.

What interests me is today’s claimed miracles, and every religion has some, that either no one has investigated or it’s only been investigated by the claimed religion. When examined by disinterested scientists, they discover things like sewage water causing a statue to cry, etc.

Secondarily, most Christian’s have never witnessed a true miracle, only finding their care keys or Aunt Hilda recovering from an illness for which she was hospitalized…imagine that! Since most haven’t yet believe they’re possible, it’s only a hope. Does that hope help or hurt their faith? For a personal god, he sure seems to rarely do anything for most persons.

[Minimalist]

Richard Carrier's essay on "Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire."  

https://infidels.org/library/modern/rich...ier-kooks/

We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously.

[mordant]

Richard Carrier's essay on "Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire."  

https://infidels.org/library/modern/rich...ier-kooks/

... when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously.

We're doing a pretty good job returning to those Bad Old Days if you ask me.

[Minimalist]

Ya think?




Dumb as a truckload of rocks.

[Dave Armstrong]

mordant:

Anything is possible, but possible <> likely. 

Indeed. Miracles are rare, by definition.

Why, in your view, are miracles all safely in the distant past or hiding behind some third-hand campfire story?

They're not. They were more dramatic in the apostolic age because that was kicking off the Church, but they still go on. In fact, Catholics believe that in every Mass the miracle of transubstantiation occurs. And then receiving grace at Holy Communion is another miracle of a sort. Its not a natural thing. I have a family of six, and four of us have experienced what we believe are miracles related to health issues. Mine was depression. We cant "prove" that -- certainly not to atheists -- but we have no need or desire to prove anything. We experienced it and that's all that matters in the end.

My sect taught that miracles ended when the canon of scripture was complete (effectively, though they'd never put it this way, that the Catholic Church put an end to miracles). Their reasoning being that miracles were needed to confirm the teaching of the apostles but once it was all down in supposed black and white then it became a matter of faith in scripture.

Yep. But it's not a biblical position. The Bible never says that the spiritual gifts and miracles were to end altogether.

Why do you keep leading with things like the fact that Luke correctly used the correct term for a particular political subdivision in a region and then try to expand that into "Luke is extraordinarily historical in minute detail, therefore everything in Luke is reliable, including miracles and resurrections"?

Because it's reasonable assumption to make. But atheist extreme anti-supernaturalism overcomes it (at least in your heads)

Is it all a Gish Gallop of minutia like this?

No. It's standard argumentation. If a biblical writer is accused of being merely a propagandist and myth-maker, then we have to show that it's not the case; that he is a very accurate historian. I'm responding to atheist skepticism. I did so, and no one argued any of the particulars at all. So I move on. The more specific a thing is argued with atheists the better. On the big issues, very little can be accomplished in dialogue. 

The existence of your deity would, I'm sure you'd agree, be highly consequential. As such it's weird to me that he obliges you to back into demonstrating his existence and that your notion of him is the best one, by grasping at all these straws and theological arcana. Can you not just ask him to grow all of us a third ear for a week or something? He needn't be so coy. That would at least be suggestive you're onto something, and in the bargain, it would prove that miracles indeed do happen.

One of the common atheists demands to believe in God is that He writes "John 3:16" in the stars. But God doesn't do things just because someone may demand them. He doesn't play those games, and He thinks there is enough evidence in creation for anyone to believe that He exists (Romans 1). It's a primitive version of the teleological argument for God's existence.

[Dave Armstrong]

Dave, why is it irrational to believe that, as far as we’ve seen today, every claimed miracle has failed to be verified when examined by those without a stake in the outcome?  Claimed miracles in this day and age have consistently been shown to be a hoax, not what was claimed or debunked outright.  I’m aware of a few current miracles claimed by the Catholic Church which have only been investigated by the church herself or not permitted to be investigated.

Have you ever witnessed a true miracle?  If not, does it affect your belief one iota that you haven’t?

As I just showed in my debate on miracles, there are many things that many scientists who have examined them, say aren't able to be explained by science. You even seemed to acknowledge that Lourdes cures were an example of that. Hoaxes and counterfeits don't disprove the genuine thing. If I go out in a tiger suit at Halloween, does that prove there are no real tigers?

As I just mentioned in my previous reply to mordant, in my family of six, we believe we have experienced four healings of maladies: three of them greatly lessened physical symptoms, instantly, and in my case, I believe I was healed from depression for good, because I had a serious, 6-month episode in 1977 and never have again had any depression. That's not usually how it goes with depression. I'm not saying it's proof. We believe in faith that it happened. Every miracle requires faith to believe. It's not just reason involved. 

I've read and heard about many many miracles. Our own priest has told the story a few time in his homilies about how he was accosted by a gang of four or five men, who looked like they would beat him up and maybe take his motorcycle (yes, he rides one). Then all of a sudden they looked over his head, became extremely scared for some reason, and split.

Later, somehow he talked to one of them, who reported that he saw what our priest says was his guardian angel, above his head, and said it was "very large and not pleased at all!"

Now of course everyone here will scoff at that. In any event, the young aggressive men switched on a dime and became scared and split. What caused it? This was his explanation, based on what one of them said. Our priest wasn't even aware what it was until he was told. In any event, Catholics believe in guardian angels, as do most Protestants. And there are many stories about angels, and atheists will pretend that every single one of them is a hoax or a hallucination or mental illness or what not. It's comical, from where we sit (sorry!).

[Chas]

One of our dogs is a shit-eater. Especially in winter when it's frozen.

We do not allow him to lick us on the face, though.

My girlfriend called those 'poopsicles'.

[pattylt]

One of our dogs is a shit-eater. Especially in winter when it's frozen.

We do not allow him to lick us on the face, though.

My girlfriend called those 'poopsicles'.

You know how if you wiggle your finger in a dogs ear it makes them grunt and really enjoy it?  We call those eargasms.

[airportkid]

My girlfriend called those 'poopsicles'.

You know how if you wiggle your finger in a dogs ear it makes them grunt and really enjoy it?  We call those eargasms.

How fitting that the course of an exposition concerning the truth and accuracy of the bible winds up at frozen dog poop and dog eargasms.

[Minimalist]

The bible is dog poop.

Actually, at one point dog poop was dog food and thus something useful.

Can't say that about the buy-bull.

[pattylt]

You know how if you wiggle your finger in a dogs ear it makes them grunt and really enjoy it?  We call those eargasms.

How fitting that the course of an exposition concerning the truth and accuracy of the bible winds up at frozen dog poop and dog eargasms.

That’s why I love atheist forums! 

[no one]

Dave, how did it make you feel when you saw Luke kiss his sister?

[OakTree500]

 A religious text that is verifiably historically accurate is not nonsense and not "mythology": just as a line in a history book that is verifiably accurate is not nonsense and not mythology.

But this is a bad augment to make - many fiction books throughout time have reference to real places/people, which make them historically accurate, but that doesn't make the content of the fictional story true.

Spider-man comic books are verifiably historically accurate as they take place in New York City. Doesn't mean he's real. The author(s) of the bible would of course used common knowledge as a jumping off point as its more relatable to the reader or "preach-ee" as it were.

[Mathilda]

Indeed. Miracles are rare, by definition.

What is the definition of a miracle?

How do we determine whether something is or isn't a miracle?

[brewerb]

Indeed. Miracles are rare, by definition.

What is the definition of a miracle?

How do we determine whether something is or isn't a miracle?

Only the 'special' know.

[Aliza]

What is the definition of a miracle?

How do we determine whether something is or isn't a miracle?

Only the 'special' know.

A miracle is a perfectly timed natural event.

[Mathilda]

Only the 'special' know.

A miracle is a perfectly timed natural event.

I like that definition. Whether you're arguing for divine intervention or discussing a fictional magic system, it always annoys me when natural laws get sidelined. Like there's either the real world or world of magic with the two being incompatible.

If you could perform magic, or had superior technology that looked like magic or had godly powers, it wouldn't stop you exploiting the simpler laws of physics as well.

[brewerb]

Only the 'special' know.

A miracle is a perfectly timed natural event.

Poor me, never right place or time. 

Debilitating FOMO!