Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Independant accounts verify miracles?

I gave an example above of how it was well credited. There are extra-biblical sources that speak of Jesus as a miracle-maker, albeit they depict him in very negative terms. There are Jewish accounts that describe Jesus as some sort miracle maker, but one that is to be despised. I can link to extra-biblical sources crediting the miraculous nature of Jesus' walk on earth.
I look forward to seeing those sources. But I'm not sure if ancient hearsay would be convincing. I don't doubt some accounts would say that there were miracles, but I doubt that they were actually supernatural events. After all, miracle is fairly synonymous with magic, some event that is unable to be explained by the group of people considering the claim. There are numerous things that cultures at that time wouldn't have been able to explain, that doesn't mean that their accounts of what actually happened are accurate. For example, when the Portuguese emigrated to South America, they convinced the natives that they were deities by threatening to burn their water supply and actually exemplified their threat by turning a small amount of water on fire. Now this might appear to be a miracle making the Portuguese worthy of worship, but with the right facts (they used grain alcohol instead of water), the explanation is so mundane as to not warrant a second glance and this was in the 16th century.

"The lowest form of evidence in this world is eye-witness testimony" -Neil Degrasse Tyson
There's a reason why we don't accept people's claims about being abducted by UFOs, sighting Big Foot, or the Loch Ness monster, and these claims are made in modern times! People have been making extraordinary claims since there have been people, that does not mean there is a reason to accept their claims as true without evidence. Unless you believe accounts of UFOs, Big Foot, etc. what makes the accounts of Jesus's miracles any more credible?

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