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Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Contra Celsus: Were the first Christians Gullible Dweebs?



Did anyone ever warn you, "Point a finger at someone else, and four fingers point back at you?"

There is a subclass of skeptics who delight in pointing fingers at early Christians and calling them fools, knaves, and liars. My book, Why the Jesus Seminar Can't Find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could, is in part a response to skeptics who scoff at early Christians in somewhat more sophisticated terms. I also posted an informal rebuttal of Richard Carrier, along with Landon Hedrick and Robert Price, after Carrier portrayed the early Christians as described in the Acts of the Apostles as gullible. (See "Were early Christians gullible dweebs?" )

In both cases, I argued, the charges tend to reverse themselves, revealing early Christians as more reasonable than some modern critics.

A character who calls himself Celsus often posts on Amazon.com, and makes perhaps the most shameless (and ultimately counter-productive) accusations along these lines I have seen. The original Celsus was a critic of Christianity, to whom the brilliant 2nd Century philosopher Origen replied in his book, Contra Celsus.
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Our modern Celsus is the faithful heir of his namesake. His greatest passion is to post quotes from ancient Christians and call them "liars." It usually turns out he has not read his sources carefully (if at all), but his citations are obscure enough, and his claims fit their worldview well enough, that he seems to fool even some well-educated skeptics by this technique.

In this post I will explore Celsus' most recent attack on ancient Christians, and show how it makes one of them, the historian Eusebius, come out looking good -- especially compared to ancient and modern opponents.

The underlying issue here, though, is the historical credibility of the Gospels. What our modern Celsus, his allies, and their ancient forebears, are desperately trying to do, is find some parallel to the Gospels, so they can dismiss them as incredible. Like many other modern skeptics, Celsus tries to use an ancient text called Apollonius of Tyana for this purpose. It is an act of great desperation, that not only fails, as we will see, but helps show why the Gospels remain a byword for truthfullness.


The Challenge

Not long ago, Celsus opened a forum on Amazon entitled "Superstition, gullibility, and Christianity." He wrote, in part, as follows:

"It appears that superstition and gullibility were rampant at the time when Christianity arose, and this may be one of the primary causes of its success. For example, the Bible describe how the inhabitants of Malta thought Paul was a god just because he survived a snake bite (Acts 28:6). Furthermore, Paul and Barnabas had difficulty convincing the inhabitants of Lystra that they were not gods simply because a man with bad feet stood up (14:8-18).

"Miraculous healings were apparently commonplace at that time. Aslepius was a god / man (worshipped before and after Christ) who was reputed to have accomplished a myriad of miraculous healings . . .

"Appolonius of Tyana was a contemporary of Christ who miracles rivaled those of Christ (Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana). His ability to perform miracles was not questioned by early Christians such as Eusebius, but was already attributed to the work of demons (Treatise Against Appolonius) . . . "

Celsus ended his post by citing two leaders of the ancient Alexandrian school: Clement for gullibly believing in the phoenix, a bird that lives 500 years and then regenerates itself, and then his student Origen citing the first Celsus, upbraiding fellow Christians for appealing to the "foolish, dishonorable and the stupid."

Some initial problems

Celsus' post was applauded by several skeptics, itself quite a testimony to gullibility. As I pointed out, even these short comments are riddled with dubious historical claims. Let us warm up with a few tangential examples:

* The inhabitants of Malta didn't suggest Paul was divine "just because" he "survived a snake bite," rather because a viper, probably known to be poisonous, bit him and caused no harm, and also because he had just survived shipwreck in a remarkable way.

* The "man with bad feet" had never walked in his life: he stood up in response to Paul's command. Having probably known the man since childhood, why wouldn't they find this impressive?

*But no doubt this mob was gullible, which is Luke's point, and does not need Celsus to tell us.

* Aslepius was the Greek god of healing. There seems to be little evidence that he lived as an historical figure. Of course people in the era before modern medicine were desperate for healing.
 
* Origen answered Celsus' charge that ancient Christians were ill-educated and gullible well. Let me recommend chapters 9-12 of Contra Celsus, which should take about ten minutes to read. His perspective on faith and reason is balanced, sensible, and still of value.

* It is misleading to call Apollonius a "contemporary" of Jesus. He appears to have died (records are vague) some sixty years after Jesus. The biography Celsus cites was written hundreds of years later, under the sponsorship of an opponent of Christianity. So it is possible that the author, Philostratus, copied some ideas from what he had heard about Jesus, which were widely in circulation by that time.

* No serious person who reads Apollonius of Tyana and the Gospels can however think Apollonius and Jesus were much alike, or that the stories of Apollonius are as credible as those about Jesus. I compare the two in chapter 16 of Why the Jesus Seminar Can't Find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could. Analyzing a variety of ancient writings, I found that Apollonius of Tyana was far less like the Gospels than such historical works as Tacitus' Agricola. I concluded, in part:

"Philostratus would seem to have all the advantages over Mark. He received the best education, and rose into the best society by wit and talent. Yet his story comes off as an entertaining yarn, with weak characters, no moral power, and no link to real-world geography, let alone zoology."

* To support his claim that Apollonius worked miracles like Jesus, Celsus claims later in the forum that Apollonius raised people from the dead. But not even Philostratus believes that story, as we will see.

* Clement used the phoenix as a symbol for the resurrection. He is not claiming to be a biologist. He is just borrowing a popular story about a creature in remote parts to make a theological point.
 
 
But for the rest of this post, I will focus on Celsus' criticism of Eusebius. This is especially interesting, because Eusebius is participating in an ancient debate over the same subject -- whether Christians are guilty of "reckless and facile credulity," as he puts it. Also, to do so, Eusebius responds to an ancient writer, one Hierocles, who, like many modern skeptics, cited Apollonius of Tyana to try to debunk Christianity.

As I will show, Celsus' argument is indeed a remarkable testimony to gullibility -- his own, and other modern skeptics who think Apollonius can serve as a useful weapon against Christ.

Eusebius, the Gullible?

What first strikes one, reading Eusebius, is not his naivite, but his tone of urbane and skeptical sarcasm. That sarcasm is directed precisely at supernatural claims made about Apollonius:

Well, we will not grudge him his natural and self-taught gift of understanding all languages. But if he possessed it, why was he taken to a school-master . . . (and) by the dint of close study and application, he acquired the Attic dialect?

Thus he, who just before, according to Philostratus, had an understanding of all languages, now on the contrary, according to the same witness, is in need of an interpreter.

Eusebius takes sardonic delight in the title of Hierocles' book, Lover of Truth:

Here then at the bidding of one of these sages an elm-tree, we are told, spoke to Apollonius in an articulate but feminine voice, and this is the sort of thing which the Lover of Truth expects us to believe.

In fact, Eusebius thought Philostratus' tales so self-evidently ridiculous -- you find apes that run pepper farms, dragons throwing sparks from their heads, Brahmans levitating two cubits off the ground, a four-footed animal with the head of a man shooting thorns from his tails -- that all he needs to do to make his (supposedly gullible) readers scoff is to repeat them.

Eusebius notes sarcastically:

Such are the stories which Hierocles, who has been entrusted to administer the supreme courts of justice all over the province, finds true and reliable after due enquiry . . . he proceeds to brag about himself and says (I quote his very words): 'Let us anyhow observe how much better and cautiously we accept such things . . . '

In sum, Eusebius makes it plain, to anyone with eyes to read, that he does not in the slightest believe Philostratus' miracle claims:

According to (Hierocles), they were most highly educated, yet never by actual sifting of the facts, established them with any accuracy in the case of Apollonius.

Overleap the bounds of humanity and transcend philosophy . . . in that case his reputation for us as a philosopher will be gone, and we shall have an ass instead concealed in a lion's skin . . . 

True, Eusebius often admits claims about Apollonius for the sake of the argument. But to careful readers, this only makes it clear he does not believe them at all:

But admitting, though it is against all probability, that he is not lying, but telling the truth, we are still at a loss to know, how he can pretend to have acquired this lore from (Pythagoras) . . . inasmuch as the latter deceased some thousand years before him.

So is it true that Eusebius does "not question" Philostratus' ability to work miracles, as our Celsus claims?  Baloney, he questions it endlessly.  Apparently Celsus has either not read Eusebius, or does not recognize such rhetorical devices as sarcasm and admitting claims for the sake of an argument. Eusebius makes it perfectly clear he does not believe any of Philostratus' supernatural claims:

The tales of Thule, and any other miraculous legends ever invented by any story-tellers, turn out to be by comparison with these quite reliable and perfectly true.


His very insistence on the truth of his earlier tales, I refer to those of lightening and wind kept in jars (etc) . . . fully betrays and exposes the mythical character of everything else which he has to tell us.

Eusebius also tells the story of how Apollonius supposedly saved the city of Ephesus from the plaque by having the people of the city stone a beggar to death. This is a fascinating tale, cited by Rene Girard in one of his works to illustrate scapegoating in the ancient world. I have cited it myself to show how different Jesus, who saved a woman from being stoned, was from his alleged rival.

More to our present point, Eusebius did not buy it:

For if anybody feels the shadow of doubt about the matter, the very manner in which the story is told will convince him that fraud and make-believe was in this case everything . . . For he pretends that the plague was seen in the form of an aged man, a beggard and dressed in rags; who, when Apollonius ordered the mob to stone him, began by shooting fire from his eyes, but afterwards . . . appeared as a dog all crushed and vomitting foam, as mad dogs do . . . Who, I would ask, after reading this would not laugh heartily at the miracle-mongering of this thaumaturge?

Indeed! And who cannot laugh heartily at "scholarship" that reads Eusebius as a gullible naif who accepted Philostratus' stories uncritically?

Nor, pace Celsus, does Eusebius believe the story of resurrection supposedly told about Apollonius:

The fifth and sixth miracles however in this book do not stand in need of much argument and discussion, so thoroughly do they prove our writer's easy credulity . . . As for the damsel whom he is said subsequently to have brought back again to life in Rome after she had died, the story clearly impressed Philostratus himself as being extremely incredible, and we may safely reject it.

Nor does Eusebius credit stories about Apollonius' own supposed apotheosis. In chapter 40, he points out that no one even knows where Apollonius died: some say Ephesus, others Crete, though Philostratus suggests (based largely on a hymn) that he was raised into heaven bodily.


Did Eusebius buy any of Apollonius' miracles?

Celsus thinks he did. He gives two quotes from Eusebius to prove this. To bring this post towards a conclusion (the truth of the matter being clear by now, I think), I'll examine the shorter of the two:

From chapter 25: 'And why, too, was he not able to do this by daytime, instead of doing it in the dead of night and alone? . . . I cannot think but that evil demons would have found such and hour seasonable and appropriate for their devilish interviews, rather than the soul of a hero which, having been freed from the crass matter of the body, must necessarily be good and unsullied. In any case the demon conjured up on this occasion is represented as of a malignant and envious disposition, both rancorous and mean in humor.

Celsus takes this with utter literalness, and challenges me to explain it away.

Sober readers should by now recognize Eusebius' sarcasm, and his tendency to make concessions for the sake of an argument.

Eusebius has just told the story of Apollonius and the demon-beggar of Ephesus in the previous paragraphs, and "laughed heartily." He then tells Philostratus' story of how the soul of Achilles appeared to the sage, five cubits high, in response to prayers he learned in India.

Afterwards Eusebius relates the "fifth and sixth miracles," and heaps equal scorn on them, "so thoroughly do they prove our writer's easy credulity."

Easy credulity, indeed.


Conclusions

For two thousand years, skeptics have tried to find some parallel to the life of Jesus, so as to render it less unique, and, if possible, dismiss it as "just another tall tale."

Apollonius of Tyana is a dreadful choice for this role. It is about somehow whose career mostly occurred after the life of Jesus, was written up hundreds of years later, perhaps purposely in order to compete with or undermine Christianity. As I show in my Jesus Seminar book, no comparison could be more incongruous. (I compare Apollonius of Tyana to old Saturday Night Live skits, from the classic era of my own youth!) Something obviously much deeper and more remarkable is going on in the Gospels.

This Eusebius also sees. In his introduction, he ticks off several points of contrast between Jesus and Apollonius. Mostly these have to do with a priori probability -- reasons why you might credit the Gospels outside the text itself: that "Hebrew sages" fortold the coming of Jesus, that he founded "a school of sober and chaste living that has survived him," that people of all races rally to him by the tens of thousands, including enemies, that miracles are still worked in his name.

But it says something about the Gospels that a man like Eusebius, while deftly scewering the follies of Apollonius of Tyana, came to believe the canonical stories of Jesus. In Why the Jesus Seminar Can't Find Jesus, I analyze the differences between the texts.
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It also says something about the Gospels that so many skeptics have spent so much time looking for parallels, yet the best they can come up with is something like Apollonius of Tyana.  This includes not only an amateur like Celsus (update: now doing an MA in classical history, I understand!), but also two of my debate partners during our debates, Robert Price and Richard Carrier!  (And some of the Jesus Seminar crowd.)
 
Celsus, and some scholars with better credentials, delight in trying to hoodwink the gullible by citing obscure texts that they know few people have read, and making dramatic claims. One should be careful one should be about buying arguments at second hand, especially in this day, when it is so easy to read the originals.

16 comments:

  1. I wrote a lengthy response to David's argument, but was unable to post it here as it contained some 1000 characters over the limit. I also noticed, upon trying to post it, that the moderator (David) has the ability to delete or disallow any posts that do not meet his approval; and since my post basically blows his argument out of the water and makes him look quite foolish, it is unlikely it would see the light of day anyway. Hence, I shall post it on the original site where this issue was first raised and provide a link here for anyone who wishes to see it and respond to it.

    http://www.amazon.com/Superstition-gullibility-and-Christianity/forum/Fx238ZENNZM4HA2/Tx57HVGANU9EXE/2/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg2?_encoding=UTF8&asin=0618680004&cdSort=oldest

    Celsus

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  2. Celsus: Go ahead and "blow my argument out of the water." I'll post every word (assuming none are off-color; I have gotten obscene hate mail from another anti-Christian crusader on Amazon, which I don't post, but I don't expect anything like that from you). If I don't mind Dr. Avalos, Carrier, or Stenger taking their best shots at me, I'm certainly not worried about anything you can say.

    Break it up into two or three posts, and you should have no problem.

    David

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  3. Celsus decided not to post his response here; you can read it by following the link he left.

    Anyone can read Eusebius' little book on-line, or just quotes from my post above, and see that Celsus is talking nonsense. But to be thorough, let's appraise his new claims.

    "I see that yet again David has chosen to employ one of his favorite debate tactics; namely, to select a minor point from his opponent's argument, construct a strawman with it, then destroy the strawman in the mistaken notion that his opponent's entire argument is thereby also destroyed. It is worth noting that in constructing this strawman, David was particularly cunning by concealing evidence most damaging to his argument, as will be shown."

    What Celsus means by this is that (a) I didn't mention all of the comments in his original posts. So many bad arguments, so little time; (b) Celsus believes the quote from Eusebius that I didn't cite was more devastating to my argument than the one I did cite, and that's why I omitted it. Fine, I'll gladly post it now, and we'll see.

    DM: "'The underlying issue here, though, is the historical credibility of the Gospels. What our modern Celsus, his allies, and their ancient forebears, are desperately trying to do, is find some parallel to the Gospels, so they can dismiss them as incredible."

    Celsus: "David should be fully aware by now that we require nothing of the sort in order to dismiss the Gospels as incredible."

    But that's exactly what he's doing, and that's exactly the argument I addressed in THIS blog, as we'll see.

    "In an earlier thread I presented 13 reasons why the Gospels are unreliable, NONE of which involved citing parallel accounts. David failed to address any of those 13 points, apart from a bald assertion or two. When asked to back up his unsupported claims, he repeatedly refused . . . "

    My arguments for the Gospels are contained in two books on the subject, Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could, and The Truth About Jesus and the "Lost Gospels." Those arguments don't, I think, have much to fear from skeptics who know something about the subject -- I've debated Robert Price on the Gospels, and would be happy to debate him again -- still less from amateurs like Celsus.

    But the subject here is Celsus' claim that early Christians were gullible, and his attempt to use Apollonius and Eusebius to buttress that argument.

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  4. DM: "Like many other modern skeptics, Celsus tries to use an ancient text called Apollonius of Tyana for this purpose.'

    Celsus: "I did nothing of the sort. I referred to a publication by *Eusebius*, who acknowledged that Apollonius was able to perform miracles with the help of demons."

    But here again are Celsus' own words:

    "Appolonius of Tyana was a contemporary of Christ whose miracles rival those of Christ (Philostratus, The Life of Appolonius of Tyana). His ability to perform miracles was not questioned by early Christians such as Eusebius, but was instead attributed to the work of demons (Treatise Against Appolonius)."

    Your claim that Apollonius' miracles "rival" those of Christ is exactly what I said: you try to diminish the Gospels by finding some parallel for them.

    I challenged this supposed parallel, pointing out that "Apollonius is nothing like Jesus at all, nor are his alleged 'miracles.'"
    You replied:

    "It seems you need a refresher course in Apollonius, David. Apollonius performed miracles, healed the sick, cast out evil spirits and raised people from the dead. If you cannot see any parallels with Christ then you are probably beyond reasoning with."

    So first I am "beyond reasoning with" for DENYING the supposed parallels between Apollonius and Jesus. But now I am "constructing a straw man" for reminding you that you argued for those parallels!

    Given that you misrepresent your own arguments, it's no wonder you get those of Christians so badly confused.

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  5. "David goes on to dismiss with a wave of the hand some of the other examples I provided, showing the gullible nature of Christians (and others) living close to the time when Christianity was invented. He failed to mention some of the other salient points raised in the OP, one can only assume, because these might have detracted from the strawman he intended to construct around Apollonius and Eusebius."

    Two wrong assumptions. First, I made no use of "straw men" -- I cited you at length, and accurately, then rebutted your arguments, not something that will go on my resume, I might add.

    Second, it is false to say "one can only assume" that I failed to mention your other points because they were so "salient" and over-powering. One could spend a lifetime refuting silly arguments. One has to pick and choose.

    "David continues to build his strawman: 'It is misleading to call Apollonius a "contemporary" of Jesus. He appears to have died (records are vague) some sixty years after Jesus. The biography Celsus cites was written hundreds of years later, under the sponsorship of an opponent of Christianity. So it is possible that the author, Philostratus, copied some ideas from what he had heard about Jesus, which were widely in circulation by that time."

    This is hardly a "straw man," since in trying to draw a parallel between the two men, Celsus CALLED them "contemporaries!"

    "This point is irrelevant. The person at issue is Eusebius and his attitude to Apollonius and his miracles. So the question of when Apollonius lived and died is a red herring, having no bearing on the topic at hand."

    See above, again, to recall Celsus' original arguments. My argument, clear in the opening blog, is not only about Eusebius, but about the gullible modern use of Apollonius to undermine the Gospels, by yourself, and by credentialed scholars who should know better.

    DM: "No serious person who reads Apollonius of Tyana and the Gospels can however think Apollonius and Jesus were much alike, or that the stories of Apollonius are as credible as those about Jesus."

    Celsus: "So according to David, the miracles attributed to Jesus are credible, while those attributed to Apollonius are not. I look forward to David explaining how a magic star hovering over a manger is credible; how a virgin birth is credible; how dead saints crawling out of their graves and strolling through Jerusalem are credible; and how three hours of darkness at mid-day (which no secular historian ever mentioned) is credible."

    The peculiar thing about posters like Celsus is the disconnect between what they say and what they think it means. In this paragraph, Celsus accurately cites me as saying the miracles attributed to Jesus are credible. Then he attempts to undermine THAT claim by commenting sarcastically, not about any miracles attributed to Jesus in the Gospels, but about four stories NOT attributed to Jesus.

    I can only shake my head and wonder, "Is this guy even reading his own stuff?"

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  6. DM: "As I will show, Celsus' argument is indeed a remarkable testimony to gullibility -- his own, and other modern skeptics who think Apollonius can serve as a useful weapon against Christ."

    Celsus: "Unfortunately for David, my argument does not consist of using Apollonius for any such purpose . . . "

    Yes, it does. See above.

    "David then highlights a number of instances where Eusebius dismisses some miracles attributed to Apollonius, claiming they resulted from deception, the author's imagination or lies. As a side point, it is a pity that Eusebius failed to employ similar logic when assessing his cherished Gospel tales, for if he had he would likely have come to a similar conclusion concerning them. Nevertheless, there were some miracles of Apollonius that Eusebius apparently could not so easily dismiss, which he explained instead as the work of demons, as the following will reveal."

    "David continues: 'Did Eusebius buy any of Apollonius' miracles? Celsus thinks he did. He gives two quotes from Eusebius to prove this. To bring this post towards a conclusion (the truth of the matter being clear by now, I think), I'll examine the shorter of the two:"

    "The real reason David fails to examine the longer quote is quite obvious to anyone who has read it: it destroys his argument and supports mine. So instead, David pretends that by failing to reveal it he is merely hoping to bring his post to a conclusion. Such is the deceptive and manipulative nature of the Christian apologist, as exemplified in David Marshall."

    Heh. So what is this quote, so deadly that apologists shudder to cite it, that undermines all the other quotes in which Eusebius clearly said he didn't buy these stories? Stay tuned.

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  7. Celsus: "The quote from Eusebius which David cunningly elected to omit is as follows: From chapter 31:

    "These then are the achievements which preceded his accusation, and it behoves us to notice throughout the treatise that, even if we admit the author to tell the truth in his stories of miracles, he yet clearly shows that they were severally performed by Apollonius with the co-operation of a demon. For his presentiment of the plague, though it might not seem to be magical and uncanny, if he owed it, as he himself said, to the lightness and purity of his diet, yet might quite as well have been a premonition imparted to him in intercourse with a demon. For though the other stories of his having grasped and foretold the future by virtue of his prescience can be refuted by a thousand arguments which Philostratus' own text supplies, nevertheless, if we allow this particular story to be true, I should certainly say that his apprehension of futurity was anyhow in some cases, though it was not so in all, due to some uncanny contrivance of a demon that was his familiar...Moreover, the soul of Achilles should not have been lingering about his own monument, quitting the Islands of the Blest and the places of repose, as people would probably say. In this case too it was surely a demon that appeared to Apollonius and in whose presence he found himself? Then again the licentious youth was clearly the victim of an indwelling demon; and both it and the Empusa and the Lamia which is said to have played off its mad pranks on Menippus, were probably driven out by him with the help of a more important demon; the same is true also of the youth who had been driven out of his mind by the mad dog; and the frenzied dog itself was restored to its senses by the same method. You must then, as I said, regard the whole series of miracles wrought by him, as having been accomplished through a ministry of demons".

    That's it?

    Note the phrase, "even if we admit the author to tell the truth in his stories of miracles."

    Does Eusebius admit Philostratus IS telling the truth in his miracle stories? Heavens no, as the quotes in the blog above prove. He is allowing the point purely for the sake of the argument.

    Eusebius makes this clear yet again in this paragraph:

    "For though the other stories of his having grasped and foretold the future by virtue of his prescience CAN BE REFUTED BY A THOUSAND ARGUMENTS which Philostratus' own text supplies, nevertheless, IF WE ALLOW this particular story to be true . . . "

    Eusebius doesn't say, "All the other miracle stories are bogus, but I admit this one to be true." Clearly what he's saying is, "All the other miracles stories in Philostratus are clearly bogus, but EVEN IF WE ALLOW this one, by some fluke, to be true . . . "

    EVEN IF you read this paragraph out of context of the whole book -- and therefore miss Eusebius' sarcasm, his frequent use of this rhetorical device, his denial that Philostratus is a credible story-teller, his blanket skepticism, often repeated, about Apollonius' miracles -- IF, in other words, you ignore all the rest of the book, you misread this paragraph IF you miss the word "if."

    And that's what Celsus does.

    "The last sentence is of particular interest, and is worth repeating. 'You must then, as I said, regard the whole series of miracles wrought by him, as having been accomplished through a ministry of demons.' Which, of course, supports my original point and reduces David's pathetic strawman to dust. I rest my case."

    LOL! What case? That IF you ignore the word "if" before a conditional, the conditional becomes declarative?

    Let's see what magic one can work with this alchemy:

    "If raindrops were dollars, everyone in Seattle would be rich."

    Which clearly proves I am wealthy as a sultan. Q. E. D.

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  8. Good point, though sometimes it's hard to arrive to definite conclusions

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  9. I fail to see why all of this bickering and reliance on obscure texts is needed by either side to address a simple question. And the answer is yes, they were. Take Paul's snake-bite, for example; how can we know for certain that it was a viper that bit him? it says that Paul was bitten by the snake, which he calmly pulled from his arm and threw away; clearly, nobody took any time to study it's color and markings, so this could have easily been a garden snake. And on top of this, the fact that people thought he was a god merely because he supposedly survived a viper bite shows how superstitious and gullible people were back then.
    Even if he had survived the bite of a real viper, intelligent, rational people do not fall on their knees and start worshiping someone who survives it as a god(although I'm sure some snake-handlers wish they did ;)). Most of these early Christians had no education, and while that alone doesn't necessarily make them morons, the rampant mysticism and superstitious mumbo-jumbo more or less accomplished that. The fact that most of these people were prepared to try and explain any strange occurrence with gods, demons, and magic shows that pretty clearly.

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  10. BR: Local villagers know their snakes. The more primitive a tribe is, the more attuned they tend to be to the varieties and effects of different species. Archeologists have found over a hundred different edible plants by some archaic villages: could you gather a hundred different edible wild plants from your neighborhood?

    When I lived in Taiwan, the poorly-educated hill tribes were very attuned to flora and fauna. I was told about Chinese who got lost in the mountains and died, while the tribal people could live up there for years. They especially seemed to know their snakes: there are about 60 different species on the island, many quite poisonous.

    This snake was sizzling on the fire. They had time to check it out. Heck, fish scales are still distinctive even AFTER they're cooked.

    Nor does it say they worshipped him. They were impressed that he survived a shipwreck and the bite of a poisonous snake in the space of a few hours; who wouldn't be? He then prayed for a bunch of people and cured them. (Or are we to believe the one report, and not the other?) Even after that they didn't "worship" him, but showed him lots of respect. And that, it seems to me, was eminently rational.

    Given a belief in polytheism, the reactions of the islanders seems entirely reasonable to me.

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  11. Yet another straw-man, I see.

    First off, I don't recall the passage saying that the entire village was present when he was bitten by a snake, so your entire comment is pretty pointless. Does the passage say the snake was on the fire? I don't recall that detail either, just that he threw the snake away. And as for believing one report and not the other, I don't believe either of them since believing in magical stories unoriginal themes with no supporting evidence hasn't been one of my habits since I deconverted from Christianity; my point is based on "If" this happened, "If" they did that, etc.
    And the main point here is, early Christians were superstitious, uneducated, and gullible, just the other 90% of the population.

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  12. BR: You claimed Paul "threw the snake away," but that's not what the account says -- it says he "shook the beast into the fire." (αποτιναξασ το θηριον εισ το πυρ) It also calls the snake εχιδνα, which Wiktionary gives as an "adder, viper."

    There is no reason in the world to assume people in Malta didn't know their snakes. That's about the first thing my boys learned in Japan -- especially the deadly kind, the まむし。

    I don't think it would take any great degree of superstition to find Paul's adventures remarkable, especially if, as no doubt happened, the crew of the ship told the locals the rest of what had happened with Paul on board.

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  13. "BR: You claimed Paul "threw the snake away," but that's not what the account says -- it says he "shook the beast into the fire." (αποτιναξασ το θηριον εισ το πυρ) It also calls the snake εχιδνα, which Wiktionary gives as an "adder, viper."

    So? Just because it translates as "viper" doesn't mean that it was one. Also, throw away, shake into the fire, what's the difference? The point is, the only person who had a chance to look at the snake, was Paul, and since he threw it into the fire, well, I guess we'll never know what is was, will we?

    "There is no reason in the world to assume people in Malta didn't know their snakes. That's about the first thing my boys learned in Japan -- especially the deadly kind, the まむし。"

    You're forgetting that nobody actually confirmed the markings--no one but Paul got a look at it. And even if it is all true, it still defeats your point; if early Christians weren't gullible, why did they automatically assume that only a god could survive an adder's bite? That is hardly mark of a skeptical mind.

    "I don't think it would take any great degree of superstition to find Paul's adventures remarkable, especially if, as no doubt happened, the crew of the ship told the locals the rest of what had happened with Paul on board."

    Accepting miraculous anecdotes doesn't require superstition? Okay. BTW, did I ever tell you about that time I built a spaceship in my garage and visited Betelgeuse? Great place; their Snorklivian mead is the best alcoholic beverage I've ever tasted.

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  14. David

    You may be interested to know that your lies are coming home to roost. Check it out:
    http://www.amazon.com/forum/religion/ref=cm_cd_fp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1M9TK6UGAX6EO&cdThread=Tx3UCB48O3G6426

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  15. I never lie, Robert. My very first posts on this blog refuted Hector Avalos' hissy fit. Get with the times.

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  16. " Celsus did not doubt that both Jesus and his followers performed miracles, but he attributed them to magical powers." (The Cambridge Companion to Jesus)

    We can now safely count the very educated philosopher Celsus among the gullible dweeds.

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Sincere comments welcome. Please give us something to call you -- "Anon" no longer works.