"Back to the Sources!" Wallace Marshall reviews Jesus is No Myth.

Dr. Wallace Marshall (no relation) has just posted the following review of my new book, Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels, on Amazon:

"A Great Contribution to Historical Jesus Studies!"

"This is a well researched and highly readable book. It's clear that Marshall has spent a lot of time with the original sources. He makes a compelling case for the uniqueness of both the historical Jesus and the canonical Gospels, and lays waste the arguments of "mythicists" like Richard Carrier who argue that Jesus may have never even existed.

"Marshall particularly excels in calling attention to the stylistic and literary qualities of the Gospels. He shows how understated their narratives are, vs. the dramatic embellishment, often to a hilarious degree, of their supposed parallels; how the personality of Jesus appears distinctively from the voice of his biographers, like Samuel Johnson's does in Boswell's famous "Life"; how the personalities of numerous minor characters, usually ordinary people, stand out in the Gospels as well, whereas they are rarely noticed in other ancient sources, and where they are, function for the most part like stage props; how unlike Jesus' character, teachings and interactions are from the ethno- and ego-centricity that predominates the alleged parallels to the Gospels.

"The chapter on Apollonius of Tyana, the favorite parallel to Jesus, is an absolute gem. Apollonius doesn't dialogue; he monologues. His moral teaching consists of platitudes. He doesn't really even work miracles, and where he "sort of" does, it is usually bizarre, and sometimes dark, as when Apollonius instructs the people of Ephesus to stone a beggar, who bloodied and broken reveals himself to be a demon. As for the source document itself, his life, written by Philostratus, contains fantastical details like flying, gold-gathering griffins, apes who farm and harvest peppers, 400-year-old elephants who shoot arrows with their trunks, and of course---dragons.

"By the time Marshall finishes his tour, you find yourself wondering how it could have ever occurred to scholars that either Philostratus' work, or his subject, Apollonius, could have been identified as legitimate parallels to the historical Jesus and the Gospels, and especially the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke). You wonder the same thing after the chapter on "In Praise of Baal Shem Tov," the eighteenth-century Polish rabbi who's recently been brought forward as a contestant on what Marshall amusingly calls "Celebrity Apprentice Messiah" (262). And indeed, a point Marshall returns to again and again---and it's difficult to disagree with it after reading his book---is this: "It is stunning that such are the closest parallels skeptics can find, after so epic a canvassing of ancient records" (214). He thinks skeptics have actually paid a tremendous compliment to Christianity by unwittingly underscoring this point.

"But the "compliment" only emerges clearly when one turns from the modern presentations of these ancient sources/figures, to the sources themselves. Marshall shows how scholars like Matthew Ferguson and even Bart Ehrman (who comes in for a particularly sharp rebuke on p. 204) have been guilty of gross misrepresentation. But it's impossible to do justice do this book in a review. The strength of "Jesus is No Myth" (which establishes far more than that bare historical fact) emerges from its wealth of comparative details and the insightful analysis Marshall applies to them. I went away from this book freshly reminded of the importance of the maxim, "Ad Fontes."

Now you know what you want to get your son or daughter off to college, or skeptical uncle, for Christmas! 

Order the book directly, and you can not only buy the book for $6 off, I'll also sign it, if you remind me:

David Marshall / PO BOX 403 Fall City WA 98024 ($16 per book, plus $4 postage for any number of copies)

Or, of course, there's still plenty of time to get Jesus is No Myth from Amazon.  

Give Thanks, America!

A week ago I climbed a dune in Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.  Looking at the blue sky, the mountains that rise to the north blocking the sand for the past two hundred thousand years or so, the trees on the mountainside where a herd of deer had been grazing on my drive in, an old song came to mind: 

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

The verb "shed" here is ambivalent.  I wondered if this is an imprecation (in which "shed" parallels "crown" in the next line -- "Please do this, God!"), or a thanksgiving for what God has done .  (God shed his grace on America already.)

Looking around me at the sky, the mountains, the dunes, and the blue forests, it looked like the latter, and I thought how sad it is how obsessed I have let myself become with petty politics.  I also thought about the 28 states I had traveled through on this trip, and the many beautiful sights I had encountered.  Whatever you fear or hope from Donald Trump, whatever ruckus and shouting we hear in our streets, we have so much to be thankful for!  And among those blessings are the skies -- which are beautiful, and clear, compared to Chinese skies -- the grain (already harvested in most fields I passed through, though there was some cotton in Texas, see below), the majestic mountains (so good to see after taking a fairly flat southern route from South Carolina through hundreds of miles of Texas -- but the plains were beautiful, too) -- and the seas.  

In Michigan, it may have been, I picked up a single maple leaf, and stared at its vermillions, purples, dark lines, translucent reds, glowing in uneven shades in a late-afternoon beam of sunshine.  Yet like the lilies of the field, these beauties wither after falling like colored snowflakes from the trees by the trillion across the northern hemisphere.  How much beauty there is on this Garden of Eden, even its present state!  

So here's my Thanksgiving post, with one or more photographs from many of the states I passed through over the last two months, reflecting that grandeur.  

I'll also add a word of thanks to God for something about each state mentioned.   

Washington: Mount Rainier National Park  (You should see it when the clouds clear -- they do, sometimes.)  Also Yiwen at Whitman.  

Thanks: For such a beautiful home. 

Idaho: Just a random lake heading toward Highway 2.  
Thanks:  For time with John and James at Bruneau Dunes State Park.  

Montana can't be limited to one measly photo, not when it's dressed up like this (the last three are of Glacier National Park): 

Thanks: For aspen and dinosaur fossils.  
North Dakota (God's grace through the churches as well, including First Lutheran in Minot, where I spoke): 

Thanks: for all that fracking oil, helping us travel, and keeping cruel nations in check.  

Wisconsin, I think: 

Thanks: For Paul Ryan, an honest man who loves his country.  
Minnesota: The Mississippi River as a child -- see, you can dock on the left, and swim across the "Mighty Mississippi" in thirty seconds.

Thanks: For this great river, which flows from your many lakes.  
Michigan (The northern shore of Lake Michigan, which I swam in despite the brisk, cool breeze and the dead waterfowl): 

Thanks: For a land of such beautiful trees and magnificent lakes.  And for a football team that gave Washington a couple great Rose Bowl wins!

Ohio (downtown Columbus, seeing the sights with Carrot, another of my students): 

Thanks: For Thomas Edison, and light.  (I visited his house in an attractive small town in northern Ohio, last time through.)  

Pennsylvania: a foggy morning.  

Thanks: William Penn and the Quakers who helped abolish slavery, ultimately around the world.  For Ben Franklin.  
New York (City): 

Thanks: For Liberty.  
Delaware (just a random estate along the border with Pennsylvania, heh)

New Jersey: 

Thanks: For Princeton University and its first grad student, James Madison.  
Connecticut (Yale, founded to bring God's grace to America by educating young men to preach His Word):

Thanks: For Eli Whitney, Bill Buckley, Francis Collins, Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson

Rhode Island (Brown, originally a Baptist institution):

South Carolina (I loved putting my hand in the smooth water as we swept over the undulating liquid clouds; the Wallace Marshall family, including brother Calvin in North Carolina, were among the many gracious hosts on this trip):

Georgia (Emory): 

Mississippi (General Grant won this one)

Texas: 

Oklahoma (not fair -- I only drove a few hundred yards into this state, then walked a few more hundred yards -- and I did see a light-red fox close to this spot): 

New Mexico:

Colorado

Utah: 

Oregon (Snake River)

Washington again (Yakima): 

So whatever you think about the political climate, the National Debt, your personal finances or health or even your favorite football team: we do have a lot to give thanks for this Thanksgiving.  Whatever verb tense he intended, the song-writer was not being sentimentally pious, he was simply responding in a healthy way to the beauty that we sometimes foolishly ignore: 

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

The Genius of C. S. Lewis

Yesterday I conducted the following test on Facebook.  I asked:

What can you deduce about the age, religion, and academic background of the person who wrote the following? 


"You ask me what a shee is: I reply that there is no such thing as 'A' Shee. The word (which, though pronounced as I have spelled it, is properly in Irish spelled 'Shidhe') is a collective noun, signifying 'the fairies,' or the gods -- since, in Irish these powers are identical. The common phrase 'Banshee' is derived from 'Bean Shidhe' which means ...'a woman of the Shee:' and the gods, as a whole, are often called 'Aes Shidhe,' or 'people of 'Shee:' and the gods, as a whole, are often called 'Aes Shidhe,' or 'people of the S.' The resemblance between this word 'Aes' and the Norse 'Aesir' has often been noted as indicating a common origin for Celtic and Teutonic races. So much for the etymology. But the word has a secondar meaning, developed from the first. It is used to indicate 'the faery forts' or dwelling places of the Shee: these are usually subterranean workings, often paved and roofed with stone & showing an advanced stage of civilization. These can be seen in a good many parts of Ireland. Who really builds them is uncertain: but scholars, judging by the rude patterns on the door posts, put them down to the Danes. Another set say that they were made by the original inhabitants of Ireland . . . "

So what can you tell me about this writer, just from the text?

People responded that the author of these lines was a "male professor of English," maybe at Oxford, in his 50s because of his vocabulary, "a very educated person in their 20s or their 50s," or "over 30 because he/ she sounds like a well-schooled academic."

In fact, they come from a 15 year old boy named Jack, writing to a friend named Arthur.  He was a young atheist or skeptic, who had never formally taught anywhere, still less at Oxford.

C. S. Lewis, as we know him today. 

Lewis was the greatest apologist of modern times, I think many would agree.   But his expertise is often attacked by skeptics, sometimes who have often only read Narnia or Mere Christianity, both in which he was deliberately making things simple for children, or for a popular radio audience in broadcasts with tight time constraints.

Recently I noticed a thread on Jerry Coyne (who doesn't seem to know that Lewis wrote a whole book on miracles) taking pot-shots at Lewis' 'puerile theology,' or straw men thereof. 

But even as a teenage atheist, who had never formally taught anywhere, Lewis was already a budding literary genius. 

 

Lewis' later letters, not to mention his academic writing and his adult fiction and essays, reveal his genius even more clearly.  In his letters, he converses with eminently accomplished literary figures often displaying a love of fun, but also prodigious learning worn lightly, and an authority that some of Britain's best poets and scholars are quick to recognize.  His forays into Shakespeare or Milton, the "discarded image," and his prodigious and vastly referenced volume in the Oxford History of Literature series remain classics of erudition and insight.  Though in his popular works, sometimes Lewis' very lucidity deceives readers who mistake simplicity and clarity for simple-mindedness, and who do not know the grounds for Lewis' opinions (Coyne) -- and there are almost always solid grounds, which Lewis does not always give.

To be blunt, I know of no skeptic, still less New Atheist who patronizes Lewis, who belongs on the same intellectual tier as Lewis, or anywhere near it. (At least not in the humanities, nor as a philosopher.) 

 

What does this matter? 

 

It matters in two ways. 

 

First, Lewis came to Christ through his love of great thought and literature in the broad western tradition -- including the Greeks and Romans, but also the "Celts" and Norse and pre-Christian Germanic mythologies as well as the rational tradition and modern philosophy. (His casual comments about India and China were often quite canny, as well, if limited.) 

 

Lewis was not a scientist, of course.  Though he had a keen interest in science, he cannot of course be held account for the latest in evolutionary theory, for instance.  But when Lewis speaks for Western Civilization, he should be listened to. He is almost always right, and usually notices connections that bear further investigation. 

 

His understanding of the relationship between Christianity and Western tradition is, I argue in my dissertation and some books, right on the money, theologically, and well-grounded, historically. (Though my own focus is on China.) 

 

Second, while Lewis' 3 L trillemma has often been mocked by skeptics and even repudiated by some Christians, his reasons for discarding the fourth L -- legend -- were articulated in several other articles outside MC, such as the brilliant essay "Fernseed and Elephants." I believe (and my Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels takes this argument further into empirical substantiation) that Lewis' insights into the gospels provide an inchoate but ultimately even stronger argument for the historicity of the gospels than the common historical arguments that our excellent modern evangelical scholars favor. When Lewis says "I have never read a myth or a hagiography like this, nothing else is like John," he gives us an Argument From Authority. My point is, Lewis' authority on this subject ought to be recognized as weighty indeed. Any skeptic who trots out talking lions in response, ought to be shot down and corrected. 

 

C. S. Lewis, talking on literature, ought to be listened to more carefully than (frankly) anyone else I have encountered. He is the greatest literary genius (reader, not just writer) I have so far been privileged to meet through his writings.

October Speaking Schedule

Lots of speaking coming up!  Come if you can!  Bring along those who have doubts about the truth of the gospels, who have swallowed bilge from the likes of Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, or Reza Aslan, or friends who would like to hear something important from a novel perspective. 

The initial tour for my new book, Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels, is set to kick off in full fury early next month. I'm planning to travel to some 20 states during October, speaking in (at least) Washington, North Dakota, Minnesota (probably), Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and South Carolina.  (Then into the South in November.)  Almost all of these events are open to the public!  I'll be pleased to meet some of you before or after, get a bite to eat, sign books, and chat.   

I'm also planning to visit top universities along the way, which I'll list below the schedule.  Since I'm going to these schools anyway to conduct research, I'd also love to share on campus, even to small groups on a last-minute basis, regardless of funds.  I probably won't pass up a meal if invited!  (I am also looking for places to stay some nights.) 




"Jesus is No Myth" Tour, October, 2016


October 2  (Sunday, 9 AM + 11 AM sermons)
        
             Washington State, Snoqualmie Valley Alliance (Fall City): "Understanding Taoism"


October 8 (Sat, 5:30 PM sermon)


              North Dakota, First Lutheran (Minot): "Jesus is No Myth!"


October 9 (Sunday, 8:30 + 11 AM sermons)

               North Dakota, First Lutheran: "Jesus is No Myth!"


                  (9:45 Adult Ed)


                ND, Minot First Lutheran:   "The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels"


                  (7-8:30?)                             
      
                 ND, Minot First Lutheran:   "How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test"


October 10 (Monday class)


                  Minnesota (tentative, private)


October 12 (Wed, 6-7:40 PM)   


                  Ohio, Maumee Presbyterian: "The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels"


October 16 (Sunday, 9 + 10:30 AM sermons)


                  Pennsylvania, Christian Life Center (New London): "Is Jesus a Myth?"


October 17 (Mon, PM)


                  New Jersey (Randolf): Perspectives


October 19  (Wed, PM)


                   Pennsylvania, Christian Life Center (New London): "How Jesus Passes the Outsider
                      Test"


October 22 (Sat, 9 AM)


                   Pennsylvania, Christian Life Center (New London): "Jesus for Skeptics"


                    (Sat, 10:30 AM)


                                                                                              "Apologetics in the 21st Century"


October 23 (Sunday, 9 + 10:30 AM)


                    Pennsylvania, Levittown Presbyterian: "Jesus is No Myth!"


                    (Sunday, after second service)


                     Pennsylvania, Levittown Presbyterian: Q & A


October 30 (Sunday, 9:30-10:15)


                     South Carolina, St. Philips Church (Charleston): "Is Jesus a Myth?"


                    (Sunday, 4-5:30)


                      South Carolina, Reasonable Faith, "Is Jesus a Myth?"




Schools to Visit Along the Way


(speak, chat, survey, meet, photograph):


Amherst, Boston, Brown, Carleton, Chicago, Colgate, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Haverford, Illinois, Lafayette, Lehigh, Michigan, MIT, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Princeton, Purdue, Tufts, Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee, Whitman, Williams, Wisconsin, Yale.


Hope to see many of you in one or another of these locations! 

Jesus is No Myth: Deal for Students!

This past year I have heard reports of several people, including college students, being fooled into doubting the gospels by the wiles of liberal New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman and his ilk. I really hate it when college professors abuse their superior knowledge and prestige to hoodwink young people, as I believe Ehrman is doing.  That is one reason I feel so passionate about my new book, Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels. I would love to get that book into the hands of questioning students. 

So for this month, I want to make Jesus is No Myth available to students at my own cost.

Whoever would like to purchase copies of this new 300-page book for yourself, if you are a student, or wish to give it to students, you can have it for just $10, plus $4 shipping. ($1 shipping for each additional copy.) I can post the new book on those terms until I leave on the fall speaking tour in two weeks.

Jesus is No Myth offers the following:

(a) It refutes Reza Aslan, Richard Carrier, Bart Ehrman (ACE), and Matthew Ferguson.

(b) It describes 30 traits that the gospels share (the "fingerprints of God"), which directly demonstrate that the gospels are highly credible historical works. It defends established "criteria" like Embarrassment, Coherence and Multiplicity against skeptical attacks.  It describes revolutionary new criteria introduced by NT Wright and Tim and Lydia McGrew.  It then introduces some twenty other powerful criteria having to do with setting, characterization, style, moral teaching, miracles, and the fulfillment motif.

(c) The book plays "judo" on the skeptics.  It makes use of the long skeptical search for "Jesus body doubles," for parallels to the gospels or the historical Jesus. It rigorously analyzes many suggested parallels, arguing that nothing at all like the real gospels has yet been found, cheerfully mocking supposed analogies like Apollonius of Tyana, Baal Shem Tov, and The Golden Ass.

(d) Finally, Jesus is No Myth looks at the "historical Jesus debate" briefly from the outside perspective of China.

 Reviews so far bear out that Jesus is No Myth achieves these goals, with style:

If you are a student, or have a student ministry, please consider purchasing some copies!

Our address, again, is Kuai Mu Press / PO BOX 403 / Fall City, WA, 98024. I usually ship the same day: the Fall City post office is just across a lazy side-street. The old deal for non-students, $16 plus $4 shipping with a copy of The Truth About Jesus and the 'Lost Gospels' for free, will also be valid for the rest of the month.

The book is listed on Amazon as "out of stock," though they should have copies by now.

Jesus is No Myth is now here!

Jesus is No Myth is now in house! James and I drove down and picked up several hundred copies this afternoon. Reviews are also starting to come in:

Dr. Craig Blomberg (Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary):

“Support for the credibility of Christianity can be found here that is available nowhere else. A must read. ”

Dr. Timothy McGrew (Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University):

"Full of fresh insights, penetrating analysis, and dry wit -- the section on the Bal Shem Tov alone is worth the price of the book -- and some of the best material from the rich storehouse of the history of apologetics."

I believe this book can be a game-changer. Having read it, I don't think you will ever read the gospels the same again. Nor will you listen to skeptical attacks on the gospels without a smile again. And you will "get the goods" on some of Jesus' supposed "competitors" in the ancient world, and rediscover how utterly unique Jesus of Nazareth truly is.

The book is more than 300 pages, and comes to $20. For direct orders (go around the middle man, or river), we'll wave postage. And for the first ten orders, I'll also add a free copy of my earlier book, The Truth About Jesus and the 'Lost Gospels.' I'll also sign the book, if you remind me -- otherwise you'll fall victim to "Absent-Minded Professor Syndrome" (AMPS).  

To order, send $20 and the mailing address to which you would like the book sent to Kuai Mu Press, PO Box 403, Fall City, WA, 98024.

May Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels prove a blessing to those who have doubts, or have bought into the falsehoods of the Ehrmans, Carriers, and Aslans. You'll have time to read it, and see if a second copy perhaps belongs under a Christmas tree whose owners have developed doubts about Christ!

Indira Gandhi and Matthew's "Zombies"

In my new book, Jesus is No Myth, I show that the miracles of Jesus are very different from the kinds of supernatural wonders that skeptics often compare them.  The miracles of Jesus are purposeful, respect human nature, do good, are essentially rational, and point people to God.  Whereas in the supposed analogies, you get stories about 500 year old talking frogs, how the spittle of a rabid dog cures rabies, and an angry child Jesus who kills another boy because he muddied up the pond Jesus was playing in.  Whatever the historical evidence for these events may be -- thin and weak, in fact -- there is also an a priori Alice in Wonderland quality to the stories, unlike most of the miracles in the gospels.  

But there is one story in the gospels that seems, on the surface, and perhaps even when you look deeper, to be cut from the same cloth as these eccentric but enjoyable tall tales.  And that is the one Gospel miracle that is cited again and again by skeptics: the story of the "zombies," as some put it, who rose from their graves and walked around Jerusalem when Jesus died, as told by St. Matthew.  (27:52-3)

What should we say of that strange event?  Did it happen?  Was Jerusalem visited by risen saints for a few days?  If so, did these "zombies" later return peaceably to their tombs?  Does this strange story discredit the rest of the gospels, somehow?   

Although my PhD is in a combination of theology and history, I see myself more as an historian than a theologian, and that is how I would answer this question.  

Of all the miracles of Jesus, as an historian, I would admit this one is far less-secure than most of the others.  It is attested only by one evangelistic, and that one is Matthew, who is probably further from the facts than the others.   There appear to be no "undesigned coincidences" or other pieces of internal evidence that add strength to this report, as they do (I show) to some of the other miracles in the gospels.  It is an inherently odd story, hard to make sense of.   And the rather off-hand account  sounds a little like a rumor that Matthew may have been passing along.  

So as an historian, I would not claim that I "know" these dead bodies really did rise to life.  If you hold a theological position according to which the Bible must be without error, that's fine.  Perhaps you are right.  In which case, don't worry about these problems.  Sometimes strange and inexplicable events do occur, and perhaps this partial return to life can be seen as a sign of the universal impact of Jesus' death and resurrection.  Skeptics use the word "zombie" to mock, but of course the people Jesus actually raised were whole and sane human beings, as these no doubt would have been, as well.  

But let me speak to the skeptics, who think this story is not only laughably untrue, it discredits the rest of the gospels as well.  Let me speak now from my own experience.  

Thirty-two years ago, I was in New Delhi, India, when the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her Sikh body-guards.  

Or so I heard on the news.  

We started to hear other rumors.  People were being dragged out of trains and killed.  Some said the CIA was involved in the assassination.  The water was poisoned. 

Aside from rumors, we also heard bombs and rifle-fire in the distance.  After a couple days, I walked for miles in both directions, and witnessed buses and taxis that were blackened ruins on the side of the road.  (And took pictures.)  I saw houses whose fronts had been smashed.  I talked with both Sikhs and Hindus who had fought the mobs through the night.  One Hindu said he and his neighbors had thrown molotov cocktails for hours.  One Sikh asked me if Sikhs were treated well in America: he wanted to emigrate.  

The event was very traumatic and (I have to confess) exciting.  I remember the week well, though it occurred, now, as long in the past as the final events of Jesus' earthly life would have, to Mark as he began to write.  If I am blessed to live to my actuarial life expectancy, probably I will be able to write a first-hand account of what happened in the neighborhood where I was staying, as late as St. John wrote his gospel.  

This experience brings up a point that I don't think I've ever heard anyone make about the dead rising in Matthew. 

All things being equal, it would have been a miracle if, after the resurrection of Jesus, a few strange and ultimately untrue rumors had NOT circulated through the early Christian community. 

The rumor that people were being dragged from trains and killed turned out, unfortunately, to be completely true.  

The rumor that the water was being poisoned turned out, it seems, to be false.  (Not that we drank tap water in India at the time, anyway.)

The rumor about CIA involvement was also, I think, false.  It did keep us in check, though, as westerners in India.  

One might even propose a general rule of thumb: 

"Whenever any traumatic and hugely significant event occurs, unless they are supernaturally suppressed, dramatic rumors are bound to be generated, some of which will turn out to be untrue." 

If that is so, the distant rumor of the walking dead, if false, should be seen as an outlier, which in no way affects the truth of the other miracles in the gospels.   Jesus having died in the way all the witnesses tell, and then rising from the dead, would certainly generate rumors.  Some Christians believe the Holy Spirit guided the evangelists to choose only those rumors which are based in reality.  But skeptics who do not assume that, should not be surprised to discover a few such outlying rumors around the fringes of the main story.  

This conclusion is greatly strengthened by the character of those other miracles.  It is strengthened by the fact that many are attested from multiple sources, often very early ones, that many include numerous realistic details, embarrassment even, along with "undesigned coincidences," as I will demonstrate.  

One should not confuse a shrub for a forest.   Matthew's odd story is unlike all the rest of the miracles in the gospels, as they are unlike the talls tales in popular ancient fiction (and even some history).  

But gazing at a shrub, say a huckleberry bush on a stump in front of a stand of redwoods, does give one renewed respect for the mighty forest.  Look carefully and seriously at the miracles of Jesus, and the very context that skeptics so often cite, sets them apart even more magnificently.