Kata Markon

["Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT comcast.net>]

Here's one that should be right up Eric Eve's street:


Jeffrey

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Hi Folks,

I've been working on this topic for a while and am interested in any 
kind of feedback folk might have (I should note that this was first 
posted on Xtalk, and then Biblicalist).

Ever since the English Deists up through Bousset, Bultmann, and beyond, 
it has been suggested that Jesus¹ miracles were first comparable to and 
then later explicitly derivative of Graeco-roman and Hellenistic 
wonders, and finally mediated through Hellenistic Judaism. But if so, 
I¹m wondering to what end?

If early Christianity is to be seen primarily as a philosophy (which 
several scholars have argued is how many ancients would have seen it), 
how many philosophical movements in the first century required the 
working of wonders to establish the credibility of their founder? Given 
that the increasing skepticism and naturalism in this period (as per 
Lucian and Cicero) often lead to charges of invention and fabrication, 
and the near certain potential for accusations of sorcery (as per e.g. 
Celsus), why run the risk when wonders it seems were not part of the 
standard warrants of attestation? Why not instead simply rely on the 
ethical impact of Jesus (such as Origen finally did in defending against 
Celsus¹ charges of sorcery and trickery and as 19th century liberals 
were wont to emphasize)? In other words, why the need for wonders if 
they were in fact so problematic and unnecessary? I realize that 
Neo-pythagoreanism was making a comeback (Pythagoras being a
wonder worker) which might indicate a trend associating wonders with 
certain kinds of philosophy. But then Pyth.'s wonders are very different 
from the kinds of things attributed to Jesus.

If seen as a religion with Jesus as a new deity, which of course begs 
the enormous question of why anyone would have thought the teacher Jesus 
to be a deity in the first place, then how many of the new religions 
from the east felt that they needed to be attested by the wonder working 
power of the central figure? Franz Cumont has argued that the Oriental 
religions succeeded in the West because they appealed more strongly to 
the senses and emotions, spoke directly to the individual, and satisfied 
the intellect via their written scriptures. Notice the absence of any 
reference to wonders. As far as I am aware neither the Cybele nor the 
significantly more successful Isis were known for their manifold wonders 
(remember Jesus has an extraordinary 35, give or take, distinct 
wonders/miracles attributed to him).

Further, as Koskenniemi has observed reminding us of what older 
handbooks noted long before, wonder-workers per se seem to have gone out 
of fashion in the Gentile world during the two centuries before and 
first century and a half after Jesus, about 350 years in total. (One of 
the major defects Bultmann inherited from Bousset was a lack of 
discrimination in terms of date and genuine parallels). The one or two 
healings associated with Prryhus and Vespasian seem rather scanty 
evidence upon which to build a reputation as a wonder worker while in 
the East Eunus¹ wonders were confined to oracles and breathing fire from 
his mouth. Not until the end of the second century do we find a bevy of 
names flourishing, which suggests that the desire for wonders comes a 
little too late to have influenced the gospels. Again, I note nascent 
Neo-pythagoreanism (per Apollonius) but it's not really until the late 
second century that we find explicit wonders being attributed.

Now there is some first century evidence of Jewish magicians (Elymas, 
Simon Magus, both in Acts) and probably others (see Flintermann¹s 
response to Koskenniemi, though our material evidence from this period 
is thin); but were these magicians wonder workers per se, or were they 
more oracular in orientation? Even so, this seems hardly to explain the 
extraordinary list of deeds attributed to Jesus.

So, historically speaking, in terms of a putative Hellenistic agenda why
bother to attribute mighty deeds to Jesus?  Comments, crits, etc.?

Regards
Rikk Watts