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This might be better in Apologetics or Theology actually, so I'm sorry if this is in the wrong forum.
Anyway, my question. Are there any eyewitness accounts of Jesus' miracles (apart from the Biblical accounts of course)? I know there are some accounts in other religious books such as the Jewish Talmud, but does anything other than this exist documenting his miracles?
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Definitely better suited in one of the other forums you mentioned. I'm on it.
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Originally Posted by Flyguy This might be better in Apologetics or Theology actually, so I'm sorry if this is in the wrong forum.
Anyway, my question. Are there any eyewitness accounts of Jesus' miracles (apart from the Biblical accounts of course)? I know there are some accounts in other religious books such as the Jewish Talmud, but does anything other than this exist documenting his miracles? No
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Are there any other witnesses who wrote about it? I don't know. But I'm sure there were people who witnessed it who are not recorded in Scripture.
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Originally Posted by Sean No
Even more to the point is this: Let's say for a moment that there was indeed some other eyewitness accounts to Jesus's miracles and that they were written down. Now, let's rewind time back to when the councils were deciding what was Biblical canon. Would these have not been included? You see, the problem is that genuine eyewitness accounts would have most likely been placed into the Bible so I don't think we would have seen eyewitness accounts outside of the context of the Bible.
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Exactly. Any piece of literature reporting miracles would be labelled a religious text therefore it wouldn't be eligible here.
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well, there is Josephus, here is an article from a text-critical perspective which attempts to remove the probable redaction on this point.
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu...hus-jesus.html
I know that is not the best source, but it reads very similar to my other sources on my desktop computer, and the footnotes in my copy of josephus.
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Allright, thanks you all.
I ask because I was just wondering if perhaps the miracles that Jesus is described as performing in the Bible were "embellished" by the Apostles to make the religion more appealing.
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Originally Posted by Flyguy Allright, thanks you all.
I ask because I was just wondering if perhaps the miracles that Jesus is described as performing in the Bible were "embellished" by the Apostles to make the religion more appealing.
If so, Luke was an idiot. Luke was careful to document who saw what. What purpose would that have?
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Yeah, there are records in Scripture of crowds having witnessed these miracles. If they didn't occur, then someone would've said something.
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Allright, thanks you all. I'm still a skeptic but you have been helpful in answering my question.
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on this topic, I wonder what the effect was on the time lapse between when Christ was performing the miricals and when people actually started to write them down would be. Do you think by then they could have been exadurated. I've heard many a Mormon go on about how the bible is fully legit because of changes that occured between the old and new testiment...not that I believe it, just curious....
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Originally Posted by BillSPrestonEsq If so, Luke was an idiot. Luke was careful to document who saw what. What purpose would that have? Luke was writing, at minimum, several decades after these miracles happened (Acts reports all the major events in the life of Paul, which take place well after 50 AD, and Luke also wrote Acts). Luke may not have been an idiot, but one of his so-called eyewitnesses that he interviewed may certainly have been embellishing/inventing.
Josephus was certainly not an idiot (he is considered to be one of the finest historians on record, much more respected than Luke) and Josephus reported a floating army and chariots that were seen by everyone in the clouds in 68 AD.
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ask because I was just wondering if perhaps the miracles that Jesus is described as performing in the Bible were "embellished" by the Apostles to make the religion more appealing.
Well we have no extant documents form nonChristians testifying to the miracles Jesus performed. As they were all done in Israel odds are that any and all documentation would have been housed in the temple archives (as the Sanhedrin built a large file on Jesus) and trhus would have been destroyed in 70 AD.