13: Legend 2: Historical Persons Resurrected?

13

Legend 2: Historical Persons Resurrected?

The previous chapter concentrated chiefly on the ancient mystery religions, frequently retelling the stories of dying-and-rising gods, including an array of subtopics and issues. Geographically, a variety of these pre-Christian accounts were found chiefly throughout the vicinities of Rome and Greece, down into Egypt, and then around and past the eastern end of the Mediterranean world over to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and beyond. We directed special reference throughout to two major questions: Were there any clear examples of pre-Christian dying-and-rising gods? If so, did these tales exhibit any significant amount of influence on the New Testament formulations of the death and resurrection of Jesus?

Regarding the initial question, it was concluded for several reasons that it is very difficult to determine whether there were any clear pre-Christian cases of dying-and-rising gods. Specialist scholars line up on different sides of the issues, often due to the thousands of years separating some sources and the present plus the many relevant pieces of mutilated data. Further, the researchers frequently began from dissimilar starting points by utilizing different definitions. We concluded that the data indicated a slight preference for there being no such clear resurrection tales in pre-Christian times.

The answer to the second question is much more settled. Only rarely do recent specialists, whatever their personal outlook from atheist to conservative, hold that pre-Christian tales of dying-and-rising gods gave rise to the Christian teaching of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Nor did these ancient stories provide any significant influence on these Christian positions.

These original arguments were popularized chiefly by the late nineteenth-century religionsgeschichtliche Schule, with holdover views in the early twentieth century, often in brief statements or hints from the highly influential writings of Rudolf Bultmann and others. But even Bultmann began to shift away from these positions. Yet it often escapes notice that even Bousset and Pfleiderer did not think that the resurrection parallels could explain the disciples’ visions.

Eventually the cracks in the claims of the history of religions supporters became apparent. A huge problem was that the original theses proclaimed by Frazer, Bousset, and Pfleiderer among others were cobbled together from disparate sources, sometimes without regard for which myths were being combined (especially in terms of time, geography, and independent provenance of the myths). New critiques emerged decades later, especially from members of the Third Quest for the historical Jesus, such as emphasizing the Jewish rather than the Hellenistic origin of the earliest Christian teachings along with the recognition of the exceptionally early New Testament creeds and their role. Under this large amount of pressure, the original positions occupied by the religionsgeschichtliche Schule scholars have largely evaporated as they were addressed and refuted.

Another Angle

This chapter chiefly moves beyond the material from the dying-and-rising gods to another species of legendary accretion. The principal interest here is largely with historical figures (or those who were largely historical) in order to examine the potentially legendary miraculous sorts of occurrences that were sometimes attributed to them. World religions scholar Irving Hexham defines a “legend” as a “narrative, often tied in with a particular place or locality, which tells an apparently historical story which has little basis in actual fact.” Among the many accounts in this genre, the amounts of history and legend that appear in each example understandably often differ.

We will begin by discussing some Jewish rabbinic figures who were considered to be miracle workers and exorcists, moving to ancient magicians and the notion of the Hellenistic “divine men,” of which the best-known example is that of Apollonius of Tyana, and back to the key Jewish messianic figure of Sabbatai Zevi (or Sevi). A few other historical figures will be viewed as well regarding certain related ideas. Throughout, from New Testament times to much closer to the present, it will be our intent to evaluate particular claims that certain individuals had or utilized special powers. Two of the specific areas of concentration in this chapter are examples of apotheosis (being taken to heaven and divinized either before or after death) and some empty tomb or resurrection appearance accounts.

Ancient Parallels?

One reason the question of early, non-Christian miracle claims is intriguing is that these descriptions are plentiful in the ancient world. In this regard, comparisons to Jesus would be natural if not actually expected. Moreover, some of the Jewish or pagan incidents told concerning Jewish holy men, magicians, and the group known as the Hellenistic “divine men” seem similar in places to those events that were reported regarding Jesus in the canonical Gospels. As a result, some critical scholars in the past couple of centuries have even charged that a number of these ancient parallels may have provided different sorts of inspiration either for the Gospel portrayals of Jesus’s miracles (perhaps even contributing ideas for entire Gospel episodes) or in otherwise encouraging Jesus’s own ideas or actions in a copycat fashion.

What should be concluded regarding these Jewish and pagan parallels? These are some of the major issues at hand in this chapter, with particular examples revealing some of the variety of these ancient miracle claims. It should also be remembered throughout this chapter that to challenge the origin or source of an idea instead of addressing the truth or falsehood of the actual concept or position itself is to commit the informal logical falsehood known as the genetic fallacy. Even if some relationship or similarity could be shown between Hellenistic or other ideas and any Gospel stories, this still does not at all prove that the reports of Jesus’s miracles are either false or derived from earlier examples.

Jewish Holy Men

Jewish historian Josephus describes “a righteous man . . . beloved of God” named Onias (or Honi, as he is usually called) who lived in the first century BC. He prayed to God to send rain in order to end a drought, and God answered his prayer by granting the request. The Mishnah reports additional specifics, explaining that God did not answer the prayer initially. So Onias the Circle-Maker drew a ring and stood within it, telling the Lord that he would not leave until it rained—and it did.

On another occasion, Josephus relates, “I have seen a certain man of my own country whose name was Eleazar” who cast demons out of tormented individuals by holding a root up to the person’s nose and drawing the demon out through the nostrils! Then Eleazar commanded the demon never to return again, citing the authority of King Solomon and “reciting the incantations which he had composed.” As a final step, Eleazar would command the demon to overturn a nearby “cup or basin full of water” to indicate for those present that the demon had, indeed, left the possessed individual. The purpose throughout this narrative was to indicate Solomon’s greatness and abilities (Ant. 8.2.5).

It was a common Jewish belief about the time of Jesus that certain rabbis were able to perform miracles. Hanina ben Dosa, for example, was reputed to be able to heal the sick, even when the latter were located a distance away. On one occasion he prayed in order to cure a boy who had a high fever, afterward pronouncing that the child had been healed. This was later confirmed to be the case by the lad’s father.

Could the Gospel authors who related the accounts of Jesus’s miracles have known such Jewish stories and incorporated portions of them into their own writings due to the influence of such Jewish holy men? Or further, could particular Gospel accounts even have been “borrowed” or invented on behalf of Jesus in order to increase his acclaim? It is difficult not to notice how Hanina ben Dosa’s account of healing at a distance is reminiscent of Jesus’s own curing of the centurion’s servant (Matt 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10).

By way of evaluating and responding to such questions or charges, several items may be noted. (1) To start, it is perhaps needless to remark that the Gospels do indeed exhibit much influence from the Old Testament and also reflect Jewish tradition in many places. For example, the Gospel of John reports that Jesus himself was referred to as a rabbi as was John the Baptist. The point to observe here is that from the beginning of Jesus’s teachings, the Jewish background to his message was not denied, covered up, or even downplayed. Jesus openly based many of his examples, lessons, and good theology on sound Old Testament principles, referring directly to many key figures in the process. In light of this dependence on Jewish Scripture, principles, and teachings, the presence of additional similarities between these sources should actually be expected.

(2) While many Jewish similarities are thus present and expected, dissimilarities and certain odd-sounding aspects are also present too, like Eleazar’s employing a root and pulling a demon through the nostrils of the possessed individual. And why utter a Solomonic incantation as one’s authority to exercise the demon? Or what about Honi’s circle-drawing as an act in itself, especially if it had been done by magical powers?

Moreover, on the surface at least, these differences even exhibit the superiority of Jesus’s person and authority over that of the Jewish rabbis and other teachers. Why cite Solomon for one’s authority in casting out demons? As Jesus remarked, someone greater than Solomon was now present (Matt 12:42; Luke 11:31). Further, often in the New Testament, Jesus places his own authority above that of the sacred Old Testament text and commands (as is remarkably the case in Matt 5:21–48). Or other writers teach that Jesus was far superior to the angels (Heb 1:5–14), Moses (3:1–6; 8:5–6), or the Jewish priests (4:14–16; 8:1–6). Last, magical and occultic powers were regularly condemned throughout both the Old and New Testaments, so miracles or exorcisms done by such powers were not only considered inferior but were condemned.

Another huge difference is noted by many critical scholars today, both liberal and conservative. As Marcus Borg asserts, “Typically, Jesus exorcised evil spirits by verbal command alone” apart from using instruments of any kind, incantations, and so on. The people who witnessed this knew the difference—they were absolutely amazed by Jesus’s new teaching and authority (Mark 1:23–28) in that he did not heal or do exorcisms the same way that other Jewish authorities did them.

(3) But the other potential challenges from these Jewish accounts still remain. Could any of these similarities just mentioned in the writings of Josephus and the Mishnah actually explain the Gospel records of Jesus’s miracles and exorcisms, including individual portions of these accounts? In particular, the Talmud’s account of Hanina ben Dosa appears to be especially close to the Gospel accounts in the Q passages in Matthew and Luke.

To begin, we have no solid bridges that indicate any such mythical mimicry of these Jewish traditions in the Gospel portions regarding stories being passed on as Jesus’s healings or exorcisms. Further, the written forms of these Jewish writings date at a minimum after the Synoptic Gospels. The earliest of these works is Josephus’s Antiquities, probably dating from late in the reign of Roman emperor Domitian, perhaps AD 93–94. This places it at about the same time as John’s Gospel, after the Synoptic Gospels, and almost certainly several decades after the possible dating of any Q source material containing either Jesus’s healings or exorcisms. Thus, it would be quite difficult to argue that Josephus’s material affected any of these possible accounts in the Synoptic sources, whereas earlier oral sources for this material could still be cited.

The initial portions of the Mishnah date from no earlier than about AD 200, when it was completed by Rabbi Judah and later became part of the Talmud. Though there are certainly earlier roots to these Jewish documents, the Babylonian Talmud, from which the account of Hanina ben Dosa was drawn, dates from about AD 500. Thus this completed material dates some 450 years after the Q material accounts of the centurion’s son in Matthew and Luke, presumably dating from the mid-first century AD. Therefore, it can be safely concluded that while there still could have been some earlier origins of the Jewish stories, neither the Mishnah nor the Talmud inspired or affected in any way these healing and exorcism stories noted above. F inally, the possible existence of earlier Jewish stories would still have to be demonstrated in their own right, with historical lines being drawn to the Gospel accounts.

(4) Furthermore, it must also be remembered that the Jewish leaders in the Gospels actually acknowledged the reality of Jesus’s miracles and exorcisms in spite of their best interests. This is understandable on more than one front in light of both the early attestation of Jesus’s wonders plus Jesus’s own apparent recognition that the Jews also performed actual exorcisms. But if Jesus also seemed to acknowledge the reality of the Jewish exorcisms, this likewise serves to disarm a good deal of the initial objection above as to whether or not Jewish prophets, holy men, and the like were performing supernatural works. In light of Jesus’s seeming comment, this could involve an overall response that questions whether there is even a further point to be made here. Does a further critique even matter at this point?

The major issue at hand in this chapter concerns alternative challenges to the historicity of Jesus’s miracles. Jesus was a Jew, and there can be no doubt that longstanding Jewish concepts exerted influence on the Gospel writers. But unless it can be shown that Jesus’s miracles were either invented wholesale or that the supernatural element was significantly colored by such bias, this Jewish element is not a problem. This is especially the case when Jesus himself seemed to acknowledge that Jewish exorcists were doing their own work too. Hence, there are no immediate issues here. The historicity of the Gospel miracles is treated elsewhere in this study as well.

Magicians

The two preceding examples from Josephus indicate some overlapping territory between the category of Jewish holy men and that of magicians. The holy men appear to have employed some techniques that were often connected with magic to accomplish their ends (e.g., the use of special roots and Solomonic incantations). In the case of Honi, Josephus continues by reporting that Simeon ben Shetah made a complaint against him, charging him with unorthodoxy in his use of magical circle-drawing, among other implications, and Honi was stoned.

Other magical accounts beyond Judaism also abound in the ancient world. Edwin Yamauchi reports the existence of a thousand cuneiform texts in ancient Mesopotamia that depict the healing of diseases by means of magic. Since many diseases were attributed to demons, those cures often resulted in casting out the demons by specific formulas. Is there perhaps credible evidence that such ancient pagan cases either inspired or even led to the creation of particular Gospel miracles? Or can Jesus’s miracles and exorcisms as they are reported in the Gospels be taken as the work of a magician?

Yamauchi’s detailed analysis sufficiently addresses the major concerns of these questions. A crucial roadblock to understanding Jesus as a magician is the ancient concept of magic itself, which was exceptionally negative. Both Christians and non-Christians characterized magic as including elements such as demons, sorcery, incantations, the casting of evil spells, and even trickery. It definitely involved persons of dubious or doubtful moral character. Perhaps worse, Morton Smith, arguing that Jesus was a magician, asserts that “cannibalism, incest, and sexual promiscuity were reported of magicians.” He links Jesus and early Christianity to magic primarily because Jesus was considered to be a miracle worker as well as his claims to be divine. Smith also includes the early Christian belief in mutual love, the use of “brother” and “sister,” the practice of having all personal possessions in common, and the custom of the Lord’s Supper (which some critics of Christians in the ancient world considered a form of cannibalism).

It is difficult to understand how the presence of almost any of these items absolutely proves or requires someone to be a magician. If all miracle workers—people who claim to love one another as brothers and sisters, along with those who share their material possessions—qualify as designating devotees of magic, then such generalization has robbed the word of any crucial meaning. And though it is true that some unbelievers charged that the Lord’s Supper was actually a belief in canni­balism, this hardly amounts to evidence for Christian cannibalism or that Jesus was a magician.

Smith’s tangential arguments are even more outrageous and highly questionable. He postulates that Jesus travelled to Egypt purposely to study magic, that the marks on Paul’s body (Gal 6:17) were actually magical tattoos, and that the Roman historian Tacitus’s comments that Christians were charged with “hatred for the human race” probably referred to their practicing magic. So the list goes on!

Such arguments hardly even require a response. Each one stretches credulity beyond any normal meaning, lacks crucial historical or other evidence, and is opposed to the clear and early data that are available. For example, there is no early testimony that Jesus studied magic in Egypt or anywhere else, for that matter. According to Paul’s own self-identification, the scars on his body were plainly due to the extra­ordinary and repeated physical suffering that he explicitly enumerates more than once (such as 2 Cor 11:23–28). Further, though Tacitus does not explain his comments in detail, exhibiting hatred for others has no necessary connection with magic or cannibalism. It seems that for Smith, simply stating something in a particular way may provide enough warrant, by itself, to establish these claims, even when direct statements exist to the contrary, as with Paul’s wounds.

In short, if one defines magic the way that it was described in ancient times (or even today), then Jesus is certainly not a magician, for none of the unique concepts connected with the subject can be applied to him. If, on the other hand, the notion of magic is defined so broadly that Jesus is included, as with Smith, then the concept loses any distinctive meaning, as it can be applied to just about anyone and anywhere. Still, we need to ask whether ancient accounts of magic somehow inspired Jesus’s miracles or their reports. A few relevant issues regarding the historicity of some related claims will also be treated below.

Hellenistic “Divine Men”

Besides Jewish holy men and magicians, one of the best-known parallels to the Gospel miracles was once claimed to be that of the Hellenistic “divine men.” A very popular notion decades ago, it has proved exceptionally difficult if not impossible to actually discover consistent data that can provide criteria to establish these ancient “superheroes.” To the extent to which this once-popular idea can even be defined, it was often said to have been concerned mostly with two types of phenomena: divination and miracles.

However, Holladay summarizes powerfully the conclusion that this hypothesis lost credibility as it was “repeatedly based upon the same few bits of data” that became recognized both for “their paucity but also for their ambiguity.” Problematically, “a half-century of scientific research has shattered this oversimplified picture of the ancient world” into which the concept of the theios anēr supposedly fit. As the most accredited research was nearing its conclusions, the evidence for both the two chief ingredients of divination plus the appeals to miracle-working abilities as authentication was found wanting and failed to obtain, especially in a Jewish context. The result is that the usefulness of this theios anēr concept “is extremely questionable, for using it in Christological discussions merely introduces into an already confused field of study yet another ill-defined, if not undefinable category.” Thus, the notions of “Jesus’s divine sonship and his miracles” must be sought “along lines other than Hellenistic Sitz im Leben or in terms of a process of Hellenization.”

The best-known of the Hellenistic divine men was Apollonius of Tyana, a first-century traveling Neopythagorean bard of whom it was claimed that he had exhibited special powers, including miracles. For example, on one occasion Apollonius ordered a demon to leave a young man and to prove he had done so by exhibiting a visible sign. The demon responded that he would knock down a nearby statue, which promptly fell to the ground. The young man rubbed his eyes as if he had just awakened from sleep, being totally healed.

While the conclusion to this exorcism might remind some of the Gospel account of Jesus exorcising a demon from the Gadarene man (Mark 5:1–20), Graham Twelftree argues that the latter case of the demons’ entering the pigs should not be understood as confirming their exit, but simply as Jesus granting the demons’ request to inhabit other bodies. In other words, entering the pigs was not meant as a sign that the demons had exited.

On another occasion, while visiting Alexandria, Apollonius watched while twelve men were being led away to their executions. He identified one as being innocent, which was confirmed by a messenger who reported new evidence that Apollonius was correct (Vit. Apoll. 5.24). The special cognizance of an innocent man facing execution may remind some of the many times that Jesus exhibited supernatural knowledge.

However, few if any of these Hellenistic sources provide the careful grounds necessary in order to establish the veracity of the miracles and other supernatural items that they record. Philostratus’s work on Apollonius is one of the best-known examples of such miracle stories. Yet, this text is problematic on many accounts:

To be sure, problems with Philostratus’s example of Apollonius of Tyana do not invalidate miracle stories in other ancient sources. But just as critical scholars regularly question the very nature of the New Testament text, the same questions need to be addressed regarding the non-Christian sources as well. It is insufficient simply to claim that a miracle actually occurred in any tradition, Christian or otherwise. All such data must be scrutinized, including aspects like the dates and circumstances of the writing in relation to the original situation, the vantage point and sources of the author if any purported evidence is presented, and whether alternative proposals better explain the data.

The Hellenistic divine men are in some ways an odd group exhibiting many differences. Among these differences, however, is a last crucial aspect to note. The Gospels do not even hint that Jesus’s abilities were connected with divination or the use of occult powers. But since divination was “the most prevalent power” displayed by the Hellenistic divine men, Blackburn notes another stark contrast here with the Gospel accounts.

Could the Gospel picture of Jesus’s miracles have been inspired by the Hellenistic divine men? As with the dying-and-rising gods theses, these comparisons are also generally thought to be specious, for several reasons: (1) One issue is that these Hellenistic wonderworkers were not a group that can be easily defined; there was no fixed type or list of common characteristics. It has been stated that some of these ancient mighty men sometimes claimed to heal and to otherwise utilize the power of divination, but of course that is claimed on behalf of several ancient persons who are not thought of as Hellenistic divine men. So, it has been concluded more recently that it is difficult to support the contention that Jesus’s miracles were patterned after such an ill-defined class. The point here is that while individual cases of claimed miracles being similar to those of Jesus would still need to be investigated, the cate­gory itself cannot be applied to Jesus because of the confusion on the classification.

(2) Even if the pre-Christian Hellenistic concept is honed significantly, the examples in the Gospel accounts are still distinguished in several ways from those of the divine men. As even Bultmann notes, two of these differences are that the examples in the Gospels exhibit much more reserve and restraint in their descriptions of miracles, and, even more crucially, they lack the magical traits that generally characterize the Hellenistic accounts.

(3) Additionally, while there may be some similarities between the Gospel accounts and the Hellenistic stories, almost all the Gospel motifs are also paralleled in the Old Testament, Palestinian Jewish, or rabbinic literature. This observation alone makes it difficult to prove that any particular Gospel miracles must have been drawn from the Hellenistic genre.

(4) Furthermore, an absolutely huge issue for the alleged Hellenistic parallels is that most of these stories actually postdate the New Testament. As Reginald Fuller crucially affirms: “Now it cannot be denied that most of the evidence adduced for the Hellenistic concept of the divine man by the History of Religions school is later than the NT.” Even more pointedly, Fuller declares further of the pre-Christian redeemer myth, “It is no more than a scholarly reconstruction. . . . But there is no evidence for a pre-existent redeemer who becomes incarnate.” Perhaps no other problem with the Hellenistic redeemer myths and theios anēr concepts has been more devastating than this one, which almost single-handedly brought down the huge influence of Bousset, Bultmann, and other critics.

(5) Another blow against this Hellenistic view was leveled by Blackburn regarding the miraculous activity of these ancient heroes. After an extensive study of the Hellenistic miracle accounts, he concluded: “In fact, among the undoubtedly pre-Christian traditions I can adduce only three stories formally reminiscent of the Gospel accounts.” As already mentioned in various ways, it is impossible to build what purports to be a powerful case in favor of Hellenism on such a small number of examples.

(6) Moreover, at the very center of Christianity are the utterly unique historical events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which cannot be accounted for by references to Hellenistic mythical motifs. After noting the vastly different nature of the death and resurrection of Jesus, Fuller states, “The idea of resurrection in the biblical sense appears to be foreign to antiquity.” Mark Smith agrees that the New Testament notions of death and resurrection are clearly drawn from Old Testament backgrounds rather than Hellenistic ideas. Similarly, I. Howard Marshall concludes concerning the deity of Christ, “the influence of pagan ideas is minimal.”

(7) The last issue here is more of a further indication of systematic failure than it is a specific refutation per se. It has been shown that the data on behalf of the theios anēr concept not only turned out to be quite different from what certain skeptical scholars expected, but what was discovered was that the information often tended in opposite directions away from their central theses. Any of several derivations of copycat scenarios originally touted by particular scholars who may have entertained these ideas at some time in the past largely have been abandoned decades ago. This was especially the case when the notion of a gnostic redeemer myth crumbled, as mentioned above. It is difficult to find specialist scholars who remain entranced by many of these ideas, especially in the centermost aspects of their interpretation.

It must be concluded, therefore, that the evidence points very far away from the hypotheses that the Gospel records of Jesus’s divinity, miracles, or other specific aspects of Jesus’s life were invented, duplicated, or otherwise initiated and explained due to the influence of the Hellenistic hero stories. The slow and steady rise of this stream of thought followed by a swifter collapse can alone explain a plethora of other related (mis)understandings in New Testament exegesis that garnered so much influence during the late nineteenth through the middle of the twentieth centuries centered in the writings of scholars such as Bousset, Bultmann, and others.

There are many indications of a failed hypothesis here. For starters, the very lack of a robust definition, including clarity in the central concept of divine men, the significant areas of divergence between these pagan ideas and the Gospels, and that Old Testament and Jewish parallels do indeed lie behind and ground the Gospel accounts, are all key problems. Even more critically, the absence of clear, pre-Christian Hellenistic accounts from which the Gospels were supposed to have borrowed, the inability to establish that these mighty men were even supposed to be miracle workers, as well as the absence of the most crucial components of the historical Christian Gospel message of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ all militate even more seriously against the Hellenistic divine man thesis. As Blackburn concludes forcefully, belief in the “pervasive assimilation” of Hellenistic sources into the Gospel accounts, as is often claimed, is “without justification.” That such pagan influence can be proven even in particular cases is “questionable” and ought not be concluded with any confidence.

If “the proof is in the pudding,” so to speak, then the fact that this message disappeared even among the critical scholars who, along with their disciples, popularized it appears to be the final death knell on this once-popular thesis. Whatever was left amid the dust was crushed further during the Third Quest for the historical Jesus, which has centered most of all in linking Jesus and his ministry to the roots of his Jewish background.

Apotheosis

Moving somewhat beyond the consideration of parallels such as those in the earlier examples, we are getting closer to our central interest in this entire study, namely that of the question of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. Certain historical individuals especially in the ancient world were not resurrected but were said to have been taken upward before or after their deaths, where they were subsequently divinized. Since this chapter concerns historical individuals, comparatively little will be mentioned in this section regarding nonhistorical (or primarily mythical) persons who were reportedly either apotheosized or raised from the dead. In each of these cases (either fictitious or largely fictitious), numerous problems plague the accounts. Most notably, where these issues concern stories about largely mythical persons who never lived, there is obviously a decided lack of historical data. Even where there is a possibility that someone may actually have lived, the reports are far too late to be helpful in historical terms, such that these accounts would thereby constitute claims without evidence.

Attention will be placed here on the comparatively fewer number of claims that historical persons were either apotheosized or raised from the dead. Examples of apotheosis in regard to historical individuals include Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Apollonius of Tyana, and Antinous.

In ancient times, apotheosis may have been the most common expression of the afterlife experience in the Greco-Roman world. Historical persons were frequently reported to have been snatched up to heaven or to the gods and divinized. Several mythical expressions of this have already been mentioned above. In the Roman era, this process was frequently portrayed by the sighting of a comet or a star in the sky, which was believed to be the departed soul of the hero. For instance, Suetonius explains that after the death of Julius Caesar, “a comet appeared about an hour before sunset and shone for seven days running. This was held to be Caesar’s soul, elevated to heaven; hence the star, now placed above the forehead of his divine image” (Jul. 88).

During the cremation of Augustus Caesar, Suetonius similarly relates, “An ex-praetor actually swore that he had seen Augustus’ spirit soaring up to Heaven through the flames” (Aug. 100). Another example concerns Antinous, Emperor Hadrian’s favorite slave. When Antinous died, Hadrian approved of the teaching that a particular star was created from the soul of his slave. Hadrian built a city at the site of Antinous’s death and erected several statues at various locations around the Roman Empire in Antinous’s honor. One statue of Antinous announced that he was now glorified in heaven and that he was actually Osiris.

Rather intriguingly, Suetonius explains that comets likewise reportedly signaled the deaths of Emperors Claudius and Vespasian (Claud. 46; Vesp. 23). These sorts of accounts were most likely related to the Roman belief that their emperors were frequently elevated after death, with Suetonius noting that five of the twelve Caesars concerning whose lives he wrote were later deified.

A last, major example of apotheosis was mentioned earlier concerning first-­century Neopythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana. Apollonius’s lengthy story was told in much detail by his major biographer, Philostratus, who concludes his work by claiming that Apollonius was not seen after he entered a temple, apparently indicating that he was probably transported to heaven and divinized. Many years later Philostratus mentioned that a man saw Apollonius in a dream, convincing the young skeptic of the truth of immortality (Vit. Apoll. 8.30–31).

Are such accounts of apotheosis in any way evidentially credible? It is virtually impossible to ascertain how this in any way could be the case. Several insurmountable problems immediately surface. First, each of the sources that report these details above are relatively late and otherwise highly questionable. While Suetonius was a good ancient historian and did have access to some official Roman records, he still wrote about 150 years after Julius Caesar and about 100 years after Augustus. While this certainly does not invalidate his work by itself, it should make modern readers very cautious. For instance, both sources were written a far greater temporal gap from the events they describe than the oft-criticized distance between the Gospel of John and the end of Jesus’s life, with the gap back to the life of Julius Caesar being over twice the length of time between John and Jesus. Cassius Dio also wrote his history approximately 100 years after Hadrian, which is about the same distance of time separating Philostratus and Apollonius of Tyana, as pointed out earlier.

Further, habitual inclusions of paranormal phenomena, often of an incredible nature, are a known feature of Greco-Roman history, including Suetonius’s historical writing. Examples from both Livy and Suetonius are located easily. Moreover, the Roman acceptance of emperor worship helps explain references to apotheosis too, as almost half of Suetonius’s twelve emperors were later reportedly deified.

Second, and more damaging to the presence of the miraculous statements being made, are the reports claiming that a spirit ascended to heaven or that stars and comets indicate the presence of a deceased person’s glorified soul. Needless to say, these do not qualify as historical or as any other sort of evidence. Usually even worse are the plethora of statements both from chiefly mythological figures (like Romulus or Aristaeus) as well as historical persons (such as Apollonius of Tyana) of whom it was reported that their disappearance from a particular location was taken as a sign that the individual was taken to heaven and divinized. Since when do doubts about a person’s whereabouts automatically mean that he or she was whisked away to heaven?

The nature of these inferences is frankly ludicrous, whether taken poetically, mythologically, or otherwise, especially if they are meant to influence others. They almost make one want to facetiously respond, “Sure, that is the very first thing that occurs to me, too, when someone is not where they are supposed to be. It just seemed that they must have risen straight up to heaven!” Hence, Apollonius’s disappearance from a temple provides no indication, signal, or even a mere suggestion that anything supernatural has happened there, and especially not apotheosis and the resulting divinization. Nor does a skeptic’s dream decades after the historical individual’s life ended provide any sign pointing to the truth of immortality, especially when the author states that the others present saw nothing (Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 8.31). At best, these are subjective testimonies without supporting data that are hardly even open to any verification whatsoever.

Third, it is difficult to conceive how apotheosis reports, whether true (though without any evidence whatsoever) or false, can necessarily either help or hinder conclusions concerning resurrection anyway. In other words, it has been argued that the belief in an afterlife is nearly “universal” but this by itself is vastly different than the claim that a historical person was actually raised from the dead and appeared to his followers in space and time, which is the subject of this study.

Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Belief Systems

Concerning historical persons for whom a resurrection is claimed, several cases will be mentioned briefly followed by a critique. Rabbi Judah I was a major Jewish wise man, teacher, and scholar who was instrumental in completing the compilation of the Mishnah about AD 200. The Gemara texts report concerning Rabbi Judah is that after his death in 220, “he used to come home again at twilight every Sabbath Eve.” On one particular occasion, a neighbor came to the rabbi’s door but was denied entrance by his maid. When the incident was made known to Rabbi Judah, he refrained from coming back to his home so as not to upstage other righteous persons who did not return to their houses after death.

Kabir, a forerunner to the Sikh religious movement, was a religious teacher of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who endeavored to combine specific facets of both the Hindu and Muslim religions. After his death, usually placed at 1518, many sources indicated that Kabir’s followers argued over the question of whether his body should be cremated in accordance with Hindu customs or buried as preferred by Muslims. A later text reports that, in order to end the controversy, Kabir himself is said to have appeared to his followers and directed them to peel back the cloth that had been placed over his body. When this request was performed, living flowers were found underneath the material instead of Kabir’s body, which was gone. The Hindus burned half of these flowers while the Muslims buried the other half. Virtually the same story was also told of another Sikh teacher and arguably the religion’s founder, Nanak, who died in 1539.

Seventeenth-century Jewish teacher Sabbatai Zevi was one of the most prominent individuals who proclaimed that he was the Messiah, a teaching that was further agreed to by Nathan, a contemporary Jewish prophetic figure who served as Sabbatai’s key follower. After Sabbatai’s death in 1676, it was reported that his brother Elijah went to his tomb and discovered that a dragon was guarding the entrance. Being allowed to enter, Elijah did not discover Sabbatai’s body but saw that the cave was full of light. Strangely enough though, it was also reported that Sabbatai did not actually die but only appeared to do so, which became a prominent teaching that gained wide acceptance among his followers. In fact, Nathan also agreed that Sabbatai had not died and stated that he would soon reveal that this was the case.

Nineteenth-century Hindu guru Lahiri Mahasaya died in 1895 and was cremated. After reportedly stating to his followers that he would rise again, it was claimed that he had appeared to three of them individually. These meetings were reportedly rather brief and happened in three different cities at approximately the same time, during which it was also commented that Mahasaya’s body appeared to be transfigured.

Last, another Hindu guru, Sri Yukteswar, died and was buried in 1936. A chief disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda, explains that one week after seeing a vision of the Hindu avatar Krishna and more than three months after his master’s death, he received a flesh-and-blood appearance of the dead Yukteswar while he was meditating. He said that he touched his teacher’s body and also enjoyed a two-hour conversation with him, chiefly concerning the nature of the afterlife. Yogananda also commented that on another occasion that happened approximately three months earlier, an elderly woman also reported seeing Yukteswar after his death.

When examples of apotheosis and resurrection such as these are reported in a straight­forward manner apart from any critical investigation (as is often done today), some might presume that claims of postmortem phenomena are common, and some might even conclude that such occurrences happen quite regularly. Some researchers, like Robert Price, encourage skepticism in regard to all such claims in light of the various parallels between them. Others, such as Yogananda, conclude that there have been numerous spiritual masters throughout the world religions who have been raised from the dead. Intriguingly, Yogananda illustrates this comment by referring to the resurrection of Jesus! Are any of these positions warranted by the data that we possess?

Concerning the non-Christian resurrection claims, critical investigation reveals numerous problems, with the most significant issue by far being the state of the historical evidence in each of these examples. Regarding the date of Rabbi Judah’s postresurrection appearance testimony, while the rabbi died in AD 220, the gemara in which the incident is actually recorded is dated from about the fifth century. This is a major time gap of a couple of hundred years in the testimony. Additionally, the text lists the maid as the only witness to the phenomena, and there is no attempt to provide any evidence. This late date of the material plus the lack of evidence does not completely disprove the story, but it shows that it would be virtually impossible even to begin to demonstrate it as historical.

In the case of Kabir, scholars have noted often that the overwhelming problem is the absence of any early or historical documentation, as the late stories that do exist indicate a proliferation of unevidenced data. In fact, only a few facts about Kabir’s life are known with assurance. No primary, evidentially relevant records are available for examination, and none of these document a postmortem appearance. Some of Kabir’s likely preserved writings consisted of hymns and poetry, comparable to the Old Testament book of Psalms. Kabir “taught through his poems.”

Several important studies indicate that legend crept up in the aftermath of Kabir’s life, especially at each of the points involving supernatural claims like a miraculous birth, miracles performed during his life, and the account of his appearing to his disciples after death. In fact, the earliest source regarding Kabir’s death does not relate the postmortem appearance mentioned above at all. Rather this key source along with others explains the incident of Kabir’s deceased body being covered with flowers, but a later check did not reveal the body—much like some of the apotheosis stories of disappearance related above. Intriguingly, given the story that Kabir’s body had disappeared, more than one place of death is listed in the literature, plus two different tombs are also reported. Mohan Singh argues that “in the Indian setting” this was a “very normal process by which a creature of legend is made.”

Additionally, virtually the exact same story as the earliest source told about Kabir and the flowers was also related as occurring to Nanak, the founder of what later would be Sikhism. Like the earliest Kabir material, while Nanak was apparently close to death and was still speaking to his followers, he was not yet deceased. Nor was Kabir. The followers of both of these teachers thought that these men were taken to heaven. Therefore, attempting to reconstruct the events surrounding both Kabir and Nanak’s deaths beyond some of the very earliest details is seemingly impossible given the dearth of historical materials. But to repeat, no postmortem appearances are mentioned for either individual in the earliest sources.

Moreover, beyond the obvious historical concerns here, several other criticisms chiefly in the form of alternative formulations of the data could be leveled at the cases of either Kabir or Nanak, as will be indicated below with another such account. For just one example, what other options are available regarding the disappearances of the bodies? Unfortunately, these questions need not even be asked and cannot be investigated due to the same problems with the available data. But the demonstrated presence of legend, especially in the crucial portions of the reports, along with the absence of any early, verifiable historical documentation are decisive enough in this investigation since they effectively block research into these later resurrection claims.

The critiques here of Rabbi Judah, Kabir, and Nanak indicate that miracles, postmortem appearances, apotheosis, and other legendary events are claimed but are hardly comparable to Jesus. Rather, the central concern is that there are no reliable historical data from early, eyewitness sources against which later claims can be critically weighed, compared, and ascertained. So the crucial point is not that resurrection appearances may be claimed, which is hardly an anomaly. What is important is the lack of verification for these claims. Thus, in the absence of this crucial documentation, such negative conclusions are necessary.

A major character in such discussions is that of Sabbatai Zevi. However, like that of Apollonius of Tyana, numerous very serious historical problems exist for anyone who would argue for a resurrection or even for other supernatural elements in his life. Here are some of the more damaging issues:

All told, the story of Sabbatai Zevi is lengthy and quite detailed, involving many strange and almost unparalleled twists and turns. Few well-known religious figures probably had as many strange and even contradictory items reported of them.

Regarding the claims that Hindu leaders Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar appeared to their followers after their deaths, similar types of critical questioning such as those already proposed must still be applied. Even though it was said that Mahasaya appeared to three individual people, and it is claimed that Yukteswar appeared to two people, one of whom touched him, numerous queries must still be made.

For example, all five reported appearances were to single individuals while they were alone. Especially in light of this fact, along with the possibility that most of these persons were grieving, hallucination is certainly very possible (if not likely). Or what about other subjective hypotheses such as autosuggestion, especially with persons who so readily accepted belief in such phenomena? Or could parapsychological phenomena such as occultic activity be factored in here, which is certainly a possibility if not actually hinted at by those involved in some of these cases?

Embellished accounts that grow over time are a known reality in religious literature, as pointed out earlier in this essay, and the above accounts certainly do not erase that possibility. The practice of Eastern meditation also needs to be mentioned as a possible contributory factor, at least in the example here where Yogananda claims to have seen and touched his former guru Yukteswar while meditating. Making this experience even more likely is Yogananda’s comment that he saw Yukteswar “one week after the vision of Krishna,” whom he saw poised above the roof of a nearby building as Krishna “waved to me, smiling and nodding in greeting.” This last element alone seems to affect the credibility of the testimony given in the ensuing appearance comment. And we must not rule out even the possibility of plain misreporting of various types in some such accounts. Price cites a report of blatant examples in the Muslim tradition. It must be remembered that no single alternative hypothesis need necessarily account for all reported appearances. Different (or even combined) natural theories potentially could be the answer.

Here again, as we have done throughout, we must also note that it is not enough simply to report a miracle. Such a case must be substantiated in detail, especially if it is to serve as a basis for one’s personal beliefs. The burden of proof would seem to be on the shoulders of those who claim that a resurrection has occurred. A miracle claim would appear to require strong attestation since such events are not the normal fare. But the necessary evidence has not been provided in any of the non-Christian cases before us. Simply to claim or even to report a resurrection is obviously not the same as substantiating it.

Conclusion

It is exceptionally intriguing to note how often some skeptical scholars who are other­wise very critical in their approach to Christian claims are not at all critical, or at least much less so, when they address non-Christian claims of apotheosis and resurrection. For example, while discussing Jesus’s resurrection, the well-known skeptical New Testament scholar John A. T. Robinson tells the story of a possible case of Buddhist apotheosis. In 1953 a saintly man died and was wrapped in a blanket and kept briefly in a locked room inside a home. When the locals went to retrieve the body, it was not there. The local villagers concluded that the man was “absorbed and transmuted” and thus taken into the afterlife. As far as the matter is explained, no one investigated or raised any countertheories such as swoon, a stolen body, legend, and so on. Nor did Robinson respond in such a critical manner in his own presentation of the story. The incident was simply reported in a straightforward manner.

In another instance, prominent process philosopher Charles Hartshorne discussed the resurrection of Jesus in response to a debate between Antony Flew and me. He mentions that “all the religions tell of miracles.” Then after mentioning a couple of such occurrences attributed to Buddha, Hartshorne remarks, “I do not feel that I can choose among such accounts.” He adds, “I can neither explain away the evidences to which Habermas appeals, nor can I simply agree with Flew’s or Hume’s positions.” But just for starters, according to critical scholars, Buddha’s miracles were described hundreds of years after his death, while Jesus’s resurrection was reported immediately, as seen throughout this study! How are they to be compared in terms of the research? But as noted, here is another example where the Christian claims are subjected to the strictest critique while the Buddhist teachings are left alone!

But just because miracle reports may very well abound in the various religions, there is no reason to think that they therefore must remain on the same epistemic footing. Again, one issue raised repeatedly in this study concerns that of critical interaction with miracle reports. Are all miracle claims in the world’s religions to be accepted, rejected, or placed on hold en masse simply because even a wide variety of these reports may exist, as Hartshorne seems to favor? Once again, where is the critical study of these matters?

As already asserted in this chapter, one must be critical of both Price’s skepticism concerning all potentially supernatural accounts as well as Yogananda’s seeming ready acceptance of many or perhaps even most of them. The chief problem with both of these and similar approaches is precisely that the conclusions are too frequently held far too easily apart from critical, mostly historical, analyses of the data. More specifically, Price, Yogananda, Robinson, and Hartshorne have all declined to apply rigorous critiques to non-Christian claims, perhaps for more than one reason. Further, all but Yogananda seem more than willing to apply much skepticism in the other direction toward Christianity, including very specific criticisms. Dare we raise the question here that perhaps there is a very strong desire to keep all religions on basically the same footing regardless of their potential evidential considerations? Further, is there a strong bias that has perhaps only grown stronger in the years since these four scholars wrote that, whatever Christianity has to offer, it cannot be allowed to be placed above other religious systems, even if the evidential considerations outweigh the other traditions?

Whatever the reasons for this general one-way view among many skeptical researchers, it must be recognized that such non-Christian claims have not fared well in terms of historical investigation. This lack of evidence among the non-Christian beliefs does not necessarily disprove these beliefs. But it certainly seems to suggest at least that they have not been established (or known) by historical methodology.

What if more evidence is discovered or produced on behalf of some of these non-Christian claims in the future, or if entirely new cases are utilized? What if early evidence for one or more non-Christian reports appears? Initially, such suppositions are somewhat arbitrary in that one could almost always postulate the possibility of future evidence for just about any proposition. Further, while such new data might help to eliminate major naturalistic alternative views here and there, they could fail to rule out other elements or strengthen possible hypotheses or even create new criticisms. The cases from long periods of time in the past potentially could be more difficult as far as gathering data. But to be sure, all viable naturalistic theories need to be addressed, whether Christian or not, even if simply a host of data would be required to change some of these evaluations. Still, having commented along these lines, all grounded challenges need to be considered.

As a final, brief word on these two chapters regarding both mythical and historical persons as well as apotheosis and resurrection claims in non-Christian religions that involve living persons of the past, such events have not been demonstrated by the evidence. Frankly, it is not even close. By far the largest challenge in these other examples is the lack of early plus well-evidenced, authoritative data. Each case misses by a large margin the strength of the data that favors the resurrection of Jesus.

Any of several naturalistic hypotheses may certainly be applicable to some of the examples that were investigated in the previous two chapters, and seemingly none were without serious rejoinders. Again, this is largely because there is insufficient data with which to counteract these alternative suppositions, unlike the excellent evidence for Jesus’s resurrection. In some cases, one or more alternative counterhypotheses may specifically be postulated as a probable cause. In short, simply to report a miracle claim is not sufficient to establish it. This is especially the case if that miracle claim has to bear the additional burden afterward as the key support for a religious system of belief.

To answer a question posed at the outset of this chapter in light of the ensuing research here, claims such as the ones examined in the previous two chapters are quite insufficient in showing that the evidence favors any specific accounts of apotheosis, resurrection, or other similar phenomena in non-Christian stories. Further, this lack of data concerning these non-Christian claims themselves leaves any ensuing theological beliefs that depend on the supernatural cases in particular as likewise being unsubstantiated teachings.

In a day of “live and let live,” especially in religious matters, this may appear to some as a harsh epitaph regarding other belief systems. But without being pejorative, the data either make the case or they do not. In court cases or certain other adjudications, sometimes preciseness in the preponderance of evidence is absolutely crucial, even if some cases just do not succeed. In the examples viewed here, if the same amount of intense scrutiny is applied to the non-Christian accounts as have been applied in this study to Jesus’s resurrection, it is simply the case that needs to be recognized: the comparisons do not exonerate even one or two of the other stories. But if Jesus’s message to follow him is also true, even eternal life may stand in the balances this time.

Notes

Much of the negative response to Wilhelm Bousset’s work in recent decades, noted in the preceding chapter, was in reaction to his views on the ancient dying-and-rising gods in relation to the historicity of Jesus’s life. Of the many places where Bousset’s strong influence on Rudolf Bultmann can be seen, one the clearest is reported by Bultmann himself in his “Introductory Word to the Fifth Edition” of Bousset’s work Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970). Here, Bultmann praises Bousset’s volume by recounting that when he used to recommend works to his students, the primary place “above all belonged to Wilhelm Bousset’s Kyrios Christos” (7). Later, Bultmann realized that Bousset’s volume exhibited some shortcomings, especially regarding the explication of Paul’s theology (9). But just reading a variety of Bultmann’s writings, chiefly his early, formative texts, will indicate some major inclinations toward Bousset’s conclusions. Intriguingly and somewhat coincidentally, the more recent scholarly reaction contrary to Bultmann’s own thought had to do with both his work on Paul as well as his own views on the historicity of Jesus. Especially on the latter topic, see E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 26–36 for example.

One intriguing comparison is that Bultmann repeatedly acknowledged fully the existence of early creedal teachings in the New Testament, including their probably being pre-Pauline and present in the very earliest church, with at least some of these traditions perhaps even originating in Jerusalem, and yet claimed that they were somehow derived from Hellenistic sources. See Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols., trans. Kendrick Grobel (New York: Scribner’s, 1955), 1:46, 82–83, 86, 125–26, 293–96. Today it would no doubt be asked by many scholars how these ideas could have replaced Jewish thought in their own backyard almost immediately after the birth of the church, not to mention several other concerns.

One example of such negative responses to both of the two major questions considered here plus the recognition that the religionsgeschichtliche Schule has failed is argued strongly by atheist New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman in his work Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 207–18, 221–30.

See “Legend,” in Irving Hexham, Concise Dictionary of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 135.

Part of the discussion at various points in this and the prior chapter also involves another species of both myth or legend, namely stories that more simply grow over time in the process of retelling. In more than one location in this study, such as the individual Gospel treatments, this matter is also evaluated in relation to the possible growth in the resurrection narratives from the earliest to the latest of the canonical Gospels.

Portions of this present section are a much enlarged and updated treatment taken from Gary R. Habermas, “Did Jesus Perform Miracles?,” in Jesus Under Fire, ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 119–21.

This chapter does not consider the fantastic feats often attributed to Jesus in the apocryphal Gospels, especially because the sources are not contemporary with the canonical texts, besides often not consisting of true parallels to Jesus’s miracles. Rather, these writings are usually of a different genre and quality than that of the canonical Gospels, have an extremely low likelihood of having utilized early testimony and sources, and teach philosophical ideas that are opposed to the overall Gospel ethos. Taken as a whole, the apocryphal Gospels exhibit a decided lack of historical attestation for the claims they recount, even while appearing to speak in a historical manner. These texts will also be treated elsewhere in this study.

Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic, 7th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 92.

Josephus, Ant. 14.2.1; quotations from Josephus: Complete Works, trans. William Whiston (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1960).

Mishnah Ta‘anit 3:8. This text is also found in C. K. Barrett, ed., The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), 150–51. Barrett explained that this action may have been connected to magic.

Babylonian Talmud, Berakot 34b. See Israel W. Slotki, ed., The Babylonian Talmud, trans. S. Daiches (London: Soncino, 1936); cf. Jarl Fossum, “Understanding Jesus’ Miracles,” Bible Review 10 (1994): 18 for this plus another example as well.

Jewish historian Geza Vermes is a major example of the many scholars for whom a chief theme is to describe Jesus as a popular Jewish rabbi, holy man, and magnetic personality from Galilee who was particularly well-known for his miracles and exorcisms. For example, Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 1–2, 27–28, 57.

Regarding Jesus, see John 1:38, 49; 3:2; 6:25; for John the Baptist see John 3:26.

Such as Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27; Deut 18:10–12; Acts 16:16–18; 19:18–19; Rev 21:8.

Marcus J. Borg, Jesus, a New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (New York: HarperCollins, 1987), esp. 61–65, with the quotation on 63.

Paul L. Maier, ed. and trans., Josephus: The Essential Works (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1994), 12; also, Barrett, New Testament Background, 190.

For details, see Barrett, 141, 143, 145, 190.

Barrett, 145.

See Mark 2:1–12; 3:22; Luke 13:10–17; John 11:47. Borg agrees with this specific point here, in addition to acknowledging three strong reasons to admit that Jesus was both a healer as well as an exorcist (Jesus, a New Vision, 61).

Besides the above accounts by Josephus and the Talmud, see the both early and powerful Q passage in Matt 12:27–28; Luke 11:19–20. Homer Kent remarks regarding Jesus’s own comment to the Jewish leaders, “If, however, Jesus implies that at least some of the Pharisaic exorcisms were genuine, then it must be assumed that the power came from God (otherwise Christ’s argument is greatly weakened).” See Homer A. Kent Jr., “The Gospel according to Matthew” in The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, ed. Charles F. Pfeiffer and Everett F. Harrison (Nashville: Southwestern, 1962), 950.

Josephus, Ant. 14.2.1. See Barrett, New Testament Background, 150–51 for both the original text and for further comments.

See Edwin M. Yamauchi’s impressive and well-documented chapter “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms,” in The Miracles of Jesus, ed. David Wenham and Craig Blomberg, vol. 6 of Gospel Perspectives (Sheffield; JSOT, 1986), 89–183. Barrett, 31–35, includes an instance of an ancient incantation from the Paris Magical Papyrus.

Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?,” 89–91, 97.

Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 66.

Smith, 46, 64–67.

Smith, 47–48, 50–53.

For a detailed examination of some versions of what I refer to as the “Jesus as international traveler” hypothesis, see Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 89–98.

For other germane issues, see the lengthy and well-reasoned treatment in the remainder of Yamauchi’s well-documented essay above.

In the excellent chapter by Barry L. Blackburn, “Miracle Working ΘΕΙΟΙ ΑΝ∆PΕΣ in Hellenism (and Hellenistic Judaism),” in Wenham and Blomberg, Miracles of Jesus, the author begins by citing major defenders of the divine man thesis, but the three sources listed date from 1934, 1935–1936, and 1964 (see 206). In a major work resulting from his doctoral research at Cambridge University, Carl R. Holladay explains both the scholarly popularity as well as the opposition of other major critical scholars in the 1970s. See Holladay, Theios Aner in Hellenistic Judaism: A Critique of the Use of this Category in New Testament Christology (Missoula, MT: Scholar’s Press, 1977), 1–5, 44.

Blackburn, “Miracle Working,” 185–218. Blackburn includes a very helpful chart that lists pre- and post-Christian representatives, with the former being subdivided into seers, healers, and other miracle workers (187).

Holladay, Theios Aner, 44.

Holladay, 12–13.

Holladay, 235–38, with the latter quotations above being located on 238.

His life is detailed in a major biography, written in the first half of the third century AD by Flavius Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, trans. F. C. Conybeare, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1912).

Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.20. Actually, demonic exorcisms were quite rare among the Hellenistic divine men. This case is one of the only such reports.

See Graham H. Twelftree, “ΕΙ ΔΕ . . . ΕΓΩ . . . ΕΚΒΑΛΛΩ ΤΑ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ! . . . [Luke 11:19],” in Wenham and Blomberg, Miracles of Jesus, 381–84.

See Luke 5:4–10; John 1:47–49; 2:24–25; 4:17–19; 6:64; 11:11–15; 18:4.

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 288. Even though Robert M. Price also considers the Gospels to be quite problematic, he considers Philostratus’s work on Apollonius of Tyana to be fictional; see Price, Deconstructing Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2000), 38, 221.

Howard Clark Kee, Miracle in the Early Christian World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 256; John Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), 182; Charles Bigg, The Origins of Christianity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1910), 306.

Details are found in Kee, 253; J. Bidez, “Literature and Philosophy in the Eastern Half of the Empire,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, ed. S. A. Cook et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 12:611.

Ferguson, Religions of the Roman Empire, 51; cf. Bidez, “Literature and Philosophy,” 613.

For these problems, see F. C. Conybeare’s introduction to Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 1:7–10.

Blackburn, “Miracle Working,” 190.

As discussed and evaluated in the previous chapter with regard to our former subject of the dying-and-rising god scenarios in the ancient Mediterranean world, the classic expression of a positive connection between the divine men and Jesus is Wilhelm Bousset’s Kyrios Christos. A slightly earlier forerunner, also from the history of religions school of thought (religionsgeschichtliche Schule) is Otto Pfleiderer’s The Early Christian Conception of Christ (London: Williams & Norgate, 1905), which also addresses parallels to Jesus’s miracles in chap. 3. One of the best-known twentieth-­century supporters of this school of interpretation is Rudolf Bultmann, in Theology of the New Testament, 1:128–33. For an evaluation and critique of some of these and related positions, see Reginald H. Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology (New York: Scribner’s, 1965), 68–72, 86–101; and especially Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. Shirley C. Guthrie and Charles A. M. Hall, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 195–99, 239–45, 270–72.

Blackburn, “Miracle Working,” 187–92, 205; cf. Fuller, Foundations of New Testament Christology, 97.

Agreeing on both aspects, Bultmann similarly points out that “the New Testament miracle stories are extremely reserved” in not attributing magical aspects to the miracle accounts, as do many of the Hellenistic stories. Intriguingly, one of Bultmann’s two cases in our earlier examples is where Eleazar used a root to cast out a demon, though this was seemingly treated as a “Hellenistic” instance. Bultmann’s second Hellenistic case is that of a healer who employed a chip from a virgin’s gravestone to heal a person of a snake bite. See Rudolf Bultmann, “The Study of the Synoptic Gospels,” in Form Criticism: Two Essays on New Testament Research, trans. Frederick C. Grant (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 38.

Blackburn, “Miracle Working,” 169–99; Fuller, Foundations of New Testament Christology, 70–72, 97–98; Cullmann, Christology of the New Testament, 199–217, 241–45, 272–75. This distinction was also observed in the previous chapter concerning the tales of the dying-and-rising gods.

Fuller, Foundations of New Testament Christology, 98. On a related topic, Fuller judges that the gnostic redeemer myth “is not directly attested in pre-Christian sources” (93). Later he adds, “Only in second-century ‘Christian’ Gnosticism does the incarnate redeemer figure finally penetrate the gnostic tradition” (97). These are devastating comments directed at the inability of the divine man scenario to make its case.

Fuller, 93 and 97, respectively, cf. also 98.

Fuller, 68–72.

Blackburn, “Miracle Working,” 199–202, quotation on 199.

Holladay, Theios Aner, 237.

Fuller, Foundations of New Testament Christology, 90, cf. also 142–43. On the atonement as the very early theological side of Jesus’s death by crucifixion, see Martin Hengel, The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 31–32, 65–75. For more on the uniqueness of Jesus’s resurrection, see 34–39; see also Norman Anderson, Christianity and World Religions: The Challenge of Pluralism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984), 48–81.

Mark S. Smith, “The Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Biblical World: An Update, with Special Reference to Baal in the Baal Cycle,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 12 (1998): 312–13.

I. Howard Marshall, The Origins of New Testament Christology, rev. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990), 128, see also 112–23, 126–29. On the deity of Jesus Christ vis-à-vis the Hellenistic options, see Cullmann, Christology of the New Testament, 203–37, 270, 275–90, cf. 150–64; Martin Hengel, The Son of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976); Blackburn, “Miracle Working,” 189, for the comment that the author knows of no example where a pagan miracle worker was called the Son of God, or where his divinity was argued from his miracles. Fuller, Foundations of New Testament Christology, 69–72, adds that the title “Son of God” is never used in Hellenistic Judaism for the divine man concept but has its chief roots in the Old Testament.

As noted above, the overall failure of this general thesis contributed mightily to the downfall of Bousset’s influential ideas at the close of the German liberal theological era as well as the crumbling of Bultmann’s vast influence, including similar ideas that were carried on by Bultmann’s school of interpretation; see Fuller, particularly 69, 93–98.

Blackburn, “Miracle Working,” 198–99, 205–6. The quoted words are from 205.

An instance that was explained variously in the sources as either a resurrection, apotheosis, or murder is the case of Romulus, who was said to have been taken to heaven and glorified, later appearing to Julius Proculus (Ovid, Metam. 14.805–851; Fast. 2.481–509). However, other conflicting accounts concerning Romulus were related by Livy, who reported that Romulus either disappeared in a storm and was later declared to be a god, or that he was actually killed by senators. See Livy, The Early History of Rome, Books 1–5, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960), 1.16. As with the problems pointed out below regarding more clearly historical persons, both Ovid and Livy wrote approximately 700 years after Romulus was supposed to have lived. This exceptionally large time gap exempts these treatments as historical records, in addition to other questions pertaining to the likelihood that Romulus even existed at all, or that he did exist but where the reports were accompanied by much nonhistorical or mythical story­telling. Hercules (also spelled Heracles), a mythological hero, is said to have burned to death on a funeral pyre, afterward being taken to heaven and glorified by Jupiter. See Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch’s Mythology (New York: Dell, 1959), 122–23. But W. H. D. Rouse reports the conflicting tale that Heracles was performing a sacrifice for personal safety, and he put on an enchanted robe that began to burn him. He was then laid on a couch but died a short time later, after which his soul went to heaven; see Rouse, Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece (New York: New American Library, 1957), 70. The story is told of Aristaeus, who reportedly entered a fuller’s shop where he died. When his relatives arrived, he could not be found anywhere, so it was assumed that he had been taken to heaven. It was also said that Aristaeus reappeared seven years later, disappeared, and reappeared yet again, a full 340 years later (Origen, Cels. 3.26). Origen critiques this account of Aristaeus by providing numerous criticisms (3.27–29). Last, Asclepios was a physician who was able to heal people through administering medicines and ointments. He was killed by a thunderbolt sent by Jupiter/Zeus after using a herb to raise a man from the dead. But Jupiter/Zeus revived Asclepios and placed him either among the stars, so that “we may think that the kind, good Asclepios is not quite dead and finished” (Rouse, 87–88). Or Aesclepios may have been “received” among the gods (Bulfinch, 106). For evaluations of the so-called mythical dying-and-rising gods, see the detailed discussion provided in the previous chapter. The sections on apotheosis and non-Christian resurrection claims in this chapter is a much larger, more detailed, and updated treatment taken from Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Religious Studies 25 (1989): 168–70.

Quotations in this chapter taken from Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves (London: Penguin, 1957).

Cassius Dio, Hist. Rom. 69.11.2. This account is also reproduced in David R. Cartlidge and David L. Dungan, Documents for the Study of the Gospels (Cleveland: Collins, 1980), 199.

Cartlidge and Dungan, Documents for the Study of the Gospels, 198.

These five emperors were Julius Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, Vespasian, and Titus.

As will be mentioned directly below, it is not so much the astonishing nature of these claims as it is the questions as to whether there is any sort of confirmation for the assertions. See Robert Graves’s foreword to Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 7.

For Livy in his History of Rome, many examples are found throughout. Even in just the first third of the first book alone, we find emphases on subjects like stories of the gods (1.3–4; 6–7, 9–10, 12, 16), the occurrence of miracles (1.16), the role of fate (1.3), portents, prophecies, and signs (1.6–7), a possible case of apotheosis (1.16), immortality (1.7, 16), and other incredible stories, like the temporary nursing of baby twins by a wolf (1.4). This is not to say that Livy was as gullible as others around him, for he does recognize, for example, the presence of fable (1.4, 6) and no doubt questioned many of these tales himself. But that it was the general ethos of his times can hardly be questioned. Likewise, Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars similarly reports stories of the gods or the supernatural (Jul. 47; Nero 56–57), the potential virginal conception of Augustus (Aug. 94), Augustus seeing Julius Caesar’s ghost (Aug. 96), the importance of omens (Aug. 81, 92; Vesp. 5), portents and prophecies (Jul. 88; Aug. 96; Vesp. 5, 7, 23–25; Cal. 57–58; Claud. 46; Nero 56; Dom. 23), and apotheosis (Jul. 88).

As at other places in this study, the imagined catcalls here from skeptics are quite loud. “What hypocrisy! How in the world can someone complain about blatant, stupid, and even weird paranormal phenomena from other ancient authors when the Bible includes worse things? But most of all, you question paranormal items elsewhere and all the time evaluating whether Jesus is the Son of God who returned bodily from the dead? And it all must be taken by faith! Just what is the problem here?” Initially and very briefly, a few items ought to be mentioned. We have discussed in several places in this study how the New Testament is incredibly reserved when addressing the presence of the supernatural, unlike the cases of Livy and Suetonius directly above, particularly when it is remembered that all of the examples from Livy were drawn from just the early pages of the first book alone of the dozens of his books that have survived. This point is often conceded, even by rather radical skeptical scholars, as we have seen. For one example from earlier in this chapter, no less a skeptic than Rudolf Bultmann asserted that “the New Testament miracle stories are extremely reserved” in not attributing magical or other similar aspects to the miracle accounts, unlike those observed in many of the Hellenistic stories. See Bultmann, “Study of the Synoptic Gospels,” 38. Further, no serious evidence exists for the large number of Greco-Roman tales, certainly nothing that is enough to substantiate them. On the other hand, the entire initial volume in this study is devoted to the excellent evidence on behalf of Jesus’s resurrection, which it is fair to say is head and shoulders above any other miraculous claim at the center of a religion, especially from ancient times. Former eminent atheist philosopher and later deist Antony Flew is an example of an unbeliever who has conceded much of this material. Flew readily admitted that “the evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It’s outstandingly different in quality and quantity.” See Flew in Gary R. Habermas, “My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism: A Discussion between Antony Flew and Gary R. Habermas,” Philosophia Christi 6 (2004): 197–211, esp. 209–11. Readers are of course able to make up their own minds regarding the historicity of this event, but we have seen enough even to this point to indicate that the New Testament is clearly not just a matter of stories for gullible persons generated by silly and poor thinking.

Granted, the point will be made by some that these sorts of comments concerning comets, stars, disappearances, and the like should be responded to more gracefully, in the spirit of the times in which they were made. To a certain extent this is certainly true, but sometimes they are made by scholars who do believe them, like Pliny, Suetonius, Josephus, Tacitus, and Plutarch, among others. So the reports may be offered as true either by the authors themselves or on behalf of others of their day. Regardless, it must be noted that this is not evidence.

See b. Ketubbot 103a in Slotki, Babylonian Talmud.

Cf. James Hastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1955), s.v. “Kabir, Kabirpanthis” (7:632–34).

W. Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi, The Sikhs: Their Religion, Beliefs, and Practices (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 16. Both cases are documented in detail below.

Especially authoritative is Gershom Scholem’s massive work, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 917–29.

Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1956), 348–50.

Yogananda, 413–33.

Robert M. Price, “Is There a Place for Historical Criticism?,” Religious Studies 27 (1991): esp. 373–88.

Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, 313, cf. 349.

Personal conversation with Asher Finkel, Seton Hall University, May 24, 1988; cf. Hexham, “Talmud,” in Concise Dictionary of Religion, 93.

For instance, see David Lorenzen, Kabir Legends and Ananta-Das’s Kabir Parachai (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1991), 3–8, 18. Lorenzen explains, “Two texts compete for the honor of being the oldest to contain a coherent set of legends about Kabir,” but research indicates that one, almost assuredly, dates about 100 to more likely 200 years after Kabir in the eighteenth century (9). Another quite negative appraisal of the data is found in Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, s.v. “Nānak,” 9:181–84, particularly 181–82.

While some of Kabir’s words were apparently written down decades after his death, these were devotional in nature, consisting chiefly of hymns and poetry. Further, scholars are uncertain exactly which of these writings are actually his and which are from others, especially since the poems and verses were frequently mixed with those of other authors. See Hilda Wierum Boulter, “Sikhism,” in Religion in the Twentieth Century, ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948), 195. Much more crucially for our purposes, these earlier writings do not include historical data regarding anything happening after Kabir’s death, as related above. Similar details often can be found, for example, in W. H. McCleod, Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 50–51; John Clark Archer, The Sikhs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946), 50, 52–55; S. A. Nigosian, World Religions: A Historical Approach, 3rd ed. (Boston: St. Martin’s, 2000), 46, 345–50.

Lorenzen, Kabir Legends, 42.

Mohan Singh, Kabir and the Bhakti Movement, 3 vols. (Lahore: Ram and Sons, 1934), with the points arranged by Archer, who summarizes Singh’s demarcation of the steps by which legend may have appeared in the life and teachings concerning Kabir, as Archer poses the question of Singh’s success (Sikhs, 63–65).

Lorenzen, Kabir Legends, 125–28 for the text of the earliest Kabir account; regarding the same story being found in Nanak, cf. Nigosian, World Religions, 346; Boulter, “Sikhism,” 201; Max Arthur MacAuliffe, The Sikh Religion, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1901), 1:189–91; Dorothy Field, The Religion of the Sikhs (London: Murray, 1914), 16; Charles Potter, “Nanak,” in The Great Religious Leaders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958), 313.

Cole and Sambhi, Sikhs, 16; John Clark Archer, Faiths Men Live By (New York: Ronald, 1958), 339; Robert Hume, The World’s Living Religions (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1959), 94–95.

Harbans Singh, Guru Nanek and the Origins of the Sikh Faith (Mumbai Asia Publishing House, 1969), 193–98; Lorenzen, Kabir Legends, 9, 125–28. Personal correspondence with Jasvir Basi, whose book of interaction, Sikhism: Cross-Examined, is forthcoming.

Some scholars may no doubt be critical that the entire point of this critique has been missed in these cases by being too intent on looking for historical data in what are no doubt simple texts that are plainly not of that more rigorous nature. In other words, this criticism would be that these texts cannot be studied by the application of more demanding standards of historicity to texts that are meant to be taken as stories and poetry to inspire, not to be investigated historically. However, while this is probably indeed the case here, this just seems to be a very similar way to make the original points in the evaluation. If these sources are not to be taken as historical, then that seems precisely another way to say that the incidents in question cannot be confirmed by normal research procedures.

Stephen Sharot, Messianism, Mysticism and Magic: A Sociological Analysis of Jewish Religious Movements (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 87–88, 90.

Sharot, 88.

Sharot, 88.

Sharot, 87–88.

Sharot, 91; Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1974), 90.

For Sharot’s report of these events, see Messianism, Mysticism and Magic, 115–17.

Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, 920, 922–24; Sharot, Messianism, Mysticism and Magic, 122.

Scholem, Sabbati Sevi, 919–20.

Sharot, Messianism, Mysticism and Magic, 925.

Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, 313, 349.

For instance, one former Indian guru attests, “My world was filled with spirits and gods and occult powers, and my obligation from childhood was to give each its due.” See Rabindranath R. Maharaj with Dave Hunt, Escape into the Light (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1984), 24. This volume was formerly published under the title Death of a Guru (Philadelphia: Holman, 1977).

Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, 413.

It would seem that the simply incredible nature of the claim to have seen Krishna apparently suspended above a nearby building would bother many researchers. But beyond even this statement, and in an effort to remain open to various possibilities without rejecting religious claims in an a priori manner, how could Yogananda recognize and identify Krishna in the first place, even if he had seen him? A problem here would definitely also have a bearing on the next instance with Yukteswar. In other words, if Yogananda presumably cannot positively identify Krishna for sure from perhaps millennia beforehand before any photos, what can be said about the next appearance claim, which was also quite subjective? In fact, many researchers might retort that Yogananda has hereby seriously compromised his testimony as a reporter, at least in any evidential sense.

Price, “Historical Criticism,” 378–379.

Of course, we have already raised and addressed in much detail the same sorts of issues in this study with regard to the resurrection of Jesus.

Generally speaking, it is usually the case that persons require more evidence to believe an extraordinary event than to accept a regular occurrence. But it is not the case, whether or not this is taken to be David Hume’s position in his famous essay on miracles, that virtually no evidence (or none at all, as in certain recent statements and debates) can ever establish a miracle. Strong evidence is needed, but it must remain a condition that can at least potentially be met. Hume’s position is found in his essay “Of Miracles,” in his volume An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.

John A. T. Robinson, The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), 138–39.

Charles Hartshorne, response to the debate between Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, in Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 137.

Hartshorne response to Habermas and Flew, 142.

For some initial comparisons by a Buddhist scholar between the sources for Buddha and those for Jesus and his followers, admitting that the later are far stronger, see Edward Conze, ed. and trans., Buddhist Scriptures (London: Penguin, 1959), 11–12, 34, cf. 62–64. See also Paul Gwynne, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad: A Comparative Study (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 1–19, 127–31, 242–44.

Again, see Anderson’s treatment in comparing several major religious claims from both the past and present across a number of key features in Christianity and World Religions, 48–81.

Perhaps strangely enough, one potential exception must be mentioned on behalf of Price’s research. Even though he is very critical of Christian claims, he still concludes his earlier discussion of the resurrection of Jesus with the exceptionally intriguing but largely unexplained comment: “One need not assume that there was no resurrection. Indeed it was precisely because of experiences of some kind (such as those intriguingly listed but not described by Paul in I Corinthians 15) that anyone cared to glorify Jesus.” See Price, “Historical Criticism,” 383.

Further thoughts on these concluding matters can be found in Habermas, “Resurrection Claims,” 176–77.

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