Non-Christian Miracle Accounts In A Christian Worldview

Chris Price recently wrote an article on Luke's census. In the comments section, an anonymous poster responded with some claims about the alleged gullibility of ancient people and supposed parallels between ancient non-Christian miracle accounts and the miracle accounts of the New Testament.

There are too many bad arguments in his posts to address all of them here. He's far too vague. If two documents make miracle claims, and we're to compare the two, we have to make distinctions like the ones Chris Price refers to. How early are the sources who report the miracle? In what genre did they write? What reasons did they have to lie or to tell the truth? How did other sources respond to the miracle claim? Etc. The anonymous poster is far too vague in the comparisons he makes between non-Christian and Christian sources. Christians have explained in depth why their miracle reports, like the early Christians' claims surrounding Jesus' resurrection, are credible. And they give higher priority to miracles that are better evidenced. Paralleling other Christian miracle accounts with pagan accounts, without addressing issues like the ones mentioned above, is insufficient. What knowledgeable Christian argues for Christianity primarily on the basis of something like Jesus' healing of a blind man in John 9? Different miracle claims have different degrees of evidence. Knowledgeable Christians will proportion their arguments accordingly. And even the miracles with less evidence are better attested than the anonymous poster suggests.

Regarding the alleged gullibility of ancient people, see here. It was common for ancient sources to express skepticism of miracle accounts, such as stories about the gods. For example, both Celsus, a second-century critic of Christianity, and Origen, a third-century Christian critic of Celsus, referred to the tendency of pagans to disbelieve the accounts that circulated among them. They would often allegorize the accounts, unlike the early Christians, who interpreted documents like the gospels in a highly historical manner. Origen repeatedly contrasts the evidence for Christian claims with the lack of such evidence for pagan accounts. See, for examples of the above, Origen's Against Celsus 2:55, 8:3, 8:45. Ancient writers often attempted to debunk miracle accounts (Richard Bauckham, Jesus And The Eyewitnesses [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006], p. 134). The gospels themselves refer to early naturalistic theories proposed by both the early Christians and their enemies (a gardener moved Jesus' body, Jesus' disciples stole the body, etc.).

It's not as though an enemy of Christianity like Saul of Tarsus would want to accept Christian miracle claims just because he supposedly was gullible about the supernatural. One supernaturalist will oppose the claims of another. Christians oppose Muslims, Jews oppose Christians, etc. Belief in one miracle doesn't necessarily imply a likelihood that another miracle account will be believed.

Some ancient people were gullible. But the gullibility of some in general doesn't establish the gullibility of the Christian sources in particular. And even gullible people can be credible. A court witness can be credible in reporting a murder he saw even if he carries a good luck charm in his pocket, reads his horoscope in the newspaper every day, or believes in UFOs. Some people are less gullible than others, and an individual can be gullible to differing degrees in different circumstances. The anonymous poster's vague references to general gullibility among ancient people are insufficient to dismiss the Christian miracle accounts in particular.

A Christian worldview allows for the acceptance of non-Christian accounts of the supernatural (demon possession, near-death experiences, etc.). Christianity doesn't require that only Christian miracle claims be true. The Bible refers to the healing of Naaman, who had participated in pagan religion and intended to keep doing so even after being healed (2 Kings 5:18). See, also, John 11:49-52, 2 Thessalonians 2:9, Revelation 13:13-14, etc. If Josephus, Tacitus, or some other historical source gives us a credible non-Christian miracle account, there are multiple plausible ways to reconcile a non-Christian miracle with a Christian worldview. We don't begin with the assumption that all miracle claims, or non-Christian miracle claims in particular, must be false.

And it's not as though a miracle associated with Vespasian, for example, would be comparable to the far larger quantity and quality of miracles associated with Jesus. If a Jewish man living 50 years before Jesus' birth claims to receive a miraculous answer to prayer, a naturalist may want to dismiss the claim, but a Christian has no need to dismiss it. And if a Hindu claims to heal a man, a Christian may want to disprove that claim, but he still has reason to maintain his faith in Christ if the healing is authentic. If God is the most powerful being in the universe, then we should look for the miracle worker who carries the biggest stick. A miraculous answer to the prayer of a pre-Christian Jew or a healing associated with Vespasian wouldn't put that Jew or Vespasian in the same category as Jesus. If Christianity has a nuclear arsenal, it doesn't accomplish much to argue that another religion, like Islam, or an individual, like Vespasian, has a few swords and a couple of bows and arrows.

But do the non-Christian miracle accounts in question even amount to that much? For an example of how to compare Christian and non-Christian miracle accounts, see the articles on the alleged miracles of Vespasian here and here. Concerning Apollonius of Tyana, see here and here. On alleged pagan parallels in general, see the relevant material in Steve Hays' e-book on the resurrection, This Joyful Eastertide, and here. The anonymous poster in Chris Price's thread doesn't discuss some other parallels that are often cited by skeptics, such as Sabbati Sevi and Marian apparitions. On those, see here, here, and here.

I suspect that these parallels drawn between Christian and non-Christian sources are often an unintended compliment to Christianity. The critics who draw these parallels don't know how to argue against the Christian accounts on their own merits, since those accounts hold up well by normal historical standards, so they try to dismiss the accounts by comparing them to other accounts that they assume would be rejected by Christians. Often, an inability to dismiss the Christian sources by normal historical standards is what's motivating the shift to a focus on parallels in non-Christian sources.