Reporting miracles

I'd like to spend a little more time on this example:

When people were healed, it was an undeniable, extraordinary work of the Spirit healing an individual (Acts 4:16). Something the “Amazing” Randi could not deny. Think Iraqi war veterans getting their limbs back completely whole or the late Christopher Reeves having his spinal cord injury reversed. When we MacArthurite cessationists ask for evidence of such occurrences, it is not because we deny God can heal. It is that the track record for such testimonies has been consistently tarnished with the exaggerations of eager enthusiasts or outright fabricated all together by flimflam artists. The reality is that none of those kind of miracles are happening, because if they were, everyone would certainly know about it, including the most militant critics of Christianity. 

https://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/hunting-benny-hinn/

i) For starters, Acts 4:16 refers back to this incident:

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. 3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. 4 And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

ii) I'm tempted to think Fred must be waxing hyperbolic when he says this is the kind of miracle that even Randi or the "most militant critics of Christianity" could not deny. Surely Fred isn't serious. If he is serious, then that just confirms my earlier contention that MacArthurites like Fred don't seem to have much experience with secular debunkers. 

But perhaps Fred is serious. It may well be that his cessationism commits him to position.

iii) The cardinal rule of secular debunkers (e.g. Hume, Bart Ehrman, Richard Lewontin, Richard Carrier) is that any naturalistic explanation, however implausible, is more plausible than any miraculous explanation. 

iv) It's child's play to imagine how secular debunkers would dismiss Fred's paradigm-case:

a) There's no scientific evidence that the man was really disabled, much less than he was miraculously healed. We'd need before-and-after medical records. What's more likely, that parents lie or that miracles happen?

b) Even if we had medical records,  what's more likely: that doctors lie or that miracles happen? What's more likely: that a technician mislabeled the x-rays (putting the wrong patient's name on the x-rays), or that miracles happen? 

c) This could clearly be a financial scam. He conspires with a couple of friends to fake his disability in order to collect alms, which he splits with his coconspirators. Easy money. 

d) Secular debunkers think some cures are easier to fake than others. It's a lot easier to fake the healing of someone allegedly lame from birth than to fake the regeneration of limbs. So Fred's comparison backfires.

v) What of Fred's further claim that "none of those kind of miracles are happening, because if they were, everyone would certainly know about it, including the most militant critics of Christianity"? Well, has Fred really give that much thought? What about his test-case?

a) For staters, this was a public miracle. It happened in an urban setting. It happened near a national shrine, frequented by locals and pilgrims. 

But some biblical miracles occur in more private settings, like someone's home. Take Jesus reviving the daughter of Jairus, or Elisha reviving the Shunammite's child. 

By the same token, in the past, as well as many Third-World countries, a greater percentage of people live in isolated rural areas rather than urban population centers. So you'd have fewer witnesses.

b) Even though Peter's miracle took place in a public setting, would this be widely known? This event occurred around the Temple precincts of Jerusalem in the early 30s of the 1C. You have however many spectators who happened to be there in the minute or so it happened. But who else would know about it?

Well, there's word-of-mouth. Not doubt the eyewitnesses told their friends and relatives. But Fred is very dismissive of second-hand testimony. As he said recently:

I too have read many accounts of modern miracles. I find them to be mostly hearsay and apocryphal.  

http://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/why-wont-faith-healers-heal-amputees/

But beyond the circle of the actual eyewitnesses, how else would others learn about it except by "hearsay"?

c) Even if the miracle became well-known in Jerusalem, was it well-known in the Roman Empire? 

d) We know about this particular miracle because Luke recorded it, and Christian scribes copied and recopied the NT down through the ages. But what about a miracle that doesn't enjoy that kind of official patronage? 

Suppose miracles like that happen every so often in the course of church history. Surely some or most of those would occur among illiterate spectators. 

Of the faction that occur among literate spectators, what fraction of a fraction would be written down (e.g. diaries, private letters)?

Of the fraction that are written down, what fraction of a fraction of written reports would survive the ravages of time? 

Of the fraction that survive, what fraction of a fraction are published and/or translated?