“And fearing lest relief from anxiety on the score of foreign perils might lead men who had hitherto been held back by fear of their enemies and by military discipline into extravagance and idleness, he (Numa) thought the very first thing to do, as being the most efficacious with a populace which was ignorant and, in those early days, uncivilized, was to imbue them with the fear of Heaven. As he could not instil this into their hearts without inventing some marvellous story, he PRETENDED to have nocturnal meetings with the goddess Egeria, and that hers was the advice which guided him in the establishment of rites most approved by the gods, and in the appointment of special priests for the service of each.” (Livy 1 19).”

Plutarch also suggests that Numa played on superstition to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure, in order to cultivate more gentle behaviors among the warlike early Romans, such as honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, and living proper, respectable lives (see Plutarch, “The Parallel Lives, Numa Pompilius, §VIII”).

We also see the elites viewing religion as useful with Ptolemy I. Serapis (Σέραπις, Attic/Ionian Greek) or Sarapis (Σάραπις, Doric Greek), was cleverly instituted as a Graeco-Egyptian god. The Cult of Serapis was strategically introduced during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm.

So, the success of Christianity need not be deemed impossible.The elites of the Roman empire may have simply phased in Christianity after seeing how devout the Christians remained under persecution, and thought this would be an excellent attitude/crutch for the masses to have. In fact, Paul may have converted when he made a similar realization when he was persecuting Christians.

Yeah, I guess I’ll have to do that.

Just use a different example. Like the Matthew-Daniel empty tomb emulation.

Haha okay. I’ll sure will buy the Historicity of Jesus when it comes out! I’m just debating semi-publicly (in Facebook) a Christian right now and I used that particular miracle story as an example of an emulated story, and now he demands more evidence about it. I don’t want to push you, but could it be possible to get an email from you about the particular miracle. Otherwise I’ll have to weasel out from my own argument. I’m getting desperate :D.

Anything I said would just evoke more questions until I just ended up saying what’s in the book. Which would defeat the purpose of writing books in the first place. So wait for the book. Then we can continue a conversation from there.

Sooo… Could you tell some more about the miracle story and unusual things in it, or do I have to wait until Feb? 🙂

Yes. A lot. I cite the scholarship (well beyond Helms) and discuss the salient details on the miraculous feeding tales in my next book. Currently projected for release this February.

Yes I have read it. Daniel’s story is interesting and worth mentioning in the future. But what I meant was that what kind of unusual features you mean that are in the story of Feeding the multitutes. I have read Randel Helms’ Gospel Fiction, where he mentions the miracle in p. 75, but I was curious if you have some more knowledge about the particular miracle story.

If you read p. 196, you must be able to keep reading to p. 204, which section (pp. 192-204) answers your question.

“There are unusual and peculiar features in these tales that would not be expected to obtain, unless they were being borrowed from previous stories. That’s what flags these stories as fabricated.”

You wrote at Proving History, that “if we allow any comparison to any text, odds are we’ll always find some similarities simply by chance – this simply won’t be unlikely at all” (p. 196).

So what kind of peculiar and unusual features are you talking about and why are they so unsual that it would not be accident that they were there?