[ndsipa_pomu]

It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.

I can imagine Judas hearing someone recounting a miracle and he'd be shaking his head and thinking "I was there, that's not what happened at all".

[veddox]

> It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.

I don't think that does justice to the historical weight of the New Testament accounts. We have multiple eye witness accounts of the events surrounding Jesus' life, recorded within a few decades of the events themselves and emerging from an oral tradition that placed a premium on verifiable accuracy. The early Church writings we have (for example Eusebius) make it clear how concerned the first Christians were to ensure the historical reliability of their teaching, and how strongly they opposed the spreading of stories that were of doubtful veracity. In fact, the New Testament itself repeatedly tells its original readers to verify its accounts by asking other eye witnesses (e.g. Luke 1, 1 Corinthians 15).

[ndsipa_pomu]

You may be right as I'm not any kind of bible scholar. However, there does seem to be significant discrepancies between the different New Testament gospels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_reliability_of_the_...

e.g. Did Jesus exorcise demons?

[explaininjs]

Of course He did, it's recorded in 3 of the 4 gospels the He exorcised demons quite frequently, and He even empowered others to exorcise demons. Indeed people exorcise demons in His name to this day. Just because the gospel of John doesn't mention Him exorcising demons doesn't mean there's any sort of discrepancy - he simply didn't feel a need to include it because he was more focused on the nature of Jesus than His specific actions.

As far as I am aware there are no contradictions on the Bible. People often point to the sorts of cases claiming a contradiction, when really it is two authors describing different aspects of a thing that are all simultaneously true.

More apropos would be the accounting of Judas's death: Matthew describes him as hanging himself, whereas Acts says he burst open in a field. However this isn't a contradiction either: it may simply be the case that he hung himself in a field, then over time grew bloated and burst open.

[simion314]

So what is your point? Judas story might be real but the miracles were not real, and Jesus was a regular man?

I honestly don't care if 1% or 5% of the text is real anyway.

[ndsipa_pomu]

My point is that out of all the inconsistencies and bizarreness of various bits of the bible, I find the Judas story itself to be plausible and I don't have a problem with it. I don't think the miracles happened as described and most likely have mundane explanations for them (c.f. magic tricks where many audience members can believe in disappearing elephants), but it's likely that Jesus did exist as there's good evidence that he existed as a historical figure (e.g. evidence of his brother's grave).

[hibernator149]

I think that was the point of the person you're replying to. Either Jesus performed actual miracles, but then the Judas story doesn't make sense; or Jesus was an ordinary mortal, but then Christianity doesn't make sense.

I have heard a story that Judas didn't actually betray Jesus willingly. It had to happen this way and Judas just played his role. Makes the story more tragic and less black and white.

[veddox]

> Either Jesus performed actual miracles, but then the Judas story doesn't make sense; or Jesus was an ordinary mortal, but then Christianity doesn't make sense.

The assumption here is that people will unconditionally believe and follow a person who performs miracles. But human beliefs and actions are more complex than that. People regularly refuse the evidence of their own senses, or that of knowledgeable authorities, if it contradicts their prior world view. They also regularly act contrary to better knowledge if they think it's in their interest.

So I think it's perfectly plausible that Judas experienced all of Jesus' miracles, but out of a mix of personal disappointment (Jesus not living up to Judas' expectations) and greed decided to betray him nevertheless.

[ndsipa_pomu]

If the Jesus miracles happened as described, then it's possible that Judas may have considered Jesus to be unkillable (who can kill a god?) and thus would accept the silver as he could then laugh at the romans' attempts to kill the unkillable - that would certainly explain his regret when Jesus does die for a while. Alternatively, maybe Judas was told to play along with his betrayer role by Jesus as it was part of the divine plan.

There's too many alternative explanations to say that either the miracles were false xor the Judas story was false - I don't see that they're necessarily connected.