Extremely. We have several contemporary Romans who basically recorded everything weird that came down the pike, so we have oodles of stories of "miracles" from this era -- but the only place the miracles of Jesus are mentioned is in Scripture. A dispassionate scholar would take such a lack of corroborating evidence as a strong indication the Scriptural miracle stories were made up from whole cloth by some long-forgotten author.
And you expect us to believe that this is where the present day items we see at the checkout counters at the grocery originated??
"Elvis lives with Aliens" indeed!
Sorry, missed this post in the midst of talking with others--narby, accygirl, reignoferror, Hank Kerchief and the now-departed donh, for whose demise from FR I am being excoriated on Darwin Central. Try reading more of that thread, particularly posts 173, 175, 178, 179, 184, 241. Donh kept posting to me after my complaint, and (it appeared) reached an agreement of some kind, as he asked what he *should* do when atheism was conflated with Nazi-ism. I thought removal of the offending post, or a warning, was all that was necessary, not a banning. Which is why my complaint said "Do we have to put up with this crap on Christmas Eve?" in post 105. I even included and italicized the offending remark explicitly, and made my complaint public instead of behind his back.
I read the site and disagree; although I can't at the moment recall the quote I'd like to use in response, I think it was from J.R.R. Tolkien.
The point being your source seems to dismiss all miracles as fabrications, mistakes, the willing self-deception of the gullible, and as typical of "the times".
From that mindset it is understandable that one would seek for any further anomaly to undermine or discredit much of the New Testament writings.
I am able to form and entertain the mental construct, but I deny its *universal* applicability, not being a materialist; and having other reservations which would probably be misunderstood at this point.
But it is interesting which you are committing a parallel of the logical fallacy attributed to creationists -- "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
The relevant considerations are whether you would consider single-source knowledge *alone* to be disposative, absent the subject matter of miraculous or divine intrusion in to history, or whether it is the conjunction of those two circumstances which presses your buttons.
The answer to your question, actually, in a roundabout way, is "Flying Spaghetti Monster."
And finally, my question about "how many people would have dismissed the events" referred to contemporaries of the disciples--e.g. Festus saying to Paul, "Your great learning is driving you mad" and the like.
Cheers!