Jesus and the Amazing Loaves and Fishes Trick

[SallyF]

Religions can be full of charlatanry. It's perfectly reasonable to check that any claim made by a faith community is not a trap for the suggestible.

The Jesus and the amazing loaves and fishes trick looks like charltanry to me. How may we verify the truth of the claim? Are we gullible to accept this trick on faith?

[Jagella]

The Jesus and the amazing loaves and fishes trick looks like charltanry to me. How may we verify the truth of the claim? Are we gullible to accept this trick on faith?

We cannot verify the claim that Jesus magically multiplied loaves and fish, and it's obviously gullible to believe he did.

What's odd about these fish stories aside from the obvious is that the apostles are not said to have noticed the miracles until the scraps were gathered after the picnickers had gone home. How did they miss the loaves and fish appearing out of nowhere?

The best answer to this question is that these accounts are fictional, and we are given no idea how the apostles missed the multiplication because the story-tellers did a poor job of making up a plausible plot.

[marco]

Religions can be full of charlatanry. It's perfectly reasonable to check that any claim made by a faith community is not a trap for the suggestible.

The Jesus and the amazing loaves and fishes trick looks like charltanry to me. How may we verify the truth of the claim? Are we gullible to accept this trick on faith?

If loaves and fishes multiplied in the sight of people, then their astonishment would be adequately recorded. "Fish after fish multiplied as we watched, some falling from the table, but we didn't pick them up for we were too astonished. Meanwhile the bread grew and grew, some parts exploding. It was warm and tasted delicious."

OR


"Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. "

We are told nothing of the actual event, but we know the EXACT details of the aftermath - twelve baskets of crumbs. The word "fabrication" isn't needed.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

Religions can be full of charlatanry. It's perfectly reasonable to check that any claim made by a faith community is not a trap for the suggestible.

The Jesus and the amazing loaves and fishes trick looks like charltanry to me. How may we verify the truth of the claim? Are we gullible to accept this trick on faith?

If loaves and fishes multiplied in the sight of people, then their astonishment would be adequately recorded. "Fish after fish multiplied as we watched, some falling from the table, but we didn't pick them up for we were too astonished. Meanwhile the bread grew and grew, some parts exploding. It was warm and tasted delicious."

OR


"Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. "

We are told nothing of the actual event, but we know the EXACT details of the aftermath - twelve baskets of crumbs. The word "fabrication" isn't needed.

Twelve baskets? They started with five loaves and two fish. That is likely to be one of two baskets. Where did the other baskets come from? One might imagine an actual event involving sharing of food among the multitude, many of whom might have brought food. And the event getting changed into a miracle. Mark, who tells this story first, sometimes incorporates what seem to be authentic sounding events. Just maybe...

Or maybe it was just all made up, perhaps to contrast with Herod's feast immediately before this and giving an opportunity of portraying Jesus as 'shepherd'.

[marco]

Twelve baskets? They started with five loaves and two fish. That is likely to be one of two baskets. Where did the other baskets come from?

Matthew advises: " be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Perhaps he meant we should anticipate replies to our objections.

Of course if bread can multiply, so can baskets. I'm afraid that's the ground we occupy. But casting miracles aside, we can account for the "twelve baskets" as being one by saying that people went round with a single basket and collected bread, returned it, emptied the basket and set off again. They did this twelve times, giving twelve baskets.


I think that the apostolic clientele would not have accepted a Jesus less than a miracle worker. In lieu of the genuine article, we have fiction writers who could walk on water, cure lepers, make the blind to see and the deaf to hear or, at a street corner, expel demons by the dozen. No wonder Pilate asked where truth had got to.

[Imprecise Interrupt]

Twelve baskets? They started with five loaves and two fish. That is likely to be one of two baskets. Where did the other baskets come from?

Matthew advises: " be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Perhaps he meant we should anticipate replies to our objections.

Of course if bread can multiply, so can baskets. I'm afraid that's the ground we occupy. But casting miracles aside, we can account for the "twelve baskets" as being one by saying that people went round with a single basket and collected bread, returned it, emptied the basket and set off again. They did this twelve times, giving twelve baskets.


I think that the apostolic clientele would not have accepted a Jesus less than a miracle worker. In lieu of the genuine article, we have fiction writers who could walk on water, cure lepers, make the blind to see and the deaf to hear or, at a street corner, expel demons by the dozen. No wonder Pilate asked where truth had got to.

Paul makes no mention of Jesus performing miracles although that would have enhanced his case of Jesus as the Son of God. Most of the miracle stories in the Gospels are either rather vague, or rather strange (*) or have a clear purpose in the agenda of the author.

* Jesus needs spit to make a blind man see - and it doesn't work right the first time? Jesus walks on water to cross the sea without any original intention other than getting to the other side? The 2000 pigs story sounds suspiciously like a revenge fantasy against the hated Tenth Legion for the siege of Gamala.

[marco]

Paul makes no mention of Jesus performing miracles although that would have enhanced his case of Jesus as the Son of God. Most of the miracle stories in the Gospels are either rather vague, or rather strange (*) or have a clear purpose in the agenda of the author.

* Jesus needs spit to make a blind man see - and it doesn't work right the first time? Jesus walks on water to cross the sea without any original intention other than getting to the other side? The 2000 pigs story sounds suspiciously like a revenge fantasy against the hated Tenth Legion for the siege of Gamala.

Paul is rather coy about his own encounter with heaven. The spit is a poor man's compromise: abracadabra would not be appropriate. The owner of the pigs - was he Jewish? - would have sued for compensation, I think.

The question is - were the miracles simply invented, which of course is possible or did they have some bearing in fact? I like to imagine some clever group working behind the scenes, planting a blind man here and a deaf man there. And the resurrection itself was the icing on the cake. We shall hear in heaven, as Beethoven said.

[bjs]

Paul makes no mention of Jesus performing miracles although that would have enhanced his case of Jesus as the Son of God.

Paul made a rather big deal about Jesus physical resurrection from the dead in First Corinthians, which seems like the most important miracle.

However, on the whole Paul was writing to Christians. He was not attempting to make a case that Jesus is the Son of God. His audience already believed that. He was explaining doctrine and applying it to daily living, not trying prove that the doctrine is accurate.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by SallyF]

I'm a little confused how a 1st c. peasant could devise in the wilderness the Copperfield maneuver required here: did he carry thousands of fish and bread in a hidden caravan?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 7 by marco]

The question is - were the miracles simply invented, which of course is possible or did they have some bearing in fact? I like to imagine some clever group working behind the scenes, planting a blind man here and a deaf man there. And the resurrection itself was the icing on the cake. We shall hear in heaven, as Beethoven said.

A rather non-historical and smug theory, no? What a person "likes" to imagine is irrelevant to serious inquiry. What passes historical methodology is all that matters. Does your "imagination" have scope, power, plausibility, without the burden of ad hoc assumptions? Where these are lacking, smugness is unearned.