Can you please provide evidence for these Biblical events?

[Compassionist]

Can you please provide evidence for the following Biblical events?

1. Creation Miracles (Genesis 1–3)

Creation of the universe: God creates light, sky, land, seas, plants, stars, animals, and humans in six days.
Creation of angels: Implied in passages like Job 38:4–7; often considered an early act before physical creation.
Creation of Adam and Eve: God forms Adam from dust and breathes life into him; Eve is made from Adam’s rib.
Creation of other organisms: All species of plants and animals are said to have been created by divine command.
The Garden of Eden: A paradise created for Adam and Eve.
The Fall: The serpent speaks; Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit and are evicted from Eden; curses are pronounced.

2. Early Genesis Miracles

The mark and protection of Cain (Genesis 4:15).
The longevity of pre-Flood humans (many living 900+ years).
Noah’s Flood (Genesis 6–9): God floods the entire world, saving only Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark.
The rainbow covenant: God sets a rainbow as a sign of the promise never again to flood the earth.
Confusion of languages at Babel (Genesis 11): Humanity’s speech is divided, and people scatter across the world.

3. Miracles in the Patriarchal Era (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph)

Call of Abram: God speaks directly to Abram (Genesis 12).
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: Fire and brimstone from heaven (Genesis 19).
Lot’s wife turned to salt (Genesis 19:26).
Birth of Isaac to elderly Sarah (Genesis 21).
God’s testing of Abraham: A ram provided in place of Isaac (Genesis 22).
Jacob’s ladder dream and wrestling with God (Genesis 28; Genesis 32).
Joseph’s prophetic dreams and interpretations (Genesis 37–41).

4. Miracles of Moses and the Exodus

The burning bush (Exodus 3).
Staff turned into a serpent (Exodus 4).
The Ten Plagues on Egypt (Exodus 7–12):

1. Water to blood
2. Frogs
3. Gnats or lice
4. Flies
5. Livestock disease
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
10. Death of the firstborn
The Passover protection (Israelites spared).
Parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14).
Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, guiding Israel.
Manna and quail were provided in the wilderness.
Water from the rock (Exodus 17).
Mount Sinai theophany: God’s voice, thunder, lightning, and tablets of stone.
Bronze serpent healing (Numbers 21).
Aaron’s rod budding (Numbers 17).
Moses’ radiant face after speaking with God (Exodus 34).

5. Miracles in the Time of Joshua, Judges, and Kings

Jordan River stops flowing so Israel can cross (Joshua 3).
Walls of Jericho fall (Joshua 6).
The sun stands still (Joshua 10).
Gideon’s fleece tests (Judges 6).
Samson’s strength feats (Judges 14–16).
Fire consumes Elijah’s offering on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18).
Elijah raises the widow’s son (1 Kings 17).
Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2).
Elisha parts the Jordan, purifies water, multiplies oil, raises the Shunammite’s son, feeds 100 men with loaves, heals Naaman’s leprosy, and makes an iron axe-head float (2 Kings 2–6).
The shadow on the sundial goes backwards for King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20).
Angelic destruction of the Assyrian army (2 Kings 19).
Daniel’s survival in the lions’ den (Daniel 6).
Three men survive the fiery furnace (Daniel 3).
Handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5).

6. Miracles in the Intertestamental and New Testament Era

Zechariah was struck mute until John the Baptist’s birth (Luke 1).
Virgin (immaculate) conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1; Luke 1).
Star of Bethlehem guiding the Magi (Matthew 2).
Angelic announcements to Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.
John the Baptist’s prophetic calling before birth.

7. Miracles Performed by Jesus

Turning water into wine (John 2).
Healing the sick, blind, deaf, and lame (many Gospels).
Cleansing lepers (Matthew 8).
Casting out demons (Mark 5, etc.).
Feeding 5,000 (Matthew 14) and feeding 4,000 (Matthew 15).
Walking on water (Matthew 14).
Calming the storm (Mark 4).
Raising Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5).
Healing the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8).
Healing the bleeding woman (Mark 5).
Restoring sight to Bartimaeus (Mark 10).
Raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11).
The Transfiguration (Matthew 17).
Paying temple tax with a coin in a fish’s mouth (Matthew 17).
Cursing the barren fig tree (Mark 11).
The resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20).
Post-resurrection appearances (Luke 24; John 21).
Ascension into heaven (Acts 1).

8. Miracles in the Acts of the Apostles

Tongues of fire and the gift of languages at Pentecost (Acts 2).
Peter and John heal a lame man (Acts 3).
Peter raises Tabitha (Dorcas) from the dead (Acts 9).
Paul blinds and heals various people (Acts 13–28).
Earthquake freeing Paul and Silas from prison (Acts 16).
Paul survives a viper bite (Acts 28).
Philip’s teleportation (Acts 8).
Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for lying (Acts 5).

9. Apocalyptic and Prophetic Miracles

Visions of Heaven and angels (Revelation 4–5).
Trumpet and bowl judgments: cosmic catastrophes, locusts, plagues, blood rivers, darkness.
Two witnesses calling down fire (Revelation 11).
The New Jerusalem descending from heaven (Revelation 21).
Creation of a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21–22).
God dwelling with humanity eternally - the final miracle of restoration.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #140]

On epistemic constraint and culpability

You say I am “asserting without support” that people fail to believe or act through no fault of their own. That is false.

The support is not theological, but empirical and causal:

• belief formation is causally dependent on upbringing, culture, coercion, threat, trauma, information access, and identity costs
• these variables are not chosen by agents
• belief-outcomes track these variables robustly across populations

This is not speculation — it is well-documented in psychology, sociology, anthropology, and cognitive science.

So when I say that many people fail to believe or act otherwise “through no fault of their own,” I am not making a theological claim. I am making a causal claim.

If you deny that belief is causally constrained in this way, then you are rejecting the empirical study of belief formation altogether — not rebutting me.

And this point is not “irrelevant” to divine communication. If God chooses a method that predictably interacts with these constraints in asymmetric ways, then the misalignment between belief and culpability is a direct consequence of that method.

That is the point.

On “uniform experience,” science, and alleged begging of naturalism

You ask whether my phrase:

“what has occurred repeatedly, reliably, and without exception under observation”

only includes scientific observation.

The answer is: it includes all reliable observation, but science is the only institution that systematically tracks, tests, corrects, and records such regularities.

This is not “begging naturalism.”
It is acknowledging how humans actually distinguish:

• regular vs irregular
• error vs reliability
• illusion vs pattern

There is no rival epistemic practice that has produced a body of cross-culturally convergent, error-corrected regularities about the world. None.

Appealing to “uniform experience” is not a worldview commitment. It is an inductive summary of observed reality.

Calling that “naturalism” does not refute it.

On higher evidential standards and alleged special pleading

You accuse me of special pleading because I say that claims which overturn uniform experience and license supernatural causes require stronger evidential grounding.

But this is not special pleading — it is risk management under underdetermination.

If two hypotheses explain the same data, and one:

• preserves background regularities
• introduces no unconstrained causal agent

while the other:

• suspends known regularities
• introduces discretionary divine action

then the second hypothesis is less constrained and therefore more easily fitted to the data.

That asymmetry is methodological, not ideological.

I would apply the same standard to:
• alien interventions
• time travelers
• simulation architects
• unknown advanced technologies

This is not “because it’s supernatural.”
It is because it weakens constraint and increases explanatory flexibility.

That is the opposite of good discrimination.

On historical method and “facts in isolation”

You claim that historical facts must be evaluated entirely independently of downstream implications.

That is simply false.

Historians routinely adjust evidential standards when:
• a claim anchors a large explanatory structure
• later claims depend critically on it
• the claim plays a linchpin role

This is not bias — it is epistemic responsibility.

If a fact is going to carry extraordinary inferential weight, it must be established with correspondingly strong confidence.

Otherwise weak links propagate error downstream.

That is not fallacious.
That is how rational inquiry avoids cascade failure.

On Paul, silence, and tomb burial

You are right about one thing:

Paul’s creed is short and schematic.

But that does not help your case.

Because:

• Paul does not mention a tomb
• Paul does not mention Joseph of Arimathea
• Paul does not mention women discovering a grave
• Paul does not distinguish burial types

Appealing to “cultural implication” does not add evidential weight — it adds interpretive padding.

Silence is not refutation.
But silence also does not establish specificity.

You are trying to extract a concrete historical detail from a text whose genre and purpose explicitly do not supply such details.

That is overreach.

On multiple attestation and source independence

You assert that “all scholars” treat John and the Synoptics as independent traditions.

That is not accurate in the way you are using it.

Yes, John is literarily independent.
No, that does not mean it is historically independent in the way required to multiply evidential weight.

All Gospel traditions:

• arise within the same religious movement
• are shaped by shared theological commitments
• are written decades after the events
• are not independent eyewitness reports

Multiple attestation within a single tradition family increases confidence only modestly — not decisively — especially when the tradition itself has strong theological incentives.

That is standard historical caution, not dismissal.

On “reasonableness” and where we actually diverge

You say that if I do not accept tomb burial as “more reasonable,” then I am free to leave.

But notice what you have done:

You have shifted from:
“Is tomb burial established with sufficient confidence?”

to:
“Is tomb burial more reasonable than no tomb burial?”

Those are not the same question.

I have never claimed tomb burial is impossible.
I have claimed it is not established with the level of confidence required to serve as a secure foundation for miracle claims.

That is a proportionality judgment, not obstinacy.

Closing clarification

This disagreement is not about hostility, bad faith, or unwillingness to engage.

It is about this fundamental methodological divide:

You are willing to:
• treat internally coherent tradition as sufficiently constraining
• allow supernatural agency without independent calibration
• evaluate facts in isolation from inferential load

I am not.

That does not make either of us irrational.
But it does mean the disagreement is methodological, not evidential.

And once that is clear, pretending the dispute turns on a single historical detail no longer makes sense.

If you want to continue, the only productive next step is not “Step 3.”

It is to answer this directly:

What independent constraints — not internal to the Christian narrative — prevent the resurrection hypothesis from absorbing alternative explanations equally well?

That is the real crux.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #141]

Compassionist,

I won’t rehash the conversations we’ve had (here and in other threads) on your first points as to why I think they are flawed.

You claim that historical facts must be evaluated entirely independently of downstream implications.

That is simply false.

No, good historians don’t change how they feel about a fact if they think it will lead to a belief they don’t want to hold. That’s simply bad philosophy. I agree that weak links will propagate error, but I don’t think Jesus being buried in a tomb is weak at all.

Please show scholarly quotes that good historians take all Christian sources as one source, because that is against everything I’ve ever seen in the scholarship.

You have shifted from:
“Is tomb burial established with sufficient confidence?”

to:
“Is tomb burial more reasonable than no tomb burial?”

Those are not the same question.

I never held the first as anything distinct from the second. I’ve stated the historical question is which belief is more reasonable (i.e., we have more and sufficient confidence in): that Jesus was buried in a tomb or he wasn’t.

You are willing to:
• treat internally coherent tradition as sufficiently constraining
• allow supernatural agency without independent calibration
• evaluate facts in isolation from inferential load

I am not.

That does not make either of us irrational.
But it does mean the disagreement is methodological, not evidential.

I have not argued for Jesus’ existence or Jesus’ burial in a tomb simply on the basis of an internally coherent tradition. I have not offered supernatural agency as a reason for them. And I certainly have divorced my evaluation from other inferences I don’t want to accept.

I agree that your reasons for rejecting #2 is methodological and shared why I think your methodology is flawed.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #142]

On downstream implications and historical method

No, good historians don’t change how they feel about a fact if they think it will lead to a belief they don’t want to hold.

This mischaracterizes my claim.

I did not say historians should downgrade facts because they dislike downstream beliefs.
I said something very different:

When a fact is being used as a load-bearing premise for extraordinary downstream inferences, the evidential standard for that fact must be higher.

This is not bias.
It is standard epistemic proportionality.

Historians do this constantly:

• when a claim anchors a large explanatory structure
• when later claims critically depend on it
• when error would propagate catastrophically

This is why historians demand stronger evidence for:
• assassination conspiracies,
• forged documents,
• revolutionary causal claims,
• singular, unprecedented events.

That is not “changing how they feel.”
That is responsible inference control.

You may believe tomb burial is strong.
But denying that inferential load matters at all is simply incorrect.

On Christian sources and independence

Please show scholarly quotes that good historians take all Christian sources as one source.

This is a strawman.

I did not say scholars treat all Christian sources as one source.

I said:

Multiple attestation within a single religious movement with shared theology, narrative goals, and oral transmission does not multiply evidential force in the same way as genuinely independent sources.

This is textbook historical method.

Key points you are skipping:

• Literary independence ≠ historical independence
• Community transmission creates correlation
• Shared liturgy, creed, and proclamation shape memory
• Theological motivation increases convergence

This is why historians distinguish:
• independent attestation
from
• multiple witnesses inside the same tradition stream

John being non-Synoptic does not magically sever it from the early Christian proclamation environment.

This is not dismissing Christian sources.
It is weighting them correctly.

On “more reasonable” vs “sufficiently established”

I never held the first as anything distinct from the second.

That is precisely the problem.

They are not the same question, and treating them as identical collapses epistemic nuance.

“More reasonable than not” means:
• >50% plausibility under some comparison

“Sufficiently established” means:
• robust against alternative explanations
• stable under inferential pressure
• strong enough to anchor further claims

Many things are “more reasonable than not” but not secure foundations:
• weak eyewitness claims
• partisan reports
• single-tradition narratives
• culturally expected practices

A premise can be more reasonable than its negation and still be too weak to support extraordinary conclusions.

That distinction matters here.

On alleged misrepresentation of your position

I have not argued for Jesus’ existence or Jesus’ burial in a tomb simply on the basis of an internally coherent tradition.

I did not say “simply.”

What I said is that the constraints you rely on are:

• internal to the Christian narrative world
• reinforced by theological expectation
• weakly constrained by external calibration

That is a methodological observation, not an accusation.

You appeal to:
• embarrassment
• multiple attestation
• enemy polemic
• cultural plausibility

All of these are internal-tradition criteria.

They are not useless — but they are weaker than constraints imposed independently of the hypothesis itself.

That is the asymmetry I keep pointing to.

On supernatural agency and calibration

You say you have not invoked supernatural agency for #2.

That is correct — but it misses the point.

The issue is not whether you invoke the supernatural at step #2.

The issue is that:

Step #2 is being asked to carry evidential weight for step #3 and beyond — where supernatural agency is invoked.

Once that is the case, step #2 cannot be evaluated as an ordinary historical claim.

That is not bias.
That is structural dependency.

On “facts in isolation”

I certainly have divorced my evaluation from other inferences I don’t want to accept.

Intentions are irrelevant here.

What matters is epistemic structure.

Facts are never evaluated in complete isolation when they are being used as premises in an explanatory chain.

No historian evaluates:
• forged documents,
• disputed battles,
• assassination narratives,
• revolutionary causes

without regard to what those facts would license if accepted.

That is not prejudice.
That is how inference works.

Where the disagreement actually stands

You say the disagreement is methodological.

On that, we agree.

But the methodological difference is not arbitrary.

It is this:

You are willing to treat:
• internally reinforced tradition
• moderate plausibility
• cumulative narrative coherence

as sufficient grounding for load-bearing historical premises.

I am not.

Because once:
• causal regularities are suspended
• supernatural agency is licensed
• unique events are asserted

internal coherence is no longer enough to discriminate truth from narrative construction.

That is the crux.

Final clarification

Nothing I have said implies:

• hostility to Christianity
• refusal to engage evidence
• dismissal of historical method

What I am rejecting is the idea that:

moderately supported tradition-internal claims can serve as secure anchors for singular, causality-breaking events.

Until an explanation introduces independent constraints that genuinely risk falsification, the resurrection hypothesis remains underdetermined.

That is not dogmatism.

That is epistemic discipline.

If this discussion continues productively, it cannot be about re-arguing #2 yet again.

It must answer this:

What constraint external to Christian narrative tradition prevents the resurrection hypothesis from absorbing alternative explanations equally well?

That question remains unanswered — and it is decisive.

[SiNcE_1985]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #1]

Bro, respectfully...this is a bunch of Gish Gallop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

Responding to all of that, will create a convoluted cluster.

Perhaps focusing on one, and over the course of time create separate threads for the others.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to SiNcE_1985 in post #144]

I didn't say you have to provide evidence for all of them in one post. Please begin by giving evidence for the first one in my list. Then I will evaluate the evidence, and you can provide evidence for the second one, and I will evaluate the evidence, and so on.

[SiNcE_1985]

[Replying to SiNcE_1985 in post #144]

I didn't say you have to provide evidence for all of them in one post.

Well, when you put it all on one thread, that seems to be the expectations.

Please begin by giving evidence for the first one in my list. Then I will evaluate the evidence, and you can provide evidence for the second one, and I will evaluate the evidence, and so on.

Cool beans.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to SiNcE_1985 in post #146]

It made sense to have one Evidence thread for all the Biblical Events rather than creating many threads for them.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #143]

We obviously disagree about what next step will move this forward rationally. If step #3 only included naturalistic theories, would step #2 be able to be evaluated as an ordinary historical claim? If yes, then you are obviously favoring naturalism unfairly. If not, then could you provide historians talking about this as proper methodology?

If you cannot provide support for that methodology, then I agree we should be aiming for "sufficiently established" when looking at these facts. I think Jesus' historicity and burial in an empty tomb reach that threshold for the reasons I've offered, which also take into consideration sources outside of the Christian narrative world and aren't theologically embellished. Jesus' historicity and burial in a tomb are conceivably falsifiable, it's just there is no evidence that makes the other options more reasonable and sufficiently established alternatives. What type of evidence do you think needs to be there that is not "internal-tradition criteria"? Give actual examples because this term seems a bit vague.

You also need to provide support for your view on witnesses within the same tradition not being able to count as multiple, independent attestation. When witnesses with Christianity disagree on certain issues or events, those wouldn’t be treated as one tradition stream, but multiple, independent sources, so why would them agreeing count them as one? That would always stack the deck against any movement.

[William]

[Replying to SiNcE_1985 in post #146]

It made sense to have one Evidence thread for all the Biblical Events rather than creating many threads for them.

Since we're pooling all these events in one place, it might help to clarify what we mean by 'evidence' so we're all working from the same baseline. The basic definition is "facts or information indicating whether something is true."

With that in mind, we can establish WHICH of the biblical events on your list sit under that criteria...

Using that definition, which of these events do you think have an available body of facts or information to examine? Not asking for conclusions yet - just which ones are even in bounds for this kind of inquiry.

For example:
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah vs. the creation of Adam. Both are on the list, but the available body of facts looks very different. One leaves potential physical evidence at a site; the other is about human origins. Under the definition, are both even testable in the same way?

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #148]

Tanager, you're asking good methodological questions. Here's where I keep getting stuck, and maybe you can help:

If Jesus's resurrection is an ordinary historical claim like his burial in a tomb, then the evidence should function like other historical claims - we weigh sources, look for corroboration, and reach probabilistic judgments. But the Church has always insisted belief in the resurrection requires faith. Paul is explicit about this in 1 Corinthians 15:17—'if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.' Not your historical judgment. Your faith.

So here's the puzzle: if the evidence is sufficient to establish the resurrection as an ordinary historical fact, why is faith necessary? We don't need faith to believe Caesar crossed the Rubicon. The sources are good enough. But for the resurrection, even the Gospels show no one witnessing the event itself - only the aftermath. The earliest creed Paul passes on in 1 Corinthians 15 says Jesus 'appeared' - which is a claim about experience, not public event.

Doesn't this suggest the resurrection functions differently as a truth-claim? And if so, can it really be evaluated alongside events like the siege of Lachish using the same historical tools?