I don't say they should be Pagans. But I say they shouldn't ignore it. Like some Protestants will pretend Matthew 6:7 condemns repetitive prayers, because they imagine a typical Greco-Roman prayer was a Hindu mantra. (Or because they mistranslate battalogein). They weren't. The stuttering image (of battalogein) comes from the nervousness of someone negotiating from an inferior position. Here are a few other issues:
'Conservative' Bible methods... are a fraud.
C. J. Cornthwaite | 18 March 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7uMnYmZaTE
As you can note from his title, C. J. Cornthwaite comes from a uselessly hostile pov. But below are my answers to his points:
4:25 Number 44 is not miraculous, it's improved digestive health due to life style changes.*
We don't know if the changes kept up past the inscription or the improvement did.
As to "the god told me" we don't know if it refers to the priest of Aesculapius saying things or if it refers to an inner voice or a dream vision. In the latter cases, there may be some supernatural involved, demons would not be able to instantly cure what's an organic fault, but they would be able and sometimes allowed to tell people what would improve their health.
All the other ones are pre-Christian.
Now, why is this significant?
Because they were Gentiles and the time for their conversion hadn't come yet. God wrought some miracles for people invoking other gods than Him. And when it comes to Aesculapius, he may have been a saint, sth not unlike the metuentes (a theory I also hold about Hippolytus, son of Theseus). So, God could have healed people due to his intercession.
The most famous of the disciples of the family Apollo, Aesculapius, Salus and Panaceia was obviously St. Luke.
4:41 In fact we do.**
There is a work about Doomsday that says that that day of wrath will dissolve the centuries into ashes "on the witness of David and the Sibyl" ...
Dies irae, dies illa
solvet secla in favilla
teste David cum Sibilla.
4:49 The oracle of Delphi, given the stories of Croesus, Oedipous, Orestes, was expert at destroying people's lives with self fulfilling prophecies.
The oracle of Delphi therefore is a prime indictment in favour of "all the gods of the gentiles are demons" (which apparently isn't quite what the Hebrew says, but still true enough).
4:55 Oh, by the way, the one who made good decisions after hearing the oracle of Delphi, a certain Socrates, did so as setting out to disprove that oracle.
8:11 I would not place Pauline authorship in the category of things where reasonable people would reasonably differ (except Hebrews, where one ancient voice says it's St. Barnabas).***
8:41 I sense it you have a bias against actual believers actually doing scholarship to defend the faith?
9:41 I don't respect someone who claims the pastorals are inauthentic because that° would make the early decades of the Church too hierarchical for Protestant tastes against Catholic hierarchy or anti-Christian counter-apologetic tastes against an early Church having an organised way of transmitting information, as opposed to the telephone game.
* Priests of Asclepius, Epidaurus Cure Inscriptions (IG+IV²,1+121)
https://topostext.org/work/648
** By "conservative Bible scholars" I obviously mean Roman Catholics. Most Protestants passing as such even believe Marcan priority (ugh!)
*** Matthean priority is also beyond reasonable dispute between the faithful. It's common ground between Papias, Clemens of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo.
° That = the genuinity disputed.
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