For my write-up today on Miracle in the Early Christian World, I'll quote what Howard Clark Kee says in a footnote on page 193:
"The
most recently published romance, which is partially preserved in a
papyrus copy (P. Colon inv. 3328), is edited by Albert Henrichs (Die Phoinikika des Lollianos, Fragmente eines neues griechischen Romans,
Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1972). Heinrichs shows that the author wants to
claim that his work was written by Lollianos, a rhetorician in the reign
of Hadrian, but that the work actually dates from the last third of the
second century. Written in a 'graceless' style (p. 25), the romance
resembles the apocryphal gospels and Acts (p. 52), though its
mythological base is in the Dionysius-Zagreus cult, said to be of
Phoenician origin, and its cultic practices include child sacrifice and
anthropophagy."
The reason that this passage stood out to me is
that Christian apologists have argued that the Gospels are
historically-accurate----and that includes their miracles----because
they are written in a straightforward, low-key style, in contrast with
more extravagant works. For many of these apologists, the Gospels have a
"just the facts, maam" style because their authors are simply
communicating what happened. But, in the passage above, Kee refers to a
writing that is written in a "graceless" style, and yet it contains
mythology and also probably was not written when it says it was. I'm
not suggesting that the Gospels are mythological, but what I am
questioning is whether a low-key, "graceless" style makes a document
historically-accurate.