Nowhere in antiquity do we see the kind of healing miracles performed by Jesus: seemingly simple acts of compassion in response to, or received by, an act of personal faith in him (and far from seeking publicity, Jesus often told those whom He healed to “tell no one.”).
Part 15: More Evidence in Favor of the Gospel Miracle Accounts: reasons 3-6
By Robert Stackpole, STD
In this weekly web series, Dr. Robert Stackpole, emeritus director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, leads us step-by-step through the life of the Founder of Christianity, from Bethlehem to Galilee to Jerusalem. Along the way, we pause to consider in-depth the historical debate over the gospel stories of the virginal conception and nativity of Jesus, his message of the Kingdom, his embrace of persecution and death on the Cross, and his glorious bodily resurrection from the dead. Finally, we plunge into the great mystery of the Incarnation, and show how it actually shines through the whole gospel story from beginning to end. Read the series from the beginning.
As promised, we continue our list of ten solid historical reasons why Christians can believe that the miracle stories in the gospels are reliable accounts.
Reason 3
People in antiquity (especially by the first century A.D.), and especially the Jewish people, were not so possessed by “mythomania” (as Dale Allison claims) that they necessarily accepted all accounts of the miraculous uncritically, nor were they completely unaware that nature behaves according to certain obvious patterns of cause and effect; it was precisely an addition to or alteration of that normal pattern that might be ascribed to the direct intervention of a supernatural agent. In other words, they were “pre-scientific,” but not “pre-common-sense.”
For example, St. Joseph certainly knew that women normally conceived children via the natural process of sexual intercourse, and therefore finding his betrothed with child before they came together naturally plunged him into a personal crisis. The gospel writers certainly knew that people do not usually recover from leprosy simply because someone touches them and says “Be clean.” Indeed, they do not usually recover at all.
In short, the normal patterns of nature were usually ascribed by the Jews to the ordinance of God, while alterations of or additions to those patterns could be ascribed to divine or demonic intervention, depending upon the circumstances. This is hardly a fundamentally irrational attitude to take toward allegedly miraculous phenomena.
Reason 4
Miracles were not reported of most major religious figures in antiquity: for example, none by John the Baptist or Mohammed (other than the inspired writing of the Koran itself). So it was not the case that unless one could demonstrate miraculous powers over nature, no one in the ancient world would believe you were a prophet or messenger from God.
Reason 5
Accounts from pagan antiquity that parallel the gospel miracle stories generally seem to have been written after the New Testament accounts were in circulation (such as the third century “Life of Apollonius”), and thus may have deliberately copied some of the miracle stories in the gospels. This is true even of the stories of dying-and-rising gods in ancient world. Top New Testament historians tell us:
The first account of a dying and rising god that somewhat parallels the story of the resurrection of Jesus appeared at least 100 years after the reports of Jesus’ Resurrection. The earliest versions of the death and resurrection of the Greek mythological figure Adonis appeared after A.D. 150. There are no accounts of a resurrection of Attis, the Phrygian god of vegetation who was responsible for the death and rebirth of plant life, until early in the third century A.D. or later. Therefore, one cannot claim that the disciples were writing according to a contemporary literary style of dying and rising gods, since there is no literature contemporary to the disciples indicating that this was a genre of that period. …
[T]he ancient Egyptian cult of Osiris is the only account of a god who survived death that predates Christianity. … He was given status as a god of the gloomy underworld. So the picture we get of Osiris is that of a guy who does not have all his parts and who maintains a shadowy existence as god of the mummies. … [O]siris’s return to life was not a resurrection but a zombification.” [1]
Reason 6
Many pagan miracle stories from antiquity include magic charms, incantations, amulets, etc., and most are done for dramatic public effect. Nowhere in antiquity do we see the kind of healing miracles performed by Jesus: seemingly simple acts of compassion in response to, or received by, an act of personal faith in him (and far from seeking publicity, Jesus often told those whom He healed to “tell no one.”). The stark originality of the gospel accounts of the miracles of Jesus, therefore, also compels us to treat them with historical respect — they are not mere copies of the kinds of tales told elsewhere in antiquity.
(This article was based in part on an article by Dr. Stackpole that appeared on the Mere Christian Fellowship website in 2017; extended portions quoted with permission)
Next: Part 16: Finishing the Case for the Gospel Miracle accounts: reasons 7-10.
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Note
[1] Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), p. 90-91.
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