5. With, e.g., Roschke, “Healing”; Jenkins, “Reading,” 72.

5. With, e.g., Roschke, “Healing”; Jenkins, “Reading,” 72.

This is the sort of skepticism noted (but not endorsed) in Talbert, Acts, 248; Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 136–37; Parsons, Acts, 52. Others, who grant the reports but question only Luke’s interpretation, work from philosophic assumptions about what is possible that differ from Luke’s; in practice, they tend to accept reports about healings and exorcisms that they can explain psychosomatically, but would be more skeptical of, e.g., the nature miracles in Luke’s Gospel (not relevant to Acts).

I hope that those who are not persuaded will at least appreciate the valiant and academically legitimate nature of my attempt. Worldviews do not crumble easily, although I am convinced that thoroughgoing antisupernaturalism should be dismantled (while allowing abundant room for methodological naturalism in the appropriate spheres and cases).

Keener, Miracles. The philosophic issue predominates especially in –, ; see also Keener, “Case.” Cf. more briefly Keener, “Comparisons.”

The biblical tradition of “signs” was less interested in their “supernatural” character (cf., e.g., Gen 9:12–17; 17:11)—the dichotomy between “natural” and “supernatural” stemming from modern philosophy—than in their attesting God’s activity (see Meier, “Signs,” 758). God’s “mighty acts” were not violations of a natural order but expected signs of the faithfulness of nature’s ruler; they were not proofs of God’s existence (which was not disputed) but demonstrations of God’s covenant faithfulness (Ross, “Miracle,” 50–56). Likewise, if by “supernatural” one means “divinely empowered,” at least some circles in early Christianity averred that believers should live in the “supernatural” sphere continually (e.g., Rom 8:2–9; Keener, “Spirit Perspectives”). For a pre-1965 bibliography on signs (thaumatology) relevant to Acts, see Mattill and Mattill, Bibliography, 303–5, §§4241–70.

With, e.g., Roschke, “Healing”; Jenkins, “Reading,” 72.

See, e.g., Krasser, “Reading,” 554; Plümacher, Geschichte, 33–84.

E.g., James clearly expects divine healing (Jas 5:14–16; cf. McKnight, James, 440–42), but one would not be aware of this expectation without a single paragraph in which he raises the issue; Paul raises the issue more often (e.g., Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 12:9, 28–30), though over a longer course of letters. Early Christian narratives, however, include more signs (esp. the Gospels; cf. even Rev 11:5–6).

For summaries of this consensus, see Blackburn, “Miracles,” 362; Eve, Miracles, 16–17; Welch, “Miracles,” 360. Ehrman, Prophet, 197–200, notes that scholars can accept Jesus as an exorcist and healer without passing judgment on whether he acted supernaturally.

See, e.g., Twelftree, “Miracles”; idem, Miracle Worker. The Third Quest is more respectful toward the Gospels’ miracle tradition than the so-called First and Second Quests were (Meier, “Third Quest”). Scholars who treat Jesus as prophet and miracle worker appear to remain in the mainstream (see, e.g., Meier, “Quest”; Tan, Zion Traditions, 237; Flusser, “Love,” 154; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 113, 281–315; Kee, “Quests”; Pikaza, “Jesús histórico”; Rusecki, “Kryteria”); this paradigm is not intrinsically opposed to Jesus as sage (Oyen, “Criteria”), just as sages and mystics were not incompatible (Sterling, Ancestral Philosophy, 99–113).

Wright, “Seminar,” 114 (suggesting that the reports would rapidly assume a standard form, as they were told and retold).

Theissen and Merz, Guide, 113. Miracles are also not widely attached to messianic figures or to the majority of prophets. Using criteria of coherence and dissimilarity, Eve, Miracles, 386, argues for the authenticity of Jesus’s distinctive ministry of healing and exorcism.

Theissen and Merz, Guide, 281 (see more fully 281–315).

Yamauchi, “Magic?,” 90–91, cites b. Sanh. 43a; t. Ḥul. 2:22–23; cf. Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 79.

Vermes, “Notice”; idem, Jesus the Jew, 79; see also Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:621; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 74 (arguing that Josephus seeks to report about Jesus with the same neutrality he used concerning John and James); Van Voorst, Jesus, 102.

Cf. b. Sanh. 107b; in paganism, Cook, Interpretation, 36–39, 138. Although rabbinic sources do not recite the charge before the late second century (Flusser, Judaism, 635), Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 166, rightly notes that the charge concerning Jesus must be early: “Why answer a charge that was not levelled?” (see Matt 12:24; cf. John 8:48).

See Stauffer, Jesus, 10–11; the Mandaean and Islamic evidence he cites, however, is too late for actual relevance. For Jesus as a worker of miracles (attributed by his detractors to magic), see, e.g., Qur’an 5.110; 61.6. The issue never arises clearly in Paul (except with respect to his own miracle working), though cf. Wenham, “Story,” 307–8.

Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 11. Certainly, the Gospels portray Jesus’s miracles as “an essential part of that ministry” (Filson, History, 105).

Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:678–772; for historical evidence supporting Jesus as a miracle worker, see 2:617–45; see also Twelftree, Miracle Worker; Blomberg, Gospels, 127–36.

Brown, Death, 143–44.

Betz, Jesus, 58.

Ibid., 60.

Smith, Magician, 16. There are both Jewish and Greek parallels, but not regarding roughly contemporary teachers or philosophers (characters of the distant past, such as Enoch and Noah in 1 Enoch, were special candidates for traditional embroidery).

Neusner, “Foreword,” xxvii; idem, New Testament, 5, 173, offers perhaps the harshest critique of Smith’s magical thesis.

In contrast to, e.g., commanding bedbugs to leave, as in Acts John 60–61.

The explanation for those claims will vary in part according to one’s view of nature, but this is a theological and philosophical matter, not a question of history per se. Contemporary examples illustrate that people may believe that they have witnessed such phenomena (see discussion below).

Williams, Miracle Stories, 13, 35–54. E.g. (52), Luke exercises the greatest redactional liberty in reformulating the conclusion of Markan miracles; Luke reshapes Markan crowd reactions thoroughly (e.g., in Luke 5:15, 26; 6:11; 8:47), allowing overlap with Mark only in “individual words.” Their readily memorable form makes miracle stories one of early Christian tradition’s most recognizable narrative forms (15). Still, Weissenrieder, Images, 336–37, suggests that there may be differences between the approaches to healing in the Gospel and in Acts.

Williams, Miracle Stories, 53.

Ibid., 54.

The exact wording of discourse was probably also fluid in oral traditions behind any written accounts even in the Gospels, with the exception of some carefully remembered sayings of Jesus. On the special question of speech material, see , above.

Because some forms of miracle stories (particularly exorcisms and a form of raising-the-dead story) characterized their Middle Eastern origin more than Hellenism (Williams, Miracle Stories, 22–26, 32), Williams hopes to identify in the Jewish missionary movement’s expansion into the Hellenistic world the period from which some characteristics derive (32–33). Far from being primarily late forms, “the bulk of these stories mirror the needs and convictions of Christians in the first three or four decades of the new movement, during which they essentially took shape” (168).

Strelan, Strange Acts, 26 (following Theissen, Miracle Stories, 274), though noting that the models are Elijah and Elisha and the closest parallels in Hellenistic Jewish sources (Strelan, Strange Acts, 27–28). For a collection of sources, see Cotter, Miracles, 35–47 (for Hellenistic heroes; for biblical miracle workers, see 47–53; more briefly, idem, “Miracle Stories”); Cotter rightly warns (Miracles, 7) against abusing the collection in a way that looks for genetic sources rather than a cultural framework for understanding. More briefly, see the survey in Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 205–9.

See Grant, Gods, 38, 54, 66–67; Nilsson, Piety, 171; Kee, Miracle, 104. On healing deities, see Graf, “Healing Deities”; Martins Terra, “Milagres”; in ancient Egypt, Jansen-Winkeln, “Healing Deities”; in Roman Egypt, Frankfurter, Religion in Egypt, 46–52; for a collection of sources, see Cotter, Miracles, 11–34 (Heracles, Asclepius, and Isis). On Asclepius and his healing cult, see Klauck, Context, 155–68; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 173–76; Wickkiser, “Asklepios”; Martin, Religions, 50–52; Kee, “Self-Definition,” esp. 129–33; idem, Miracle, 78–104.

Dio Chrys. Or. 32.12.

Engels, Roman Corinth, 105. Not all Serapis healing dreams materialized favorably (see Toner, Culture, 41). Some healing reports today remain associated with dreams (e.g., Shorter, Witchdoctor, 153–54; Bush and Pegues, Move, 51, 61).

But sometimes Egyptians were said to identify Asclepius instead with an ancient king with medical skills; Manetho Aeg. frg. 11 (from Syncellus p. 104); also frg. 12a (from Syncellus p. 106), and frg. 12b (Armenian version of Eusebius’s Chronicle). The primary healing deity was a hybrid, Imouthes-Asclepius (P.Oxy. 11.1381, lines 32–52, in Frankfurter, Religion in Egypt, 238), the local Imhotep (Imouthes) being identified with Asclepius (Lewis, Life, 99). For some possible (but uncertain) evidence for an earlier Egyptian healing deity, see Kaiser, “Pantheon,” 94.

E.g., Diod. Sic. 1.25.2–3. Note also healings at the sanctuary of Isis and Serapis at Delos (Heyob, Isis, 65), an island especially associated with Apollo.

Cf. perhaps the cult of Diana at Philippi (Abrahamsen, Reliefs, 119–21); also the sanctuary at Eleusis (Burkert, Mystery Cults, 20). Cf. Asclepius’s association with Hygieia (Hygeia) in Kent, Inscriptions, no. 64 (plate 7, inv. 877 = Meritt, Inscriptions, no. 118; SEG 11.88); esp. Engels, Roman Corinth, 100.

E.g., Philost. Hrk. 4.10; 16.1; 28.5; Paus. 6.11.9. On Amphiaraus, see, e.g., Ferguson, Backgrounds, 173. Priests at Egyptian sanctuaries were also reputed to perform magical healings (Dunand, Religion en Égypte, 125); for magic and healing, see also PGM 18b.1–7, 1–2.

Archaeologists have found these, but inscriptions at the sanctuary are also mentioned in Paus. 2.27.3.

Klauck, Context, 160. Asclepius’s healing gift derived from his being Apollo’s son (Philost. Vit. Apoll. 3.44).

E.g., Hom. Il. 5.446–48; 16.526–31; Hor. Carm. saec. 62–64; Ovid Fasti 3.827; Ps.-Tibullus 3.10.1–12; Dio Chrys. Or. 32.56–57. Narrative necessity sometimes dictated different outcomes; Apollo could not raise a dead maiden he loved (Ovid Metam. 2.617–18; cf. the sun god’s inability to heal a beloved in 4.247–49).

Panyassis frg. 5, in Sext. Emp. Math. 1.260; Lucian Dance 45; on his raising the dead, see also Paus. 2.26.5. Supposedly, the Muses taught this son of Apollo both healing and prophecy (Ap. Rhod. 2.512).

Soph. Philoc. 1437–38 (sent by the now-deified Heracles); Suet. Claud. 25.2; Max. Tyre 9.7.

Paus. 2.27.2; Ael. Arist. Or. 2.30–36, 74–76; Philost. Vit. soph. 1.25.536; 2.4.568; Iambl. Myst. 3.3; Hdn. 4.8.3. Modern readers approach these accounts from various angles; for a psychoanalytic approach, see Rousselle, “Cults.”

Aristoph. Plutus 410–11, 620–21. Isis was also among deities supposed to be able to heal the blind (Heyob, Isis, 65).

Lucian Dem. 27 (for a son).

Val. Max. 1.1.19.

Vitruv. Arch. 1.2.7.

E.g., Vitruv. Arch. 8.3.4; Pliny E. N.H. 31.31.59–61; Plut. Sulla 26.3. For hot springs more generally, e.g., Men. Rhet. 1.2, 349.30; Eunapius Lives 459; Philost. Hrk. 23.30; cool springs were thought less healthy (Pliny Ep. 2.8.2). For hot water for health more generally, e.g., Val. Max. 2.4.5.

For the hot springs of Tiberias, see, e.g., Jos. War 2.614; 4.11; Life 85; Pliny E. N.H. 5.15.71; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 11:16; Eccl. Rab. 10:8, §1 (cf. more general mention in Jos. Ant. 18.36; y. Ber. 2:7, §3; b. Sanh. 93a; 108a; Šabb. 40b; 147a; y. Ned. 6:1, §2; Gen. Rab. 76:5); in Palestine elsewhere or more generally, see Jos. War 1.657; Pliny E. N.H. 2.95.208; 5.15.72; Hirschfeld and Solar, “Hmrhs’wt”; idem, “Baths”; Dvorjetski, “Healing Waters.”

Klauck, Context, 157; Fronto Ad M. Caes. 3.9.1; for its importance, see also Statius Silv. 3.4.23–24; Tac. Ann. 3.63; Paus. 2.26.9; Lucian Icar. 24; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.11, 34; Vit. soph. 2.25.611. It had long been famous (Hom. Il. 5.446–48).

McRay, Archaeology, 271 (and for further details on the sanctuary).

Statius Silv. 3.4.25; also evident on coins and other representations from there (Ramsay, Letters, 286; Koester, Introduction, 1:182; Hemer, Letters, 84–85). The snake is also associated with Epidaurus, though that one was allegedly transferred to Rome (Val. Max. 1.8.2). The connection of snakes with healing is Eastern and pre-Greek (Kaiser, “Pantheon,” 42–43).

E.g., Hdn. 4.8.3; Philost. Vit. soph. 1.25.536.

E.g., Pliny E. N.H. 20.100.264; Tac. Ann. 4.14; cf. Grant, Religions, 4–6. For its architecture, see Owens, City, 120.

Klauck, Context, 158. Pausanias appears convinced (2.26.8).

Val. Max. 1.8.2.

Ovid Pont. 1.3.21.

As often noted (e.g., Pliny E. N.H. 4.5.18); Epidaurus is included with Corinth in Paus. 2.26.1–2.27.6 (under the title “Corinth”), unlike the rest of Achaia (reserved for Paus. 6). For Epidaurus in Corinth’s inscriptions, see West, Inscriptions, 57, on no. 71. Cf. the sanctuary in Paus. 2.10.2.

Rothaus, Corinth, 42 (for its later history, see 47); esp. Roebuck, Asklepieion (for the sacred precinct, see 23–64). It adjoined the gymnasium (Biers, Bath, plate 56; cf. Engels, Roman Corinth, 151; Paus. 2.4–5).

See Roebuck, Asklepieion, 1, 3, 96–99.

Ibid., 25.

Engels, Roman Corinth, 100–101.

Aurenhammer, “Sculptures,” 266–67. For Asclepius worship in Ephesus, see I. Eph. 105, 1253–54 (though this is far less prominent than Zeus—I. Eph. 1239–43—and about as prominent as Dionysus or Demeter).

Dauphin, “Apollo and Asclepius.”

Philost. Vit. Apoll. 1.7, 10.

Cic. Verr. 2.4.43.93.

Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.34.

See Dibelius, Tradition, 170.

Theissen, Miracle Stories, 128–29.

Aune, Environment, 50. For people marveling after miracles, see, e.g., Philost. Vit. Apoll. passim. In the opening story of Luke, e.g., note fear (Luke 1:12, 64–65), astonishment (1:12, 29), praise (1:42), and joy (1:58). The audience response may characterize a conventional way to report the story, but it would not be surprising in most cultures (cf., e.g., Hickson, Heal, 120–21, 129).

Drawn from the sampling in Grant, Religions, 56–58. Paus. 2.27.3 notes that the inscriptions list the names of the healed, their disease, and how they were cured. Cf. also records of healings in Horsley, Documents, 2:21–25.

Grant, Gods, 66–67; Ael. Arist. Or. 2.30–36, 74–76 (Grant, Religions, 53–55). This practice of incubation was already in vogue probably for at least two millennia before our period; note “The Tale of Aqhat” (ANET 149–55), AQHT A (i), 150; less relevant, “The Legend of King Keret” (ANET 142–49), KRT A (i), 143; cf. Gen 15:12; 1 Sam 3:3–15; 1 Kgs 3:4–15. For its continuance in early Christianity, see Markschies, “Schlafkulte.”

Aelius Aristides attests that Asclepius sometimes healed away from the shrine as well (Grant, Gods, 66). On other sanctuary-based healing cults, see Ferguson, Backgrounds, 173–77 (Amphiaraus); Asclepius at Cos (Grant, Religions, 4–6); possibly Diana at Philippi (Abrahamsen, Reliefs, 119–21); healing miracles were also attributed to Eleusis (Burkert, Mystery Cults, 20) and were associated with Apollo (Hor. Carm. saec. 62–64). A Jewish version delegates authority over illness to Raphael (1 En. 40:9, Sim.; cf. Test. Sol. 18).

Because most people could not afford physicians, however, folk cures may have predominated. Because perhaps 70–90 percent of treatments in cultures such as Taiwan and the United States occur on a popular, rather than medical, level (Eve, Miracles, 356, following Kleinman, Healers, 50), it seems reasonable to suppose no smaller a proportion in antiquity (Eve, Miracles, 356).

Goppelt, Theology, 1:141; cf. Klauck, “Ärzten”; Markschies, “Schlafkulte.” Even at Epidaurus, rather than rivalry, each sphere had its place (Klauck, Context, 166–67). Ancients did not distinguish medicine from religion as we do today; traditions linked Hippocrates with the “sons of Asclepius,” physicians at healing shrines (Kee, “Hippocratic Letters,” 498–99).

Engels, Roman Corinth, 101.

Apul. Metam. 2.28. This tale is probably meant to parody the telling of such tales more generally.

The myth appears in, e.g., Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 205 (citing, e.g., Apollod. Bib. 3.10.3.5–4.1; Xen. Cynegeticus 1.1–6; following Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, 1:3, 9, 54, 56).

Price, Son of Man, 21, 131, thinks these the best parallels to some miracles attributed to Jesus. Yet they belong to a distant past era, and it is unlikely that Jesus’s first Jewish followers (particularly disciples, normally charged with accurately representing teachers) would invent such stories without a basis in the tradition (see, e.g., Keener, “Otho”; idem, “Assumptions,” 39–57). (It is inconceivable that within a generation, they would so thoroughly embellish the tradition about him that healings and exorcisms would pervade every stratum of the tradition, but Price is not addressing healings and exorcisms here.)

Tac. Hist. 4.81 (citing surviving eyewitnesses); Suet. Vesp. 7.

Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ,” 199–204.

See the critique of the “divine man” hypothesis in earlier NT scholarship in Holladay, Theios aner; Gallagher, Divine Man; Pilgaard, “Theios aner”; Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ”; Tiede, Figure; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 305; and other scholars and discussion cited in Keener, Spirit, 66–67; idem, John, 268–69. Individual pagan miracle workers arose especially in the first-century East and thereafter developed in competition with early Christianity (Frateantonio, “Miracles,” 53).

Harvey, History, 105.

See the extensive excursus on ancient magic and views concerning it, at Acts 8:9–11.

Each of these accounts concludes with God’s word spreading (Acts 8:12; 13:12; 19:20). Accusations against Christians for using magic (e.g., Eccl. Rab. 1:8, §4) made such apologetic all the more imperative.

Diog. Laert. 8.2.59, citing Satyrus’s citation of Gorgias, who claimed to be a witness.

Ferguson, Backgrounds, 306.

E.g., Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.43; 6.43; cf. also Evans, “Apollonius,” 80–81.

Smith, Magician, 87; Klauck, Context, 169. See further Reimer, Miracle (below).

Reitzenstein, Religions, 207; Bultmann, Theology, 1:130; Koester, Paul and World, 120; Mack, Lost Gospel, 66. I have taken much of the material in this section from Keener, John, 268–70.

Strelan, Strange Acts, 20 (noting even application of “divine” to Isaiah in Jos. Ant. 10.35 and to Moses in Philo Mos. 2.188). Some have also linked this divine man with Jesus’s title, “son of God,” a title explored briefly in this commentary’s excursus at Acts 9:20. For application to apostles in Acts, see, e.g., Pervo, Acts, 25.

Kingsbury, Christology, 39.

Gallagher, Divine Man, 173–74; cf. Gundry, “Genre,” 107.

Cf. Talbert, Gospel, who relates men who achieved immortality (26–31) to theioi andres, while noting that not all theioi andres became immortal (35–38). Aune, “Problem of Genre,” 19, is more skeptical of Talbert’s differentiation between “eternals” and “immortals.”

See Tiede, Figure, 99 (cf. 14–29, on Pythagorean conceptions; 71–97, on Heracles); Gallagher, Divine Man, 173; Shuler, Genre, 18; Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ,” 188–91; Kingsbury, Christology, 34; Martitz, “Υἱός,” 8:339–40; Betz, Jesus, 64. The “type” is especially inappropriate for the first century, when many of its features are not yet documented.

Holladay, Theios aner, 237.

Kee, Miracle, 37.

See Klauck, Context, 177.

In Philost. Ep. Apoll. 48, Apollonius claims that the gods have publicly attested him as a “divine man.”

Klauck, Context, 176.

Kee, Miracle, 288; cf. 52. Kee contends that the “divine man” type is nonexistent (297–99; cf. idem, Origins, 61–62).

Theissen, Miracle Stories, 269–71, 274.

Bowersock, Fiction as History, 22 (attributing some of this to the influence of the Jesus tradition, 27, 143; but would it have exercised such influence on Rome’s aristocracy by Nero’s reign?).

See Kee, Miracle, 288; cf. Klauck, Context, 170.

See Lown, “Miraculous.” Philostratus has a story resembling the raising of the widow’s son in Luke 7:11–17, but Luke’s version is earlier. Luke’s Gospel locates the miracle at Nain, an insignificant village, does not report the young man’s revelations about the afterlife, and is otherwise similarly unadorned, favoring authenticity over later, embellished pagan parallels (Harris, “Dead,” 299). Note further comment below.

Anderson, Philostratus, 121–239, argues for the antiquity of the Apollonius traditions; Bowie, “Apollonius,” 1653–71, and idem, “Philostratus,” 181–96, argues for their lateness (cf. also Bowersock’s views on the priority of the Christian stories, in Fiction as History). Reimer, Miracle, 20–22, summarizes Anderson and Bowie and concludes that even if one rejects the narratives’ antiquity, they can “illuminate shared cultural data” relevant to an earlier period (23, following Anderson, Philostratus, 121). I agree on this level and use Philostratus accordingly in my work.

Pélaez del Rosal, “Reanimación,” may well be right that Philostratus read Luke; against Theissen, Miracle Stories, 277; cf. Price, “Easters,” who reads some gospel signs in light of Philostratus and analogous sources. For significant contrasts between Philostratus and Luke here, see Harris, “Dead,” 301–3. Narrative techniques in 1 Kgs 17:17–24 influenced Luke’s composition (cf. Pélaez del Rosal, “Reanimación”; Brodie, “Unravelling”; Hill, Prophecy, 53), but he did not simply compose it from this source (Harris, “Dead,” 299–301; Witherington, Women, 76; against Drury, Design, 71).

Klauck, Context, 169.

Reimer, Miracle, 249.

Ibid., 250.

Ibid., 246; cf. 139, 252. People viewed magicians as deviant, outside the religious community (248). But social marginalization was necessary and desirable for miracle workers to avoid charges of ambition (139–41, noting the apostles and, still more, Apollonius and other exotic sages in Philostratus). For early miracle workers’ asceticism, see Frateantonio, “Miracles,” 53.

Reimer, Miracle, 85, comparing the apostles.

Klauck, Context, 170. Admittedly, stories of Jesus as miracle worker are limited in extant apocryphal gospels (Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 177–78; cf. Remus, Healer, 92–95), but miracle stories are abundant in apocryphal acts (Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 179–88; cf. Remus, Healer, 102–3).

Klauck, Context, 170; Conybeare, “Introduction,” xi–xii.

See, e.g., “The Treatise of Eusebius, the Son of Pamphilus, against the Life of Apollonius of Tyana written by Philostratus, occasioned by the Parallel drawn by Hierocles between him and Christ” (in Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, LCL, 2:484–605); Eusebius notes () that Celsus had already required such refutation by Origen. See further Cook, Interpretation, 250–76, esp. 266–68.

E.g., Borzì, “Accostamento” (not Philostratus himself but other ancient writers). See further Klauck, Context, 170–71, himself arguing that the case should be left open.

Note also that in Nero’s day, Apollonius leaves Rome for Spain (Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.47)—like Paul (Rom 15:24). Philostratus possibly borrows Apollonius’s offering wisdom to Vespasian before he becomes emperor from Josephus’s earlier story (cf. also Johanan ben Zakkai), in a setting that detests the bloodshed of the Judean war (Vit. Apoll. 5.27–28).

Regardless of the letters’ authenticity (it may be doubtful), they predate Philostratus’s story. The letters focus on Greek cities where Apollonius indeed probably traveled (not the lands of the Ethiopians, Indians, etc., where Philostratus’s most fanciful tales transpire).

Pace Georgi, Opponents, 122–64; cf. also 390–409.

Tiede, Figure, ch. 2, “Images of Moses in Hellenistic Judaism,” 101–240. Moses was “divine” in the sense that he was affected by the deity (Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.279). Cf. the probability that Josephus presents Jesus as both teacher and miracle worker (Ant. 18.63; as noted above, Josephus employs the same term, παράδοξα, for the miracles worked by the prophet Elisha, in 9.182; cf. 2.267, 285; 10.28, 235; 13.282; 15.379).

See Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1:241 (citing Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.176–83); Collins, “Artapanus,” 893, following Tiede, Figure, 166–74.

Holladay, Theios aner, 238–39.

Ibid., 238. It should be admitted, however, that many of the extant Apostolic Fathers aim at a philosophical, rather than popular, audience whereas the Gospels do not.

Ibid., 239, comparing Acts 2:22; 10:38; 17:22–31 (although the last passage, again, is directed toward a philosophical audience; contrast the absence in 13:23–31; but cf. 1 Cor 1:22).

See, e.g., Lucian in Stern, Authors, 2:221–23 (citing Lucian Lover of Lies 16; Alex. 13; Tragodopodagra 171–73); see also Juv. Sat. 6.542–47.

Holladay, Theios aner, 239. Cf. similarly Kee, Origins, 62; Betz, Jesus, 64. For a survey of especially OT healing theology (in its ancient contexts), see esp. Brown, Healer; for a survey of texts about healings, see Warrington, “Healing.”

The count is from Holladay, Theios aner, 237–38.

See the discussion of the passage, Jos. Ant. 3.180, in Meeks, Prophet-King, 138.

Tiede, Figure, 123, 240; cf. Philo Names 125–28.

Holladay, Theios aner, 238.

I believe that Boring, Sayings, 201–2, is wrong to suggest that Mark opposes charismatic excesses in Q; Mark draws on Q at places (e.g., in his abbreviated introduction; in Mark 3:22–30). But Boring is correct to note that as a charismatic, Mark could oppose charismatic excesses (Sayings, 203). Kümmel, Introduction, 93, rightly observes against Weeden that Mark does not deny Jesus’s role as a wonder-worker; the signs are clearly positive (Rhoads and Michie, Mark, 105; Kingsbury, Christology, 76–77), even if they must be read in view of the cross.

Vander Broek, “Sitz,” 131–89. Lane, “Theios anēr,” 160, thinks that the view might be attributable to the crowds. Weeden, Mark, 52–69, thought Mark’s opponents followed a θεῖος ἀνήρ Christology like the one some attribute to Paul’s opponents in 2 Corinthians. The term “opponents” may be too strong, and θεῖος ἀνήρ too ambiguous (although they may hold “a triumphalist theology characterized by . . .  miraculous acts,” p. vii).

With, e.g., Koskenniemi, “Apollonius”; Strelan, Strange Acts, 27 (following Weiss, Zeichen, 22–39, who supplies considerable material). I use here material esp. from Keener, John, 255–57.

The eighth benediction of the Amidah, including both spiritual and physical sicknesses (Bonsirven, Judaism, 131).

Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ,” 199–204. Resuscitation stories appear; cf. the claim for Empedocles in Diog. Laert. 8.2.59; 4 Bar. 7:19–20 (a resuscitation “in order that they might believe” [my translation]); rabbis in b. B. Qam. 117a; Abraham in Test. Ab. 14:11–14; 18:9–11 A; 14:7 B.

See Brucker, “Wunder.”

E.g., m. Sanh. 7:11; b. Ḥag. 2:2, §5; Roš Haš. 3:8, §1; Sanh. 7:13, §2. Note also Wis 17:7; Ps.-Phoc. 149; 1 En. 65:6 (Similitudes); Asc. Is. 2:5; 2 Bar. 60:2; 66:2; Test. Reub. 4:9.

See Goldin, “Magic”; Neusner, Sat, 80–81; b. Sanh. 65b; 67b; cf. ʾAbot R. Nat. 25 A (on R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus); Basser, “Interpretations.”

For Elijah and Elisha as examples of healing miracles in Josephus, see Betz, “Miracles in Josephus,” 219–20; as models among signs sages, see Galley, “Heilige.”

With Cohen, Maccabees, 200. Eve, Miracles, 385, argues that the only miracle directly attributed to Isaiah in the account was the shadow going up, but Isaiah does play a role in the healing here.

E.g., Sir 48:13; Liv. Pr. 2:3 (on Jeremiah, in OTP 2:386–87; Schermann, 81–82, §25).

Gen. Rab. 39:11, R. Levi; later R. Huna amplified this tradition.

Β. Ber. 34b. Later reports also apply to later rabbis (cf., e.g., Rosenfeld, “Simeon b. Yohai”).

Vermes, Jesus and Judaism, 5. By contrast, most reports of rabbinic miracles, probably fitting the predominantly halakic character of rabbinic literature, are “rule miracles,” i.e., signs to demonstrate the truth of one’s legal teaching (Theissen, Miracle Stories, 106–12).

See Keener, John, 270–71; Eve, Miracles, 115–16, 324. On these sign prophets, see initially Barnett, “Prophets”; and now esp. Gray, Figures, 112–44. Gray contends, probably rightly, that (137) only the cases of Theudas and the Egyptian genuinely evoke the exodus and conquest traditions; but even these two examples offer sufficient evidence to suggest that such views circulated in first-century Judea (whether already in Jesus’s day or perhaps even evoking some early views about him). Philo’s miracles focus especially on “the distant Mosaic past” (Eve, Miracles, 84), like most early Jewish miracle reports (377, though noting that they were not cessationist).

Jub. 48:4; L.A.B. 9:7; Sipre Deut. 9.2.1; 4Q422 III, 4–5; see further Meeks, Prophet-King, 162–63; Eve, Miracles, 244. But some sources such as Ben Sira may associate miracles more with prophets subsequent to Moses (Eve, Miracles, 115–16).

Wis 10:16.

E.g., Sir 33:1–8/36:1–8. Eve, Miracles, 263–66, 379, notes that early Jewish sources could connect miracles with eschatology (citing 4Q521; Jub. 23:23–31), but warns (266) that the association was not “automatic.”

Pesiq. Rab Kah. 9:4, Amoraic; cf. related ideas in Marmorstein, Names, 175.

Cf. Harvey, Jesus, 115, although taking matters too far; Witherington, Christology, 171; Sanders, Figure, 167–68. Other Jewish pietists adapted similar Isaianic language for the eschatological inversion (1QM XIV, 6), praying for an eschatological miracle (4Q176 1–2 I, 1). Qumran also may have combined the very texts to which Jesus alluded here, which perhaps suggests a Palestinian tradition (Evans, “Messianic Apocalypse,” 696 (on 4Q521); Le Cornu, Acts, 1388; though cf. Kvalbein, “Wunder”; idem, “Wonders”).

See Blackburn, “Miracles,” 372–74; Evans, Fabricating Jesus, 141; see further Twelftree, Miracle Worker, passim.

Some earlier scholars also committed parallelomania; cf., e.g., Bultmann, Tradition (1963), 222: “H. Jahnow has shown the probability . . .  that the removal of the roof in Mk. 2⁴ goes back to an exorcist custom” forgotten or changed during transmission.

If some critics would (by means of an ad hominem argument) charge the acknowledgment to “apologetic” motives (i.e., impugning motives), denying it can be charged to a reductionism that looks at parallels without appreciating distinctions among them. (“Apologetic” activity, in the sense of defending a thesis, is pervasive in scholarship, with no necessary correspondence to religious convictions.) Bias can occur in either direction, either the agenda of reducing or that of augmenting NT miracles’ distinctiveness (cf. Strelan, Strange Acts, 11). If it is fair to examine analogous elements, we must also note the many great distinctions.

See Theissen, Miracle Stories, 47–72.

Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ,” 190. For the text conveniently, see also Cotter, Miracles, 191.

Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ,” 190.

The Hyperborean (ibid., 191).

Abaris (ibid.).

Ibid.

Periclymneus, Nectanebus (ibid., 190, 193).

Pythagoras, Alexander of Abonuteichos (ibid., 193). This is the closest these texts come to Jesus’s transformation (Mark 9:2–8), a narrative far more evocative of Moses’s transformation on Mount Sinai (cf. Bultmann, Tradition, 229; Glasson, Moses, 70–71; Davies, Sermon, 20–21; some commentators appeal more to general apocalyptic images).

Contrast also many of the supernatural acts in traditional religions, e.g., in Mbiti, Religions, 258. On comparisons with Greek heroes, see further Blomberg, Gospels, 115–19; like Blackburn and others, he notes (116) that most Greek prodigies are unparalleled in the Gospels.

Gundry, Use, 190; Witherington, Christology of Jesus, 161–62.

Alexander, Context, 179.

See Keener, “Official.”

Many of these elements were common in popular literature (cf. Penner, Praise, 134).

See Keener, Matthew, 287–88, and sources cited there. Although Morton Smith’s citation of the charge against Christians in Tac. Ann. 15.44.3–8 as “a charge appropriate to magicians” (Smith, Magician, 51–52) is unhelpful (pagans charged the Jewish people with the same “hatred of humanity”), he has probably correctly identified the way the earliest Gentile witnesses of Jesus’s miracles would have perceived him (as well as Jesus’s opponents in Mark 3:22 par.).

Cf. Aune, “Magic,” 1557; Blomberg, “Reflections,” 449.

Kee, Miracle, 214–15; Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:537–52; Twelftree, Exorcist, 190–207; Goergen, Mission, 173–75; Vermes, Religion, 6.

Drane, “Background,” 122–23; cf. similarly Theissen, Miracle Stories, 296; Yamauchi, “Magic?,” 133; Twelftree, Exorcist, 172–73.

E.g., Apul. Metam. 3.21–25 (by magic, reversed by Isis in Metam. 11).

See Urbach, Sages, 1:102–3.

With, e.g., Theissen and Merz, Guide, 306–7.

According to the Two Document Hypothesis, agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark in the pericope (esp. Matt 12:28//Luke 11:20) suggest a common source additional to Mark. See discussion in Keener, Spirit, 104–9; Stanton, “Magician,” 174–80; cf. discussion on John 7:20 in Keener, John, 714–16.

Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:624; see further 2:536, 576–616; Clark, “Miracles,” 207.

See also, e.g., Strelan, Strange Acts, 27; cf. Eve, Miracles, 377.

As models among signs sages, see Galley, “Heilige.”

Honi the Circle-Drawer and Hanina ben Dosa probably followed Elijah’s model but, normally, different aspects of it (such as rainmaker) than Jesus (though many of his Galilean followers may not have made such distinctions).

Alexander, Possession, 59.

Smith, “Tradition,” 173–74.

With Smith, Parallels, 84.

With, e.g., Eve, Miracles, 285–86. Somewhat similarly, Dibelius, Tradition, 150–51, notes that rabbinic accounts extol saintly men and the Gospels narrate the epiphany of God’s power through his agent Jesus.

See, e.g., Acts 9:34; cf. Warrington, “Healing Narratives.”

Harvey, History, 100; followed also by Blomberg, “Reflections,” 450–51. See, e.g., Jos. Ant. 14.22; b. Taʿan. 3:8; b. Taʿan. 2:13 (an anonymous man but resembling Honi); ʾAbot R. Nat. 6 A; b. Taʿan. 8a; 19b–20a (Naqdimon ben Gurion); 23ab (including Honi and others in 23a and not only Abba Hilkiah but his wife in 23b); 24a–26a; b. Taʿan. 1:4, §1; 3:9, §§6–8; 3:11, §4; cf. Jos. Ant. 8.343–46; 14.22; Empedocles in Diog. Laert. 8.2.59–60; Aeacus’s prayer in Paus. 2.29.8; further information in Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 70, 76; for morals in the stories, cf. Schofer, “Cosmology.” For the link with corporate piety, see 1 En. 101:2; Pss. Sol. 17:18; Gen. Rab. 13:14; Lev. Rab. 34:14; 35:10; Num. Rab. 3:12; cf. b. Taʿan. 19b; on the miraculousness of rain (included in the benediction of the resurrection), cf. b. Ber. 29a; 33a; Taʿan. 2b; 7a; b. Taʿan. 1:1, §2; Gen. Rab. 13:6; Deut. Rab. 7:6. Rainmakers are prominent in many cultures (e.g., Mbiti, Religions, 89, 234–37). More generally, for gods and heroes controlling wind and sea, see Cotter, Miracles, 131–65.

Μ. ʾAbot 5:5; cf. Segal, “Few Contained Many.”

Cf. Herford, Christianity, 50–51, 54–56, 211–15; Bagatti, Church, 95–96, 106–7; Manns, “Jacob.” Y. Šabb. 14:4, §3, may be an example but is uncertain; cf. magic in Eccl. Rab. 1:8, §4.

Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 65; cf. Cangh, “Miracles”; Harvey, History, 100n10. But cf. even here Bourgeois, “Spittle,” 32–33.

Harvey, History, 115; in pagan accounts, see Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ,” 192.

Eve, Miracles, passim. Cf. similarly Avery-Peck, “Charismatic,” 164, especially focusing on the date of the sources.

The only parallels Eve finds are in Christian sources or some isolated depictions of an antichrist figure (Miracles, 244–45); I suspect that the latter are late, like much antichrist material (cf. Keener, Matthew, 573–75).

Eve, Miracles, 52 (concluding his discussion of miracle in Josephus, 24–52). Like Josephus, Philo overlaps with the Gospels primarily in miracles of provision (84–85).

Ibid., 244. They do appear more in later Amoraic haggadah.

Ibid., 253, 378. Eve acknowledges some exorcists but questions whether they were common (378). (Given the different focus of most of the other surviving first-century documents, it is hard to be sure.) He also notes rightly that some exorcists have magical associations (378).

Ibid., 243.

Ibid., 377.

Eve, ibid., 324, emphasizes that those reported by Josephus are apparently all later than Jesus.

Theissen and Merz, Guide, 308–9. Many scholars have built on the category of “sign prophets” (see early Barnett, “Prophets”). Eve, Miracles, 296–325 (esp. 324), thinks them a disparate group despite Josephus’s lumping them together, but he might underestimate common factors.

Eve, Miracles, 385 (noting that healings and exorcisms were “not that essential to the prophetic role,” since even most OT prophets did not perform them). On these sign prophets not performing miracles, especially healings and exorcisms, see also p. 321.

Cf. ibid., 277–78, arguing that Josephus’s focus is not on this but on his role on the war (given Josephus’s focus on the war). Rainmaking is the only miracle common to both Honi and Hanina and is absent from Jesus’s ministry (Blackburn, “Miracles,” 378–79).

The only Tannaitic account is b. Taʿan. 3:8 (Eve, Miracles, 274–75), and W. Scott Green and Neusner both deny reliable information even there (275–77).

Thus, e.g., we do not know if Honi the Circle-Drawer in fact drew a circle around himself, as in the rabbinic legend (but not Josephus), or merely prayed for rain; one could use drawing a circle for an ultimatum (Livy 45.12.5; Val. Max. 6.4.3; Vell. Paterc. 1.10.1–2; for drawing circles in the ground more commonly, see Hermog. Inv. 4.8.195).

Eve, Miracles, 274.

Eve, ibid., 281, notes that this date is uncertain (conceding [282], however, that he was probably from the Second Temple period). Amoraic traditions place him in the first century (see 287–88).

Blackburn, “Miracles,” 378.

Eve, Miracles, 280–81, cites m. Ber. 5:5; Soṭah 9:15 (= b. Soṭah 15:5); ʾAbot 3:10–11; t. Ber. 3:20; Mek. on Exod 18:21.

Eve, Miracles, 282–83 (four centuries, on the Babylonian Talmud); Blackburn, “Miracles,” 378 (three centuries, on the Jerusalem Talmud).

Eve, Miracles, 285. None included exorcism (294).

Ibid., 289, 295. Eve also argues (292–93) that the Mishnah’s category for Hanina, “men of deed” (b. Soṭah 9:15), need not specify miracle workers, noting that the semantic range of “deed” is much broader than “miracle.”

Eve, Miracles, 357–59, 379, compares Mexican folk healer Pedrito Jaramillo, who stood out above other folk healers of his era.

Ibid., 377. (I suspect that the Mosaic emphasis in the feeding miracle may be stronger than Eve recognizes; he tends to downplay these, e.g., 324–25.)

Ibid., 378. Eve argues from this both the likely authenticity of the Gospels’ consistent portrait of Jesus and a Christology implicit in his activities no less than in his sayings (386).

Theissen and Merz, Guide, 307–8; Blackburn, “Miracles,” 379 (who notes that Jesus rarely is said to pray before working a miracle).

Theissen and Merz, Guide, 290.

Ibid., 309.

See again Eve, Miracles, 384–86, esp. 386.

Concurring with Taylor, Formation, 128; against Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 101–3; Jeremias, Theology, 88–92. Jeremias’s use of parallels to question the authenticity of these miracles or to attribute them to psychosomatic activity (88–92) rests on his premise that modernity rejects the miraculous (89). For this section, see Keener, John, 260–61.

Benoit, Jesus, 1:34.

The pervasive influence went both ways, as becomes obvious by the increasing dominance of, e.g., Egyptian Christian exorcists, but this point is not relevant to the matter under consideration (because these sources are significantly later than Luke-Acts).

Eve, Miracles, 377, though skeptical of some early Jewish analogies to Jesus, readily accepts Elijah’s model.

For that matter, pagan healers do not all claim to act in the name of a deity (though often they have innate divinity in the generalized Greek sense); “supernatural” is a catchall phrase reflecting again modern Western assumptions (not altogether compatible with modern physics) about a closed continuum of nature.

Boring, Berger, and Colpe, Commentary, 65, compare this possibly fourth-century C.E. legendary embellishment of an earlier account here with the gospel tradition, but the differences, such as lapse of time and the continuance of eyewitnesses for the gospel tradition, mitigate the force of the comparison. The original votive tablet depicts only a “fantasy pregnancy,” upgraded to a real one in the later interpretation (see clearly Klauck, Context, 161–62).

Benoit, Jesus, 1:34. The conversation between God and the angel that Benoit mentions is a homiletic illustration, not historical in genre.

Fabulous elements include “talking dogs” and “sky travels” (as in Acts of Peter), “obedient bed-bugs (Acts of John), baptized lions (Acts of Paul),” etc. (Hofmann, “Novels: Christian,” 847). Apocryphal acts marshal all traits of their narrative, including miracles, to amplify divine glory (Bovon, Studies, 253–66). Cf. “Miracles, Miracle-workers,” 54: the apocryphal gospels and acts, which “sought to respond in a folkloric or novelistic way to the needs of Christian circles for entertainment, edification, and glorification of the heroes of the faith, magnified miracles to the point of exuberant fabulousness.” But miracle stories are much more common in the apocryphal acts than in the apocryphal gospels (Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 177–88). For miracles as propaganda in the romances, see Kee, Miracle, 252–89.

Benoit, Jesus, 1:33.

Cf. further 1 Cor 12:2; 1 John 4:1–3; Herm. 43.2–4.

Dunn, “Demythologizing,” 291. On Onias (Honi) in Josephus (where some aspects of his depiction resemble Elijah), see Gray, Figures, 145–47.

Harnack, Acts, 148–49; Knox, Acts, 91–93.

Cf. here also Jewett, Romans, 911; Byrne, Romans, 438; Talbert, Romans, 329; Parsons, Luke, 126–27. For Paul on signs, cf. further Twelftree, “Signs”; idem, “Healing.” Moreover, claims of diminishing signs throughout the book (or a later portrait supplanting an earlier one; cf. Hickling, “Portrait in Acts 26”) neglect that Luke may have already successfully made his point; Luke earlier emphasizes the Spirit on Jesus in Luke 3:22; 4:1, 14, 18, but no one claims that the Spirit declines for him later (Dollar, “Theology of Healing,” 47).

Cf. Bovon, Theologian, 198–238, esp. 238.

I say “radical Enlightenment” to distinguish the perspective from some early Enlightenment thinkers more open to supernatural reports, at least those in Christian Scripture. Much of this section derives from Keener, John, 261–63.

If unrestrained, winds would blow away the universe (Virg. Aen. 1.58); Helen was carried to Egypt by winds (Philost. Hrk. 25.10); winds carry along the sun and moon chariots (1 En. 72:2, 5); winds hold up the heavens (18:2–5; Jos. Asen. 12:2/3).

Fronto (Naber, 211, §7); personified, at least, in Plut. Bride 12, Mor. 139DE.

E.g., Val. Flacc. 8.322–27; 1 En. 4:3; Tg. Jon. on 1 Kgs 19:11–12; probably angels in Apoc. Mos. 38:3.

See Sen. Y. Nat. Q. 5.16.1–5.17.2; for ancient “scientific” theories on weather, see Pliny E. N.H. 2.39.105–6.

Pliny E. N.H. 2.38.104.

Sen. Y. Nat. Q. 5.1.1; Pliny E. N.H. 2.44.114.

Pliny E. N.H. 2.39.105–6 (by contrast, Pliny offers a much more accurate explanation in 2.42.111).

Pliny E. N.H. 2.43.112.

Pliny E. N.H. 2.45.116; cf. 2.6.32–33, where the planets move in a direction opposite the world. More plausibly, gusts from the earth, solar heat, and irregularities in the mountains also produce winds (2.44.114–15).

Ovid Metam. 4.272–73.

Ovid Metam. 4.402–15. Elsewhere when recounting something incredible (ghosts terrorizing Rome, Fasti 2.551–54), Ovid notes that he can hardly believe it himself (2.551).

Diog. Laert. 8.1.41.

Marc. Aur. 1.5; C. R. Haines in LCL, 4–5n6 (citing Dig. 50.13.1, §3; Justin 2 Apol. 6; Tert. Apol. 23; Iren. Her. 2.6, §2; Lact. Div. Inst. 5.21), may be correct that the exorcism comment applied especially to Christians, but Philostratus and third-century magical papyri suggest that it need hardly apply to them alone.

Pliny E. N.H. 28.3.10. Yet Pliny feels constrained to respect ancestral practice (28.3.12–13) and leaves such matters open to his audience to decide (28.5.29).

Klauck, Context, 180, citing Cic. Div. 2.83.

Theissen, Miracle Stories, 284–85. Like a good sophist, Philostratus sometimes provides rationalistic explanations (Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos, l–li, citing Philostr. Hrk. 48.11–13; 50.1, 7–11; cf. also p. lxiv on Dio Chrys. Troikos [Or. 11] 54, 70); cf. Philostr. Hrk. 33.6; restrained language in 4.2; sympathy for skeptics in 51.11; distinction between eyewitness testimony and hearsay, rendering the former more credible (8.8); and the progressive persuasion of the open-minded skeptic in 3.1; 7.9, 11; 8.2, 8; the skeptic believed as a child (7.10).

Petron. Sat. 62–63; Lucian True Story 1.2–4; Lucian Dial. D. 446–47 (9/28, Menippus and Tiresias 2–3); Lover of Lies 15, 32; Apul. Metam. 2.28.

Others followed this practice, e.g., Pliny E. N.H. 28.5.29.

He also objects to historians who create such implausible obstacles that they require a deus ex machina, as in the tragic dramatists, to nevertheless yield the known historical outcome (Polyb. 3.48.7–8), inventing divine apparitions (3.48.9) not found in their sources. Menander Theophoroumene frg. 5 may parody the deus ex machina convention.

Plümacher, “ΤΕΡΑΤΕΙΑ”; cf. Plümacher, Geschichte, 33–84.

E.g., Heliod. Eth. 6.14.

Thucydides admitted that some earlier descriptions of hardships and natural disasters, dependent on oral tradition, had been rendered credible by the more recent events he was describing (Thucyd. 1.23.3), but he portrays his own account as unique. He offered an effective model of restraint to many of his successors (see Remus, Conflict, 36–37).

Krasser, “Reading,” 554 (citing Livy, Appian, Plutarch, and others). Judge, First Christians, 420–22, doubts that ancient audiences, accustomed to prodigies, would have balked at the reports in Acts.

Hemer, Acts in History, 428–29; more fully, 428–43. Sophists employed “rationalistic explanations” where possible (Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos, l, lxiv); also of astrological phenomena such as eclipses (Philost. Hrk. 33.5–6; See comment on ). See, e.g., Tac. Germ. 3. Some phenomena could be attributed to coincidence, though with divine involvement in the timing (Remus, Conflict, 45–47).

Remus, Conflict, 42–44; cf. 45–47. Herodotus speaks of gods but not of their intervening regularly in the narrative as “in Homer and the Attic drama” (McDonald, “Herodotus,” 86); although Luke reports much divine activity, God appears directly only very rarely, as in Luke 3:22; 9:35 (though the risen Jesus appears in Acts). For Herodotus, divine powers are viewed differently among different peoples; he does not treat divine intervention “in anthropomorphic terms” (McDonald, “Herodotus,” 86). Herodotus views both divine and human activity as within the natural order (88–89); where he reports traditions of miracles, “he regularly indicates his reservations” (87), unlike Luke. Xenophon is unapologetic in his belief in gods and their activity (Brown, Historians, 97).

Among other writers, see, e.g., Val. Max. 1.6.5; Appian Bell. civ. 1.9.83; 2.5.36; 2.10.68; 4.1.4; for other prodigies, see Cic. Verr. 2.4.49.108; Pliny E. N.H. 17.38.241–45; Tac. Ann. 12.43, 64; 14.32; 15.22, 47; 16.13; Suet. Jul. 81.3; Aul. Gel. 4.6.2; Arrian Alex. 4.15.7–8. In exaggerated, fictitious form, Lucan C.W. 1.529–63 passim; Phaedrus 3.3.4–5. See further discussion in Keener, Matthew, 568–69. In contrast to Livy, subsequent writers like Tacitus associated prodigies more closely with the emperor; see Feeney, “History,” 140–41.

E.g., Livy 21.62.1–5; 24.10.6–11; 24.44.8; 25.7.7–9; 26.23.4–5; 27.4.11–14; 27.11.2–5; 27.37.1–6; 29.14.2; 32.1.10–12; 32.8.2; 33.26.7–8; 34.45.6–7; 35.9.2–4; 35.21.3–6; 36.37.2–3; 40.45.1–4; 41.13.1–2; 41.21.12–13; 42.2.4–5; 43.13.3–6; 45.16.5. For discussion of Livy’s sources, see Rosenberger, “Nobiles,” 294. Justifying Livy’s supernaturalism, see Laistner, Historians, 69 (though what he attributes to possible Stoic thought on 69–77 could simply reflect popular religion).

So Livy 21.62.1.

Livy 24.10.6. We should keep in mind, however, that cultural expectations shaped the attention that anomaly reports received; thus roughly half of prodigies reported occurred in Rome, and most of the rest in Italy (Rosenberger, “Nobiles,” 297), fitting the contours of the sources interested in reporting them. Reports did not become prodigies until officially declared such (in the republic, this was by the senate; see Orlin, “Religion,” 60).

Cf. also Vespasian’s vision in Tac. Hist. 4.82; modern scholars often contend that such stories originated as imperial propaganda (cf. Domitianic propaganda in Luke, “Touch”), but they do not for that reason disqualify Tacitus as a critical (ancient) historian.

On signs surrounding Jerusalem’s fall, see fuller discussion in Keener, Matthew, 584.

Thus Tacitus’s account in Hist. 4.81 is somewhat naturalistic, and both here and esp. in Suet. Vesp. 7.3, Vespasian is convinced only against his own expectations.

Tac. Hist. 2.50 (LCL, 1:243), reporting an omen; he treats as foolish those who ignore omens (Ann. 15.7–8).

See Pliny Ep. 9.10.1, where Tacitus has urged Pliny to sacrifice to Diana as well as Minerva (and Pliny replies that he has not enough boars). Tacitus’s suggestion could be facetious but probably rests on a genuine belief. For the action of deities as well as humans as acceptable fodder for ancient historiography, see Davies, “Religion,” 167; for the possible influence on Tacitean historiography of his role as priest, see 175.

E.g., Diod. Sic. 4.47.3–4; cf. Plut. Alex. 35.5–6.

Eunapius Lives 460 (the alleged event occurred two generations earlier with but one oral link).

Arrian Alex. 5.4.3.

Plut. Isis 8, Mor. 353F. After narrating some extraordinary events related to an oracle several centuries earlier (Cam. 5.4), Plutarch admits that this may sound “mythical” (5.5). For other paranormal phenomena in Plutarch, see, e.g., Sulla 27.2 (a creature taken as a satyr); for his suspicions of, or lack of, commitment to some reports, see also, e.g., Alex. 35.5–6. Mackay, “Plutarch,” 108–9, opines that Plutarch could have accepted most of the miracle stories in the NT except the resurrection and the incarnation (and that he would have also found Christianity’s particularity problematic).

Aristotle’s principle of the mean served Plutarch in this case. Most ancients understood then, as we do today, that statues were inactive (e.g., Diogenes Ep. 11), but many made exceptions for unusual phenomena (a few of the references are listed in Keener, Revelation, 351–52, 362; cf. Rev 13:15).

Witherington, Acts, 221–22 (citing Jos. Ant. 1.108). Cf. similarly Ovid Fasti 2.551. Cf. even one novel’s nods to objectivity (e.g., τι in Philost. Hrk. 4.2; the selective claims of 8.8; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.45).

E.g., Pliny E. N.H. 28.5.29; Aune, Environment, 134 (citing Hdt. 2.123; 5.45; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.48.1); cf. Paus. 1.26.6 (on a statue that supposedly fell from heaven).

Klauck, Context, 181. See further comment at Acts 17:18.

See the discussion of Apollonius above.

See esp. Squires, Plan, 78–84; further, 89–101 for Luke-Acts; 78–89 for other historians.

Arrian Alex. 5.1.2. Cf. some philosophers who pointed out that all things were possible for the gods (Iambl. V.P. 28.139, 148; cf. Luke 1:37). Sall. Catil. 3.2 fears that some will dismiss his accounts because they report characters nobler than those the reader would expect.

Squires, Plan, 102.

Hemer, Acts in History, 428–29; Cook, Interpretation, 39.

In Lucian Peregr. 11, Peregrinus learned the “marvel-wisdom” (θαυμαστὴν σοφίαν) of the Christians, perhaps wisdom related to signs-working, marvels. Lucian noted that some after Peregrinus’s death would probably attribute miracles to his spirit (Peregr. 28, perhaps influenced by Christian healing in Jesus’s name).

E.g., 4Q422 III, 4–5 (Moses); 4Q176 1–2 I, 1 (eschatological); wonders in 1 En. 24:4–25:6; 27:1–4; Let. Aris. 99; throughout the LXX. For a survey of healing theology among OT writers and their ancient Near Eastern contexts, see Brown, Healer, passim.

For apocryphal collections of “acts” as almost aretalogies, see Aune, Environment, 147.

Aune, Environment, 109; Squires, Plan, 84–89; Betz, “Miracles in Josephus,” 212–13, who also notes that Josephus limited them mostly to the past (218). He follows Greek historiographic convention (Aune, Environment, 134, cites Lucian Hist. 60; Hdt. 2.123; 5.45; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.48.1).

Feldman, “Elijah.”

Feldman, “Hellenizations: Abraham,” 150.

Betz, “Miracles in Josephus,” 212–13; Eve, Miracles, 52. Betz thinks that Josephus did not expect them in the present (“Miracles in Josephus,” 218); if Betz is right on this caveat, Josephus must have excepted prophecy (for others, War 1.78–80; 2.159; for himself, Isaacs, Spirit, 48; Hill, Prophecy, 26–27, on Jos. War 3.351–54; see also Jesus ben Ananias in War 6.300–309; Noack, Jesus Ananiassøn; Gray, Figures, 158–63).

Betz, “Miracles in Josephus,” 231–33. For this language for portents, see also Plut. Demosth. 19.1; Philost. Hrk. 16.5; 17.4; 18.2; 31.5.

Greek influence may have contributed to Josephus’s rationalizing, but the Jewish belief in miracles reflecting God’s power contributed the more dominant influence (MacRae, “Miracle,” 142).

Luke is also restrained in an eyewitness report (Acts 20:12). Moule, “Classification,” 242, thinks that “Luke has a sort of rationalization (though demonstrably misconceived)” in Luke 23:45 because he attributes darkness to an “eclipse” (BDAG there has “cease to shine” but notes that “Luke’s diction is standard for description of an eclipse,” citing Thucyd. 2.28; 7.50.4; Xen. Hell. 1.6.1; FGH 239 B 16; Plut. Pel. 31.3; Sir 17:31; Philo Mos. 2.271). Yet well-timed eclipses were hardly explained only naturalistically (See comment on ).

Bruce, Acts³, 31.

, above, has already argued that Luke-Acts cannot readily fit the category of tragic-pathetic historiography.

E.g., Philo accepts both natural laws and biblical testimony to miracles (Wolfson, Philo, 1:347–56). A later Neoplatonist (albeit one given to credulity) charges that thoroughgoing skepticism itself reflects unproved presuppositions: since the gods are powerful, it is imprudent to dismiss marvelous claims where they might be involved (Iambl. V.P. 28.148; cf. 28.139).

E.g., Plümacher, Geschichte, 33–84; similarly, regarding the earlier Elijah cycle, Gordon, Near East, 222.

See, e.g., Swinburne, Miracle, 71.

The history of ideas, including in scientific paradigms (cf. Kuhn, Structure), shows that the same data may be interpreted through diverse interpretive grids after paradigm shifts; interpretive models often control our perspectives on what is possible.

Likewise, Wink, “Write,” 6, notes that scholars whose background is either “rationalistic, scholastic religion” or a rigid dogmatism will not easily “enter empathetically into the spontaneity and boundary-shattering milieu of the early church.”

See Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 137, and the sources he notes. Remus, Healer, 112–13, observes (citing one anthropological study) that traditional healers can be effective if a society believes in them even if the healers are skeptical themselves. A healer’s confidence might augment this effect.

MacMullen, Christianizing, 24. Likewise, some sociologists of religion contend that sociologists can report their subjects’ miracle claims but cannot as sociologists rule on the possibility of the subjects’ claims of supernatural activity (Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 153; cf. 104).

Pilch, Healing, 1–4. Cf. varying cultural perceptions, e.g., of schizophrenia (Furnham and Wong, “Comparison”). For Pilch’s social-scientific approach to healing in Luke-Acts, see also Pilch, Healing, 89–117; idem, “Healing.”

Cf. esp. Anderson, Ellens, and Fowler, “Way Forward,” 249.

Cf. Berger, Rumor, 52, 120–21. One should not confuse this critique with postmodern historiography in general, which tends to affirm historical truth in ancient historians less than modern scholars of ancient history do (cf. Lendon, “Historiography,” critiquing postmodern approaches).

As Roschke, “Healing,” 471, suggests, paralleling his entering into another culture, “Do we want to observe Luke’s worldview as an outsider—as The Other—or are we willing to enter into this Word . . . ?” Cf. Wink, “Write,” 6.

Berger, Rumor, 52, 120–21. Cf. the nuanced approach in Berger, Relativism.

Jews and Christians allowed for beings of intermediary rank between God and humans (see the excursus on spirit possession at Acts 16:16); Greeks allowed gods and demigods (sometimes subordinate to a supreme deity, to nature, or to fate).

One could define the term more broadly to include any beings, physical or nonphysical, more intelligent than (or equally intelligent but more powerful than) humans, the existence of which is unproved but need not be ruled out a priori. But this definition exceeds what is relevant for the matter under discussion.

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 215; idem, Acts, 248–49. Lüdemann, Acts, 23, contends that “one ought not to begin with the assumption that miracles occur.” But a truly “neutral” assumption would be that they might occur; one must test evidence. Technically, though, Lüdemann, 22–23, claims that he does not presuppose the rejection of miracles; only that (23) one cannot presuppose God or gods and should reject the miracle explanation unless no other is available. This limitation may effectively exclude all evidence in practice and bias the investigation (since one could always find some naturalistic explanation, even if it is less plausible than suprahuman intelligent causation in some cases). Nevertheless, Lüdemann is more precise and honest about his assumptions than are many.

The question is well put by Gardner, Healing Miracles, 165, a physician who claims considerable evidence for paranormal healings.

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 215; on the resistance of worldviews to disconfirmation, see also Wink, “Stories,” 212. For a critique of the materialist worldview from the standpoint of modern physics, see Barr, Physics and Faith (e.g., 256). Reacting against the completely materialist view of the mind, see, e.g., 167–252, esp. 225–26; Beauregard and O’Leary, Brain (the latter supporting dualistic connections with a universal cosmic consciousness). One need not, however, reject a materialist view of the mind to distinguish between a material universe and a source of its structure (i.e., information content) external to it.

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 216. Talbert allows that experiences of healings can shape believers’ faith in a particular direction (Matthew, 323).

Science’s traditional “methodological naturalism” offers useful rigor in exploring patterns of cause and effect. But the early Western scientists who founded most scientific disciplines as we know them conceived this objective and achieved the same practical effect from their premise of order in creation rather than from denial of divine design or causation. They denied that the Creator was bound by his own laws (Brooke, “Science,” 9; cf. also Wykstra, “Problem,” 156; Sharp, “Miracles,” 11; Force, “Dominion,” 89, 91; idem, “Breakdown,” 146–50). That is, their naturalism was theistic and presupposed a different philosophic metanarrative than the paradigm dominant today. Before the rise of deism (“a new religion”; see discussion in Spickard and Cragg, Global History, 242), they examined the normal natural order without denying the possibility of exceptional divine activity outside that norm. For the struggle between deism and Christianity regarding miracles, see Cragg, Reason, 160–67.

In light of my historical methodology in most of this commentary, it should be self-evident that though citing this postmodern critique, I welcome many Western or Enlightenment methodological contributions. Although objective knowledge may not be perfectly attainable in many areas, pursuing it as evenhandedly as possible offers common ground for academic discussion whereas refusal to share such a common objective can readily devolve into competing factions in which political strategy and power count more highly than free enquiry. On various points, however, including the matter at hand, I believe that Western perspectives can be much improved through the input of other cultures. Certainly one may not pretend open-minded inquiry while dismissing other approaches without allowing them on the table.

Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 158.

Ibid. (following Smith, Animals, 109). The principle of parsimony follows Occam’s razor.

Wink, “Write,” 4; cf. idem, “Stories,” 214.

Wink, “Write,” 6.

Ibid.

Ibid. In Wink, “Worldview,” he challenges a reductionist materialism (20–21); Murphy, “Social Science,” 32–33, values Wink’s critique of reductionism but regards it as difficult to classify philosophically. The issue is ultimately not materialism except insofar as it excludes a divine entity beyond nature. Ancient Stoics emphasized the materiality of the cosmos, yet distinguished from this the intelligence (materialists today might prefer the language of information content) that structures matters.

Wink, “Write,” 6.

Wink, “Stories,” 213.

McClymond, Stranger, 83, recounting the story that the king of Siam, hearing from Dutch visitors about riding horses on top of rivers that became so cold they became hard like stone, “knew that the men were liars.” (Cf. Silvoso, Perish, 101–2, comparing the incomprehensibility of Mexico City’s smog in rural Greenland.) Likewise, Blomberg, Gospels, 111, argues that the real problem is not with lack of analogies (since one from a warm region might lack analogies for ice) but with analogies to what is unhistorical (e.g., UFO sightings have so often “turned out to be air-balloons” and other such phenomena).

See, e.g., Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310.

Distinguishing metaphysical from methodological naturalism, see, e.g., Tennant, Miracle, 25; Plantinga, “Science,” 100–101; Evans, Narrative, 158–61; John Polkinghorne in Frankenberry, Faith, 344; Davies, “Preface,” xi–xii.

Supporting the possibility of fine-tuning, and hence at least a degree of cosmological design, see, e.g., McGrath, Universe; Spitzer, Proofs, 13–74; Flew, God, 95–154; Tennant, Theology, 2:1–126.

E.g., Torrance, “Probability,” 249–50; Kee, Miracle, 3–12; Gregory, “Secular Bias”; deSilva, “Meaning,” 13–18; Sabourin, Miracles, 14; Stein, Messiah, 18–23; Marsden, Outrageous Idea, 29, 74; also Pannenberg, Jesus, 109 (cited in Licona, “Historicity of Resurrection,” 93; idem, Resurrection, 133); and the other scholars cited below. Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 372–73, note that many scholars skeptical about the gospel tradition are on record as presupposing that miracles do not happen.

Benoit, Jesus, 1:39; see Kee, Miracle, 3–12; Dembski, Design, 49–69. For two lengthy responses to this worldview (too recent for me to cite as pervasively as I otherwise would), see Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 39–90; Licona, “Historicity of Resurrection,” 93–138.

See Tonquédec, Miracles, 10; Léon-Dufour, “Approches,” 15; van der Loos, Miracles, 11; Dunn, Remembered, 29; McGrew, “Miracles” (3.1.1); Dembski, Design, 55. Many theistic thinkers today cite the major infusion of complex information and order into the big bang theory’s closed system of a finite universe and/or theorizing about the cosmic anthropic principle to argue against identifying Creator with creation. Whether or not one agrees, monism’s appeal is now more culturally negotiable (see, e.g., Barr, Physics and Faith, esp. 118–57; Spitzer, Proofs, 13–74; McGrath, Universe, particularly 111–42).

See Dembski, Design, 82–85. Some seventeenth-century scientists gained cultural prestige for scientific epistemology by demonstrating its utility for religion (hence inadvertently “modernizing” religion), but the social power situation has now reversed, with scientific epistemology, not surprisingly, holding greater cultural prestige (Harrison, “Miracles,” 510). The politics of knowledge, rather than incompatibility between science and faith for many ordinary scientists and believers, drove the dichotomy between science and faith (see Poewe, “Rethinking,” 253–54).

Williams, Miraculous, 19, 24; Twelftree, Miracle Worker, 39–40; cf. Johnson, Hume, 76–78.

Houston, Miracles, 3; in theology, 102. Thus, e.g., Lüdemann, Two Thousand Years, 4: “Those actions are unhistorical which presuppose that the laws of nature are broken.”

Houston, Miracles, 4. Hume echoed deists (Burns, Debate, 70–95, 141).

Ibid., 123. On the respective domains of science and philosophy here, cf. also Flew, God, 89–90.

Houston, Miracles, 103. Ashe, Miracles, 13 (cf. 26), thinks “miracle” an advanced concept because it depends on natural law, but this refers to only a modern Western concept of “miracle,” and not necessarily the most current form.

Houston, Miracles, 104, notes that Augustine and many others spoke of miracles as above, rather than against, nature. In contrast to Hume, John Locke did believe that miracles were compatible with reason (33–48); Hume’s echoes of Locke suggest that he was dialoguing with Locke’s position (50).

Williams, Miraculous, 20.

See, e.g., ibid., 204–5; Pannenberg, “History,” 65; Gilman, “Miracles,” 478; Griffith, “Miracles,” 35; Collins, Beginning, 53–54; Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:519–20; Charlesworth, “Resurrection,” 170–71; “Origin,” 227; Blomberg, Gospels, 105–6 (and sources he cites). Cf. discussions in Twelftree, Miracle Worker, 51 (following Larmer, Water, 52–56, and others); Barr, Physics and Faith.

Houston, Miracles, 133 (developed on 133–50). Hume’s claim here by definition excludes miracles held to contravene such laws and hence uses a definition to fix the argument so that miracles cannot happen. Many philosophers today reject the logic of Hume’s argument; see, e.g., the challenge to Hume’s approach in his essay in Johnson, Hume; Taylor, Hume; Swinburne, Miracles; Beckwith, Argument; Ward, “Believing”; idem, “Miracles and Testimony”; Earman, Failure; idem, “Bayes”; idem, “Hume”; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 61–63; for historical context, see Burns, “Hume and Miracles.” For one of the defenses of Hume, see Fogelin, Defense.

Houston, Miracles, 133 (developed on 151–68). Prejudging likelihood by classification also depends on the reliability of the classification and the likelihood one assigns to it. Again, since an event that was ordinary would not be defined as miraculous, ruling out extraordinary events not only rules out much of actual history but also seems designed to create a “default setting” that excludes the probability of miracles.

Ibid., 133–34; Twelftree, Miracle Worker, 41 (cf. also 44, against the argument of Alastair McKinnon).

As in a worldview where capricious spirits dominate causation. But we must also reckon with the limitations of reported experience—and Hume’s a priori exclusion of the experience of irregular events.

Houston, Miracles, 141; cf. Collins, Language of God, 50–53; Tonquédec, Miracles, 11.

E.g., Christians such as Galileo; Johannes Kepler; Antony van Leeuwenhoek (in microbiology); Robert Boyle (in chemistry); Andreas Vesalius (in anatomy); William Harvey (in physiology); and Gregor Mendel, a monk (in genetics). Isaac Newton, who was theologically Arian, argued for design in the universe.

Houston, Miracles, 148, 160.

Ibid., 162. Houston notes that if one presupposes atheism methodologically, so that one’s conclusions must be atheistic, no argument could satisfy the position’s demands (168). Some would argue that one might even start with a premise of theism if other grounds warranted (cf. Evans, “Naturalism,” esp. 205). Hume recycled many deist arguments; see Burns, Debate, 141; see also 9–10, 70–95.

Houston, Miracles, 195. The majority of philosophers publishing on philosophy of religion actually argue for rather than against God’s existence (Smith, “Metaphilosophy,” 197), so theism can hardly be dismissed a priori (apart from hegemonic fiat).

Hume, “Miracles,” 41–48.

Gaskin, Philosophy, 125 (regarding Hume’s denial as “obscurantist”); Lewis, Miracles, 102 (often cited to this effect); Wright, Miracle, 51–52, 80; Brown, Miracles, 88; Larmer, Water, 106; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 39–40; Licona, “Historicity of Resurrection,” 100 (citing Lewis, and Gregory, “Secular Bias,” 137–38); Ruthven, “Miracle,” 548; cf. Lawton, Miracles, 58; Holder, “Hume,” 57; deSilva, “Meaning,” 14–15. For Jansenist claims, see Kreiser, Miracles, 78–95, 122–23.

See Kee, Miracle, 14–16. On the influence of Strauss on modern academic treatment of miracles, see further Twelftree, Miracle Worker, 32–33.

On the historical-critical method (by which Kee intends especially its reductionist, antisupernaturalist form) to recent times, see Kee, Miracle, 12–41. For the philosophic history of theological antisupernaturalism, see Hamilton, Revolt.

O’Connor, Healing Traditions, 15; cf. also 16 and, more generally, all of ch. 1, “Defining and Understanding Health Belief Systems,” 1–34.

See, e.g., Houston, Miracles, 123; Williams, Miraculous, 204. Macklin, “Yankee,” 74 (an anthropology professor), contends that scientism thus functions as religion rather than as science (cf. similarly, e.g., Barrington-Ward, “Spirit Possession,” 464).

See Williams, Miraculous, 34.

Ibid., 137–57, 205. Williams offers a philosophic challenge to antisupernaturalism, 158–202 (though I do not find all of Williams’s own explanations satisfying).

Barr, Physics and Faith, 253. The success or failure of predictions is essential in the scientific testing and revision of hypotheses. The claims that the universe is finite and had a beginning fall into the same category (against earlier naturalism); cf., e.g., Collins, Language of God, 66–84. On an uncritical bias toward materialism in many traditional circles, see, e.g., Beauregard and O’Leary, Brain, 93–94; cf. Peat, “Science.”

Charlesworth, “Resurrection,” 170. If one avers the existence of an ultimate creator and/or infinite being, that being would not be subject to natural “law” and could constitute a far “freer” agent of intelligent causation than are humans.

Meyer, “Scientific Status,” 167; cf. Colwell, “Defining Away” (among sources that Meyer notes).

Cf. also Blomberg, Gospels, 106; for the analogy between human and divine intelligent causation, see also Hesse, “Miracles,” 41–42.

See further, e.g., Polkinghorne, Belief; idem, Faith; idem, Quarks. The biblical tradition and science both affirm the natural order, but whereas science analyzes its data, theistic perspectives explore what can be inferred from the data about nature’s Creator (McGrath, Dialogue, 208–9; idem, Science and Religion, 53–54).

E.g., Ehrman, Prophet, 193; Price, Son of Man, 19–20, 131 (appealing, he claims, not to metaphysical presuppositions but to the argument from analogy).

Ehrman, Prophet, 196–97, notes that many historians, as people of faith, believe that miracles did happen but they at these times speak “not in the capacity of the historian, but in the capacity of the believer.” Yet one wonders if the methodology is neutral if historians as historians must be committed to atheistic/deistic presuppositions even if evidence suggests stronger alternative explanations.

Thus even some thinkers who do not rule out the possibility of divine intervention exclude such events from “history” by using a definition of “history” that excludes the supernatural (e.g., Meier, “Reflections,” 106). Although such a difference is a matter of definition and hence ultimately semantic, abuse of the definition risks reinforcing a traditional Enlightenment philosophy of history that is open to challenge, since some have used the narrow definition as license for excluding an event not only from their methodological purview but, by simple definition rather than argument, from possibility as a genuine event.

Habermas, Evidence, 25; challenging the neutrality of secular bias in some historiographic approaches, see Gregory, “Secular Bias.” This approach would offset the force of the argument in Ehrman, Prophet, 193, that history concerns only “events that are accessible to observers of every kind.” Still, Ehrman is right in that because miracles are irregular events, we do not take miracle reports simply at face value, without some evidence.

Habermas, Evidence, 25.

Ehrman, Prophet, 195; Wright, Resurrection, 685; cf. Tucker, Knowledge, 240–53; further, Popper, Historicism.

Whately, Doubts, cited in Brown, Miracles, 146–47; Blomberg, Gospels, 110.

Ehrman, Prophet, 196. Ehrman contends that no matter how credible the witnesses are, their credibility is less probable than our knowledge that miracles do not happen. Yet such “knowledge” is hardly universally conceded and is, in fact, the point under debate.

So also Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310; Wink, “Write,” 6.

See, e.g., Jenkins, Next Christendom, 107, 122–31; De Wet, “Signs”; Lambert, Millions, 109–20; Khai, “Pentecostalism,” 268–70; Grazier, Power Beyond; Gardner, Healing Miracles; idem, “Miracles”; Harris, Acts Today; Rumph, Signs; Chavda, Miracle; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 67–73, 82–83; cf. Berger, Rumor, 1–34.

Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:519–20; cf. also Wink, “Stories,” 213; Polkinghorne, Belief. See, for further arguments for the possibility of concrete divine activity in history, the essays in Geivett and Habermas, Miracles.

A majority of philosophers of religion addressing theism today in fact argue for it (so Smith, “Metaphilosophy,” 197; Smith is not a theist himself).

Craig, “Miracles,” 43, concluding his discussion in the study. Cf. Boyd, Sage, 113–28; Wink, “Stories,” 211 (regarding “materialism”); on the dominance of theistic rather than atheistic approaches today in philosophy of religion, see Smith, “Metaphilosophy,” 197 (not himself a theist, as noted above).

Goppelt, Theology, 1:145.

France, “Authenticity,” 105–7.

Borg, Vision, 33–34.

Ibid., 34.

Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 216.

Strelan, Strange Acts, 9.

E.g., Reimer, Miracle, x.

Schweizer, Parable, 44. For a variety of non-Christian paranormal claims, see the sources cited in my Miracles, 205, 242–49.

Though most Christians would also deny that the sphere of God’s love and activity is limited to Christians, probably most would also regard the above feat as exhibitionistic rather than as a demonstration of divine love.

Bultmann, “Mythology,” 4 (noting [5–6] that modern beings presuppose all as coming from ourselves, not from alien powers, even deity, and forcing a choice [9] between accepting and rejecting the entire NT worldview). Bultmann allows that God acts existentially in ways communicated by mythical language (32; idem, “Demythologizing,” 110), but uses the presence of miracles as a criterion of inauthenticity in Jewish texts (idem, Tradition, 58); he denies that the historical continuum may be “interrupted” by supernatural interventions (e.g., idem, “Exegesis,” 147; cf. “Demythologizing,” 122; Perrin, Bultmann, 86; Thiselton, Horizons, 292) and affirms as “myth” whatever involves supernatural forces (Bultmann, “Demythologizing,” 95; cf. “Mythology,” 9; Perrin, Bultmann, 77; Poland, Criticism, 11). Although now arguing against the dominant culture, cf. similarly the antisupernaturalism of Mack, Myth, 51, 54, 76, 209–15.

Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:11, 520–21; see also Woodward, Miracles, 21; Johnson and Butzen, “Prayer,” 249; cf. Matthews, Faith Factor, 4. Pilch suggests that 90 percent of the world today accepts both “ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality,” the latter including God and spirits (Visions, 17). Indeed, complementary use of spiritual therapies is fairly common even in more secular regions (Molassiotis et al., “Medicine”).

See, e.g., Abogunrin, “Search”; Mbiti, Religions, 253–57; Hollenweger, Pentecostals, 129; Nanan, “Sorcerer”; Ashe, Miracles, 26–27; McClymond, Stranger, 82–83 (citing the views of “billions of people,” probably without exaggeration). The kinds of questions one asks about miracles also vary in different cultural contexts (e.g., Arowele, “Signs”).

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals” (October 5, 2006), n.p. Online: http://pewforum.org/surveys/Pentecostal; accessed Jan. 4, 2009 (including over a third of noncharismatics). A Pew Forum survey suggests that 34 percent of Americans claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing; see also the June 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 11, at http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report2–religious-landscape-study-full.pdf; accessed Dec. 2, 2008.

For a critique of Bultmann’s demythologization program and its theological consequences, see Bockmuehl, Theology, 9–76, esp. 70–74.

E.g., the greatest influence on his thought is the early Heidegger (Perrin, Bultmann, 15; Hasel, New Testament Theology, 85), whom Bultmann thought discovered a picture according with what Bultmann found in the NT (“Mythology,” 23–25; Thiselton, Horizons, 178–79, 226, 232, 262). Bultmann saw existential understanding not as a bias but a necessary perspective, like any other approach to history (“Exegesis,” 149; cf., e.g., idem, Word, 11). Old liberalism (despite Bultmann, “Mythology,” 12–13; Poland, Criticism, 26–27, 29) also influenced him; for influences from earlier NT scholarship and his approach to miracles as “mythology,” see Twelftree, Miracle Worker, 33–37.

See Thiselton, Horizons, 260–61.

We need working assumptions, but they must be open to revision on the basis of evidence, not calcified in academic traditions. Paradigm shifts do not come easily (Kuhn, Structure); when investigators approach topics, even they tend to be laden with traditional assumptions (and concerns for respectability within the guild; cf. Yancey, Compromising, 59, 64, 66, 98–101, 116–19, 142, 153–54, 173).

For one objective anthropological investigation that takes a similarly morally neutral approach, see, e.g., Goodman, Demons.

Indeed, historians have documented the early twentieth-century power struggle in which the ultimately dominant side deliberately promoted antireligious agendas in U.S. academia (see, e.g., Smith, “Secularizing Education,” 103, 152–53), in some cases funded by some of the robber barons (Marsden, Soul of University, 279–84, 332–33; Smith, “Rethinking Secularization,” 74–77) and ultimately leading to a climate of antireligious prejudice in many sectors of the academy (Marsden, Soul of University, 396, 429–30, 437–40).

Except to the extent that our working premise is open to the most plausible readings of the evidence. And even there we must be open to redefining our understanding of “plausibility” if sufficient evidence so demands.

Cf. Dibelius, Studies in Acts, 24, regarding as characteristic of “legend” “a miracle related in naïve style” (cf. 17–18, 20); also the sort of approach noted in Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition, 136–37.

Polybius opined that “as nothing written by mere students of books is written with experience or vividness, their works are of no practical utility to readers” (Polyb. 12.25g.2 [LCL]).

See Craffert, “Healer”; cf. Berends, “African Healing Practices,” 285–86; Borg, Conflict, 73, 230–31, 305, 373; Malina and Pilch, Acts, 211–13; idem, Letters, 366–68; also Eve, Miracles, 354 (following Kleinman, Healers, 71–82, 139–40, 366), though noting differences. Some compare prophetic healers in what they view as analogous colonial settings (cf., in detail, Davies, “Prophet/Healer”; idem, Healer). Though recognizing theological differences between the two, Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 24, note that Pentecostalism “resonates culturally” where shamanism is practiced and observe functional analogies between them.

Keener, Miracles, chs. 7–12; more concisely, see idem, “Case”; briefly, “Comparisons.” My volume on miracles originally grew from research for this chapter. It was written after this commentary but has been published before it. I have revised this chapter in light of it.

E.g., Peters, Healing in Nepal, 51–53, 61, 63, 65–68 (though cf. the shaman’s selective reservations, 73–74); Narayanan, “Shanti”; Winkelman and Carr, “Approach”; Arai, “Spirituality”; Crawford, “Healing,” 34–35; Finkler, “Religion,” 51 (and sources cited there); Grundmann, “Healing,” 27; Umeh, Dibia, 203–27; Turner, Experiencing Ritual, passim; idem, Hands; idem, Healers; idem, “Actuality”; Krippner and Achterberg, “Experiences”; Evans-Pritchard, Religion, 308; Firth, “Foreword,” xiii–xiv; cf. many essays in Barnes and Talamantez, Teaching; Rosny, Healers (though not focusing primarily on a supernatural element); Ashe, Miracles, 26–27 (attributing such phenomena to anything “Other,” not necessarily deities). The paranormal approach of Turner and others of similar persuasion has often received a respectful scholarly hearing (cf. Barnes, “Introduction,” 19–20; Strelan, Strange Acts, 51).

Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310–13; cf. Ashe, Miracles, 26–27.

Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310; cf. also Price, Son of Man, 20–21; Allison, Jesus, 23n94. Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310, employ the same analogy principle to discount nature miracles, which they think written in light of the resurrection (301–4; but then, so is everything in the Gospels!); contrast Allison, Jesus, 23n94. Yet this differentiation normally assumes antisupernaturalism (cf. Moule, “Classification,” 240), and as we have noted elsewhere, there are also many modern reports of “nature miracles” (again, whatever their explanation), though far fewer than healing and exorcism claims (e.g., Heim, Transformation, 195–98; Yung, “Integrity,” 174; McGee, “Miracles,” 253; Wigger, Saint, 193, on Asbury’s perspective; Kinnear, Tide, 92–96; Khai, “Pentecostalism,” 268; Dayhoff, “Barros”; Lindsay, Lake, 48–49; Harris, Acts Today, 66–67, 80; Bush and Pegues, Move, 54–55, 59, 64, 192; Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 223–24). Some people I know have offered me eyewitness reports, e.g., Dr. Emmanuel Itapson (Nigeria), April 29, 2008; Sandy Thomas (Congo), Aug. 26, 2008; Dr. Paul Mokake (Cameroon), May 13, 2009; Dr. Ayo Adewuya (Nigeria), Dec. 14, 2009.

Note here also Wink, “Write,” 6.

González, Acts, 84–85; cf. Martell-Otero, “Satos,” 31–32. Although González is speaking more broadly, some estimate that 28 percent of all Latino Christians in the United States identify with Pentecostal or (especially among Catholics) charismatic movements (Espinosa, “Contributions,” 124); naturally, these would be included among those agreeing with González’s statement.

Jenkins, Next Christendom, 107, who also complains that Westerners too often contest the legitimacy of such perspectives. Versus early missionaries, Africans embraced such ideas (e.g., Eshete, Movement, 89).

Mbiti, Religions, 253; cf. also Uzukwu, “Address,” 9; on the supernatural, Eya, “Healing,” 51–52. Another African scholar notes that miracle workers, both Christian and non-Christian, are an authentic part of African culture (Ukachukwu Manus, “Miracle-Workers”). Another writer with experience in Africa suggests that African culture offers better foundations for understanding such texts (Roschke, “Healing”).

Yung, Quest, 7, 230, 238–39; idem, “Integrity,” 173–75.

Baur, indeed, cited the presence of miracles against the genuineness of eyewitness claims in the narratives (as noted in Campbell, We Narratives, 9) purely on the philosophic assumption that miracles are implausible.

See, e.g., the critique in MacGaffey, “Epistemological Ethnocentrism” (cf. also idem, “Ideology”); Vansina, “Knowledge” (passim, but esp. 39–40); Chrétien, “Exchange,” 77.

MacGaffey, “Epistemological Ethnocentrism,” 43–45.

Hume, “Miracles,” 37. Hume’s language is consistent with his ethnocentrism elsewhere; see Ten, “Racism”; Taliaferro and Hendrickson, “Racism”; cf. also Keener, “Case.”

Unfortunately, sometimes these voices are still publicly filtered through Western academia, since only by accepting its implicit political rules can one gain a hearing.

Valuing culturally diverse voices need not constitute a blanket endorsement of all ideas frequently associated with postmodernity (which other cultural shifts will, in any case, likewise presumably supersede). For one discussion of the postmodern emphasis on difference and a post-postmodern response underlining human solidarity, see Min, Solidarity, 47–64 and 65–88, respectively; on postmodern theology, see, e.g., Vanhoozer, Postmodern Theology. Apart from specifically postmodern assumptions, other domains have long valued multicultural approaches (e.g., Taylor, Missiology).

See Pilch, “Sickness,” 183. As we have observed, one of Hume’s arguments against miracles was that most reports stemmed from “ignorant and barbarous nations” (“Miracles,” 36; also noted in Meier, “Signs,” 760); his ethnocentrism contributed to his further failure to critically evaluate the influence of his own culture in suppressing reports of such experiences.

Pilch, Healing, 35 (for medical anthropology in general, see 19–36; for application to Jesus research, see idem, “Anthropology”). We may not believe in being moonstruck or struck by the evil eye, but anthropologists recognize these as “folk-conceptualized disorders” (19). Social scientists note accounts of miracle cures in many cultures (McClenon, Events, 131); for some anthropological approaches to local healing traditions, see, e.g., Scherberger, “Shaman,” 59–64; McClenon and Nooney, “Experiences,” 46–48.

Remus, Healer, 114–15 (noting recent medical research, esp. Harpur, Touch). Western Christians have also sometimes collaborated with traditional healers (e.g., Seale, “Collaboration”; cf. Kyomo, “Healing,” 146–47), although they are generally more open to their more “naturalistic” methods (such as herbs) than to their competing supernatural approaches (Seale, “Collaboration,” 316–17).

Pilch, Visions, passim (see also the excursus on spirit possession at Acts 16:16). Pilch notes (158–59) that such phenomena have continued despite attempts of the Enlightenment to discredit the earlier experiences throughout history.

Critics sometimes address the Christian exorcists in late antiquity who, like other practitioners of their era, responded to the pervasive sense of demonization in that period. Others regard this as a form of culturally sensitive adaptation to local psychological needs (cf. observations concerning the continuity and discontinuity in Frankfurter, Religion in Egypt, 273–77; on this period, see also Lewis, Life, 98; for anthropological assessments of the therapeutic aspects of exorcisms, see the excursus on spirit possession at Acts 16:16). In either case, these claims are far more pervasive than those offered in Acts.

Jenkins, Next Christendom, 122–31; cf. also Richards, “Factors,” 95–96; Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 67–73, 82–83 (also noting, 71–73, the shift among [and citing] “many western ethnographers” and anthropologists who have grown increasingly respectful toward other cultures’ approaches to the supernatural).

Sanneh, Whose Religion?, 26.

If one goes beyond those who claim to have experienced or witnessed such phenomena to those who believe that they sometimes occur, the numbers are exorbitant. Pentecostal and charismatic Christians alone may constitute half a billion people (see, e.g., Sanneh, Disciples, 275; Cox, “Miracles,” 88; Noll, Shape, 22; higher, Johnson, Barrett, and Crossing, “Christianity 2010,” 36; Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102), though this may be a high estimate (for discussion of the figures, see Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11); with the majority of Christians, Muslims, and various other groups added, it is clear that antisupernaturalists are a minority of the world’s population. This observation does not make antisupernaturalism wrong, but it does make it arrogant to simply dismiss all other worldviews by claiming one’s assumption as self-evident.

Modernist antisupernaturalists can question the interpretation of such reports, but even in this case, they do not attempt to demonstrate the claim that genuine miracles do not happen. (I am raising here not so much an objection as an observation, since it is impossible to inductively prove a negative. But as noted above, the traditional antisupernaturalist deductive assumptions no longer fit many of our contemporary worldviews, including in the physical sciences.)

The fuller treatment of the philosophic issues involved, the claims, and the proposed explanations appears in Keener, Miracles (respectively chs. 4–6, 7–12, and 13–15).

As Wink, “Write,” 4, notes was once the case with himself.

For Pentecostalism in Africa and the African Diaspora, see Yong, Spirit Poured, 59–80; in Asia, 45–58; in Latin America, 33–45; cf. also Petersen, “Latin American Pentecostalism”; for the role of healing in Pentecostal missiology, see, e.g., Hodges, Indigenous Church, 50–51; York, Missions, 155. Pentecostalism has tended to adapt readily to address the supernatural interests of traditional Majority World societies (e.g., Martin, “Christianity,” 79). Its theology is hardly monolithic, but Pentecostal and charismatic beliefs are, by definition, incompatible with antisupernaturalism. Now the subject of studies by major university presses, movements grouped together by sociologists as Pentecostal-like may include more than half a billion people; see, e.g., Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102; Johnson, Barrett, and Crossing, “Christianity 2010,” 36; Sanneh, Disciples, 275. On its rapid growth, see also Tomkins, History, 220, 245; Berger, “Faces,” 425; Mullin, History, 211.

Of course, popular readings often lack the scholarly rigor of careful attention to literary and social context. Yet the insights of (or concerning) house-church believers regarding the dynamics of house churches, the insights of (or concerning) first-generation converts regarding the dynamics of conversion within non-Christian kin and other social networks, and so forth can allow for the more precise framing of questions that may not occur to readers with less analogous experiences.

Ashton, Religion, 174–75, 177, noting that MacMullen differs from most NT scholars here. Field, “Possession,” 10, has compared her observations of West African apostolic “Holy Spirit” sects with Acts.

MacMullen, Christianizing, 7; cf. also the comparisons with Kimbangu (and their limitations) noted in Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 155–57; Flusser, “Love,” 154.

Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 260, quoting an early document of the Kimbanguist Church.

See further Brockman, “Kimbangu”; Etienne, “Diangienda”; Rabey, “Prophet”; Jenkins, Next Christendom, 49–50; Cox, Fire, 252–53; Yates, Expansion, 173; Ndofunsu, “Prayer”; specifically on healings drawing attention in African Independent Churches (including Kimbanguism), see De Wet, “Signs,” 99–100. Kimbangu also influenced Daniel Ndoundou, a leader in the 1947 revival in Congo-Brazzaville (see Keener, “Ndoundou”).

MacMullen, Christianizing, 23–24. See further Shank, “Prophet”; Haliburton, Harris; Walker, “Harrist Church”; idem, Revolution; Isichei, “Soul of Fire”; Bediako, Christianity in Africa, 91–93, 103–4, 204; Barrington-Ward, “Spirit Possession,” 467; Jenkins, Next Christendom, 48–49; Robeck, Mission, 272; Yates, Expansion, 170; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 20, 31, 36–38; Noll and Nystrom, Clouds, 65–79 (esp. 74–75).

Sanneh, West African Christianity, 181–83; Yates, Expansion, 170, 172; Brockman, “Braide”; Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, History, 223–26; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 31, 36, 38–39. Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 31, suggests that such indigenous African prophetic movements prefigured the contemporary Pentecostal emphasis in African Christianity.

McClymond, Stranger, 83 (following Jong, Rasputin, 136–42). Noting his effects in history is not to equate him with Kimbangu; many viewed the mystic Rasputin as unscrupulous and contributing to his royal benefactors’ decline.

Eve, Miracles, 357–59 (following Romano, “Folk-Healing”), arguing that he achieved this status especially by claiming divine authorization, offering unique cures, and (fitting cultural expectations for such healers) renouncing himself. Eve, Miracles, 360, 379, compares aspects of Jesus’s ministry.

Ashton, Religion, 32–40 (including in his discussion also the sixth-century ascetic Theodore of Sykeon, 34–36). For shaman analogies, cf. also, e.g., Klutz, Exorcism Stories, 196–97; Craffert, “Healer.” For other comparisons (and especially contrasts) of shamans with ancient Mediterranean seers, see Brown, Israel and Greece, 81–117.

Most non-Western worldviews accept a variety of suprahuman phenomena (e.g., Wright, Process, 74–114, esp. 85–88, 95–98; Turner, Experiencing Ritual, passim). Others have tried to explain NT miracles by analogy to “paranormal” telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition (Montefiore, Miracles); although the differences, again, are significant (NT accounts suggest divine dependence rather than innate abilities), the analogy represents another attempt to go beyond typical Western assumptions.

With Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 67–73; cf. again Keener, John, 266–67; note also presentations by African scholars, e.g., Chinwokwu, “Localizing.”

Green, Thirty Years, 104. Green offers his eyewitness accounts of healings in southeast Asia in Green, Asian Tigers, 8 (cf. also other accounts in 9, 56, 90, 97–100, 104, 110). Green, an Anglican, has also been adviser in evangelism to the archbishops of Canterbury and York.

E.g., Pettis, “Fourth Pentecost,” 252–53; Green, Thirty Years, 9–10.

Keener, Miracles, chs. 7–9, 12. Although MacMullen’s primary focus is a period subsequent to Acts, others also have regarded his portrayal of popular Christian expansion as appropriate, in this sense, to Acts (Alexander, Context, 203–4).

Moreland, Triangle, 166–67, cites sources regarding a dramatic growth of “evangelical” Christianity around the world (possibly even a 1,000 percent increase in three decades), up to 70 percent of it “intimately connected to signs and wonders.” Already before those three decades, Christiaan De Wet, writing a thesis on “signs” involved in church growth around the world, surveyed more than 350 theses representing most of the world and interviewed countless missionaries. He complained, “My research has turned up so much material on signs and wonders that are happening and churches that are growing, that it is impossible to use all of it” (“Signs,” 92).

Johnson, Barrett, and Crossing, “Christianity 2010,” 36, estimate 614 million; see further Johnson and Ross, Atlas, 102; more cautiously, Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11. See also Jenkins, Next Christendom, 122–31; various essays in Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen, Globalization of Pentecostalism, including Klaus, “Global Culture”; Robeck, “Charismatic Movements,” 150–54.

Mullin, History, 211; cf. similarly Noll, Shape, 32.

Some Western observers note with understandable concern the proliferation of “health and wealth” teaching in Africa (though definitions vary; cf. Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 255–63), and so I pause here to note the denominational and theological diversity of my examples, most of which are not associated with that teaching (cf. discussion of other more socially engaged streams of Pentecostalism in Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism). The link between healing and prosperity was not part of early Pentecostalism, emerging only “well into the twentieth century” (Curtis, Faith, 206).

See, e.g., Abogunrin, “Search”; Mbiti, Religions, 253–57. Many African indigenous Christian movements “expected to experience miracles in everyday life” (Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 98). For the relevance of miraculous power in Africa, see also Gräbe, “Discovery.”

Cf. some claims in, e.g., Mensah, “Basis,” 177–79; Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 329; Stinton, Jesus of Africa, 65–71; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 96; Ranger, “Dilemma,” 352–53. De Wet also cites a number of sources for Africa; in one African Catholic church, see Jenkins, New Faces, 118–19. For a range of African healing claims, see (especially for the twentieth century), e.g., Akinwumi, “Babalola”; idem, “Idahosa”; Brockman, “Kimbangu”; idem, “Kivuli”; Dayhoff, “Marais”; Etienne, “Diangienda”; Fuller, “Tsado”; Hexham, “Shembe”; Keener, “Ndoundou”; Larbi, “Anim”; Lygunda li-M, “Pelendo”; Manana, “Kitonga”; idem, “Ndaruhutse”; Menberu, “Mekonnen Negera”; Millard, “Duma”; Nsenga, “Fuisa”; Odili, “Osaele”; idem, “Agents”; Akinwumi, “Orimolade” (not suggesting that all the oral traditions are authentic); idem, “Oschoffa”; Buys and Nambala, “Hambuindja”; idem, “Kanambunga”; Baker and Baker, Miracles, 7–8, 39, 43, 57, 78, 108, 114, 137, 152, 163, 170, 172, 180, 183, 192–93; idem, Enough, 65, 76, 157, 169, 171–73; Chevreau, Turnings, 142.

See Rivera-Pagán, “Transformation,” 193–95.

E.g., Castleberry, “Impact,” 112–13, 143; for other healing claims in Latin America, see, e.g., Petersen, Might, 100–101; Lehmann, Struggle, 197; Sánchez Walsh, Identity, 43–44; Norwood, “Colloquium,” 24–26; earlier, De Wet follows about fifteen major sources for Latin America.

Catholic miracle claims would also be numerous (e.g., Rivera-Pagán, “Transformation,” 193–94; cf. Durand and Massey, Miracles, 45–66; MacNutt, Healing, 26–27); unlike some Protestants (reacting against what they considered Catholic excesses), Catholic and Orthodox theology never adopted a “cessationist” stance (e.g., Mullin, Miracles, 133; Kselman, Miracles, 197).

Marostica, “Learning”; McGee, “Radical Strategy,” 89–90; Read, Monterroso, and Johnson, Growth, 323; Castleberry, “Impact,” 106–8, 112, 151, 166–68; on signs and church growth in Latin America, see further De Wet, “Signs,” 100–108.

Chiquete, “Healing,” 480–81. He notes (481) that many of those who are not healed also join these churches because of the churches’ care and concern for their wholeness.

De Wet, “Signs,” 103–4 (following Larson, “Migration,” 312).

See Chesnut, “Exorcising” (for particular accounts, see, e.g., idem, Born Again in Brazil, 81–82).

Bomann, Faith in Barrios, 62 (for particular accounts, see, e.g., 62–63).

Castleberry, “Impact,” 166.

E.g., Yung, “Integrity,” 173–75; Khai, “Pentecostalism,” 268–70 (in Myanmar); Wiyono, “Timor Revival,” 277, 288; Williams, “Answer,” 114–16; Filson, “Study,” 150–51, 154; Knapstad, “Power,” 78; De Wet, “Signs,” 108–23; Daniel, “Labour,” 160; Ma, “Encounter,” 135–37; idem, “Vanderbout,” 130–32; Kim, “Influence,” 30–31; Kwon, “Foundations,” 187, 227–32; Bush and Pegues, Move, 62–64.

Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 152; see also Bergunder, Movement, 163–65, 232–33; idem, “Healing,” 109–11; further examples in Devadason, “Missionary Societies,” 189; Bergunder, Movement, 152.

De Wet, “Signs,” 110–11 (following Cunville, “Evangelization,” 156–57).

E.g., Thollander, Mathews, 84, 87–90; cf. other signs, 3, 125, 128–30; beyond Rajasthan, see Pothen, “Missions,” 189–90. I know personally Thomas Mathews’s son-in-law, Finny Philip, an Indian NT scholar who affirms the veracity of Thollander’s book.

McGee, “Revivals in India” (esp. on 1860–ca. 1881 and 1905–7); Satyavrata, “Perspectives,” 205 (on 1860); Burgess, “Pandita Ramabai,” 194–95; George, “Beginnings,” 235.

Ma, “Manifestations.”

De Wet, “Signs,” 119–21; cf. a significant Filipino example in Jenkins, New Faces, 114.

See, e.g., Kim, “Influence”; Shaw, Awakening, 44–46; Kim, “Re-enchanted,” 273–74. German theologian Jürgen Moltmann shares his own experience with Korean healing ministry in Place, 351.

E.g., Oblau, “Christianity in China,” 414, 421; Währisch-Oblau, “Healthy,” 89, 93–94, 97; Zhaoming, “Chinese Denominations,” 450–51; Jenkins, New Faces, 114; Yamamori and Chan, Witnesses, 10–11, 37, 42–48, 59–60, 70; Lambert, Millions, 109, 113–18; Wesley, Stories, 37, 84–85, 133; idem, Church, 42, 47, 53.

Tang, “Healers,” 481. Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 151–52, note that the government expects Three Self pastors to downplay healing; although they may pray for it, they normally do not openly claim success. I cite more reports from house-church circles because more are readily available, but most accounts from either group of churches are not possible for me to verify (or falsify).

Tang, “Healers,” 481, noting that “this is especially true in the countryside,” where medical treatment is less available.

Währisch-Oblau, “Healthy,” 87 (from the official China Christian Council).

Lambert, Millions, 112, 117.

Zhaoming, “Chinese Denominations,” 440; for one specific example, see, e.g., Lambert, Millions, 112.

For healing claims, see, e.g., Sung, Diaries, 2, 4, 23, 27, 28, 32, 36, 40–41, 43–44, 48–49, 52, 56, 61, 74, 76, 87, 91, 93–94, 99, 104, 106, 109, 111, 116, 121, 134, 135, 140, 145, 152, 153, 155, 158, 161, 162. He was not associated with Western missionaries. Cf. Noll and Nystrom, Clouds, 214–29 (esp. 224–25).

Keener, Miracles, ch. 10.

See, e.g., Mullin, Miracles; Porterfield, Healing; Opp, Lord for Body; Curtis, Faith.

Successive centuries of Christians continued to report miracles (see, e.g., Irvin and Sunquist, Earliest Christianity, 145–47; McGee, “Strategy,” 50–52; idem, “Miracles and Mission,” 146–48; through history, Gardner, Healing Miracles, 67–92). In contrast to my work in ancient Jewish and pagan sources, I depend mainly on secondary sources to survey patristic and later Christian opinion, yet the survey should at least prove sufficient to underline the central point I am arguing.

Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:62–65, cite various eyewitness claims through history and today and contend that such claims cannot be dismissed as merely “antique naïveté.”

Christians healed in the name of Yeshu (t. Ḥul. 2:22–23; see also Urbach, Sages, 1:116; Herford, Christianity, 103–11; Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 40; Pritz, Nazarene Christianity, 96–97), though the rabbis often associated Christians’ powers with magic or fakery (e.g., y. ʿAbod. Zar. 2:2, §3; Urbach, Sages, 1:115–16; Herford, Christianity, 115–17; Lachs, Commentary, 178; cf. Deut 13:1–5). In some apocryphal stories, holy rabbis destroyed miracle-working Christians with greater magic (see Herford, Christianity, 112–15).

MacMullen, Christianizing, 40–41, 60–61. Cf. also Brown, Late Antiquity, 55, as cited in Jenkins, Next Christendom; “Miracles, Miracle-workers,” 54.

MacMullen, Christianizing, 61–62. On the patristic church’s ministry in healings and exorcisms and on its growth thereby, cf. also Burgess, “Proclaiming”; MacNutt, Crime, 82–88; Cho, “Foundation,” 31–35. Even in Justin Dial. 35.8, signs perform an authenticating function. Culture apparently influenced, to a degree, the form taken by such signs (as also more recently; see, e.g., McGee, “Miracles and Mission”). Miracle reports grew from the mid-third century, in conjunction with saint veneration (“Miracles, Miracle-workers,” 54; cf. analogous pagan hero veneration in the same period).

Kelsey, Healing, 136; further on Origen, see Woolley, Exorcism, 20–23. Kelsey notes (Healing, 137–38) that Origen added “that there were many instances he could set down from his own experience” (Cels. 1.46).

MacMullen, Christianizing, 112. On illness and healing in Athanasius, see Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 167–96.

The modern theological argument that excludes all postbiblical miracles (while accepting biblical ones; often for anti-Catholic reasons) rests on theological a prioris and philosophic inconsistency (see Ruthven, Cessation, 83–92; cf. 35–40, 64–71; cf. Jaki, Miracles and Physics, 38). The principle of historical uniformity shattered cessationism’s historically arbitrary barrier between biblical and postbiblical miracles, each evaluated by different rules (and facilitating Hume’s polemic against modern miracles): now people usually denied both or accepted both (Mullin, Miracles, 30; Lawton, Miracles, 58).

Woolley, Exorcism, 13–25 (here esp. 13); see evidence arranged topically in Frost, Healing, 71–110; Kelsey, Healing, 149 (citing Quadratus Apology frg.; Justin 2 Apol. 6; Dial. 30, 39, 76, 85; Theoph. 1.13; 2.8; Tert. Scap. 4; Test. an. 3; Spec. 26, 29; Apol. 23, 27; The Soul 57; Tatian Or. Gks. 17–18, 20). Kelsey, Healing, 135–99, addresses claims of healing in the early Fathers; on related matters, see Kydd, Gifts. More briefly, De Wet, “Signs,” 62–70, addresses sources in the period 100–400 C.E.; also Wimber, Power Evangelism, 157–65; bibliography in Ruthven, Cessation, 18–19; more generally, Porterfield, Healing, 43–65.

Kelsey, Healing, 136–37; on Cyprian’s healing reports, further see 151. Cf. also Min. Fel. Oct. 27.

Kelsey, Healing, 150–51 (citing Iren. Her. 2.6.2; 2.10.4; 2.31.2; 2.32.4–5; 3.5.2); cf. also Woolley, Exorcism, 14–15; much more fully, Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 89–135 (on possession and exorcism in Irenaeus, see 137–65). Apost. Const. 8.16 contains prayers that presbyters be filled with both healing and teaching gifts (Dawson, Healing, 147).

Godron, “Healings,” 1212–13. From fourth-century letters, see Barrett-Lennard, Healing, 44–86.

Houston, Miracles, 9; Kelsey, Healing, 185 (citing Aug. Retract. 1.13.7 [PL 32:604–5]; On the Advantage of Believing 16.34; Conf. 9.7.16). On healing through relics (perhaps as points of contact for faith), see, e.g., Gardner, Healing Miracles, 78–81 (others find these more theologically problematic; e.g., Saucy, “View,” 116; but cf. Bulgakov, Relics, 1–40; Deere, Power of Spirit, 74); cf. Bentley, Relics, 65–66; already in Scripture, unusual means of healing appear (cf. 2 Kgs 13:21; Acts 19:11–12). On the expectation of gifts, including prophecy and tongues, during confirmation and other initiation rites, see McDonnell and Montague, Initiation, 314.

Aug. City 22.8 (Bettenson, 1043). Kelsey, Healing, 185; Ruthven, Cessation, 30; cf. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 136.

Kelsey, Healing, 185; Ruthven, Cessation, 30; cf. Gardner, Healing Miracles, 136; MacMullen, Second Church, 65; Herum, “Theology”; for a translation, see Bettenson and Knowles, City of God, 1043. In City 22.8 he claims to have been an eyewitness to some of these supernatural healings.

Kelsey, Healing, 186–88; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 135–37; earlier, see Murray, Gordon, and Simpson, Healing, 174–76.

See, e.g., Ruthven, Cessation, 35–40, 71; cf. MacNutt, Crime, 145–52; Noll, History, 166. I highlight below some claims in Protestant circles because it was Protestants who often denied continuing miracles; for abundant Catholic claims (often with accompanying documentation), see, e.g., the scholarly study of Duffin, Miracles.

Rose, Faith Healing, 41–42; Robertson, “Epidauros to Lourdes,” 187–88; he was “rediscovered” by late nineteenth-century healing advocates (Mullin, Miracles, 284n30).

Rack, “Healing,” 145–50; Wesley, Journal, May 10, 1741; Dec. 25, 1742; Sept. 22 and Oct. 3, 1756; Tomkins, Wesley, 60, 72, 98, 106; Kelsey, Healing, 235; cf. Mullin, Miracles, 89. For the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, see also Kidd, “Healing” (esp. 162).

Mullin, Miracles, 89; Kydd, Healing, 142–53; Curtis, “Character,” 31–32; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 17–19.

See extensive eyewitness accounts in Ising, Blumhardt. Karl Barth criticized Bultmann for uncritically rejecting Blumhardt’s stories (Kelsey, Healing, 236–37), describing Blumhardt as one of his mentors (Barth, Letters, 251); some other German theologians also cite Blumhardt’s influence favorably (Moltmann, “Blessing,” 149; Heim, Transformation, 173–74). For the nineteenth-century healing movement generally, see Alexander, Healing, 8–63.

See Chappell, “Healing Movement,” 1–80 (esp. 58–86), 192–283; Hardesty, Faith Cure, 27–50; Alexander, Healing, 18–23; Curtis, Faith, 1–12, 64–65, 96–97; idem, “Lord for Body”; idem, “Houses of Healing”; Opp, Lord for Body, 46–47; cf. further Brown, “Tent Meetings”; Baer, “Bodies”; McGee, “Radical Strategy,” 74, 90–91.

For a Ghanaian respected for healing powers who lived 1834–1917, see Jenkins, “Reindorf”; Nigerian Anglican minister Emmanuel Moses Lijadu was associated with healings, especially during the 1895 influenza epidemic in Nigeria (Kalu, “Lijadu”).

Some examples below are not restricted to the West (such as Hickson’s global activities), but most originate in the West.

See esp. Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 74–78, and the numerous sources they cite; besides many examples below, see also Shaub, “Analysis,” 118–19.

Berger, Rumor, 1–34. Religion itself has flourished despite earlier secular predictions (Cladis, “Modernity”; Butler, “Theory,” 54, 60–61; Haught, Atheism, 58–59; Ammerman, “Sociology,” 76–77).

Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 75 (emphasis theirs); see examples of miracle claims in Wilson, “Miracle Events”; most doctors affirm miracles (“Science or Miracle”).

Cf. Hardesty, Faith Cure, 142–44; Cox, “Foreword,” xix; Storms, Convergence, 29.

Some scholars contend that in the Western world today, dependence on legitimate medical means of recovery (which all should affirm as beneficial) has rendered us less apt to depend on the divine or supernatural intervention that many other peoples see as their only access to recovery (Winckley, “Healing,” 178–79). Chevreau, Turnings, 16–17, emphasizes that around the world, miracles are far more common among the poor; this observation would certainly fit Lukan theology (cf. Luke 4:18–19).

Moreover, earlier studies of vernacular health beliefs tended to focus on “marginal” nonconventional populations whereas “the enormous extent of recourse to vernacular healing strategies among educated, thoroughly acculturated, ‘mainstream’ groups has only recently begun to be recognized” (O’Connor, Healing Traditions, 18, and the numerous studies cited there).

I refer here to healings and exorcisms. Paul was highly educated, and we may approach him in connection with the intellectual milieu of his day; as historians or those with literary interests, many of us can identify also with Luke.

See, e.g., Warner, Evangelist, passim (e.g., 160–61, 180–81); McGee, People of Spirit, 83, 138, 198–99, 206, 243, 266, 275, 337–38, 358; MacNutt, Crime, 185–97; for a popular survey of twentieth-century healing claims, see Wimber, Power Evangelism, 175–85. In my own research in Keener, Miracles, chs. 7–12, I place greater trust in individuals’ testimonies after their cure than in spontaneous claims in public healing meetings, but I mention evangelists partly because of the availability of published sources.

Gusmer, Healing, 13; Rose, Faith Healing, 105; Maddocks, Ministry, 101–2; Kerin, Touch, 12–15, 28–40.

See Hickson, Heal, passim (reproducing letters especially from Anglican bishops and clergy who witnessed the healings), e.g., 29, 65–66, 74–76, 87–88, 118, 121, 123, 124, 128, 129, 130, 134, 135, 141, 151, 152–53, 159, 162, 183, 191, 196, 212–13, 218, 220, 226; see further comment at Acts 9:18, 34. Local newspapers in South Africa followed up and confirmed a number of the cures in 1922 (122–23, 129–30, 134–35). Cf. more diverse opinions in Mews, “Revival,” 299, 303–5, 312–19, 322–23, 328–31.

See, e.g., Opp, Lord for Body, 157–59, 193; Blumhofer, Sister, 83, 160–61, 171–74, 213; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 98–101; McGee, People of Spirit, 83, 138, 198–99, 206, 243, 266, 275, 337–38, 358; cf. Reyes, “Framework,” 67–90. On John G. Lake, see his popular biography, Lindsay, Lake, though others have cited “exaggerations” (noted in Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 55); the reports of T. L. and Daisy Osborn run to more than twenty volumes (Osborn and Osborn, Evangelism, passim).

Braden, “Study,” 225–31; cf. also Oursler, Power, 129–32.

See “Miracle Woman,” 62.

See Casdorph, Miracles, passim (e.g., 25–33); Warner, Kuhlman, 132–34; Buckingham, Daughter, 185–89, 229–31. On the other side, see Nolen, Healing, 41–102 (esp. 99), though note responses in Buckingham, Daughter, 211–12; esp. Casdorph, Miracles.

See, e.g., the sociological analysis of Lewis, Healing (first brought to my attention by Prof. Peter Davids); regarding the same circles, see, e.g., Best, Supernatural, 29, 56, 77–78, 79, 88, 94–95, 101n7, 108, 124, 125, 126, 127–28, 129; Jackson, Quest, 13, 50, 59, 100, 116–17. For medical documentation, see recently Brown, Mory, Williams, and McClymond, “Effects.” A significant proportion (more than a quarter) of my own colleagues at Palmer Seminary reported experiences of healing, either their own or of those close to them; in addition to those noted in Keener, Miracles, 324, 327, 351, 440–41, 444–45 (including an apparent raising), 594, 746, I received a surprising account from my dean, Christopher Hall, about a dying friend healed after two minutes of prayer in Colombia (shared with the author, May 10, 2011). I focus on reports fairly close to me in 751–56 (evaluating the statistical unlikelihood of mere coincidence in 757–59). Other reports have come to me after that book (e.g., Manohar James, Sept. 4, 2011, Nicholasville, Kentucky; Vincent, “Sociology”; Brandon Walker, Dec. 9, 2011; Lee Schnabel, Dec. 15, 2011; Alice Kirsch, April 11–13, 2012).

See, e.g., Warner, “Still Healed”; idem, “Living by Faith,” 3; Grazier, Power Beyond (esp. 95–97, 125–27); Shaub, “Analysis,” 118; Bush and Pegues, Move, passim (e.g., 51–52, 61); Neal, Smoke, 21–28; Reed, “Case History,” esp. 39, 43; Harris, Acts Today, passim; Rumph, Signs, passim (e.g., 173–81); Pullinger, Dragon, 73, 123, 142, 171, 201–2, 230 (Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 99–105, came to unexpectedly favorable conclusions about Pullinger’s activity); Chavda, Miracle, passim; MacNutt, Healing, passim (e.g., 35–36); Wimber, Power Evangelism, 63; idem, Healing, 131–32, 201; Wagner, Acts, 475–76; O’Connor, Movement, 162–63; Storms, Convergence, 49; idem, “View,” 213; Deere, Power of Spirit, 31, 127–28, 145–46; Chevreau, Turnings, 35–36, 105–6, 142–44, 166–67, 181–82, 214; Wilkerson, Beyond, 139, 149–51. The official Assemblies of God archives website (http://www.ifphc.org) affords access to more than 200,000 pages of Pentecostal periodicals; a search for the word “healing” generated 7,309 sources (information courtesy of Darrin Rodgers).

One wider academic collection that is taking note of a number of miracle claims in Africa (where relevant to the subjects) is the Dictionary of African Christian Biography (DACB), produced by Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven (e.g., Negash, “Demelash”; further examples above).

Cf. Southall, “Possession,” 232 (on anthropological studies of spirit possession); Ashe, Miracles, 165, 178–79. Wink, “Stories,” 212, complains that “materialists” dismiss as “anecdotal” all supramaterial healing claims “however well documented.”

Gardner, Healing Miracles, passim (e.g., 20–21, 31–35, 202–5); idem, “Miracles.” For other physicians’ claims, see, e.g., White, “Lady,” 72–75, 79–84; Stegeman, “Faith”; Glew, “Experience,” 81–83; physician-evaluated cases in, e.g., Heron, Channels; note especially Lourdes (see discussion in Marnham, Lourdes; Cranston, Miracle; treated briefly in, e.g., Nichols, “Miracles,” 706–8) and other investigations approved by the Catholic Church (see Duffin, Miracles). Some individuals have also provided me medical documentation for healing reports (e.g., Michael McClymond, Jan. 5, 2011).

See esp. Brown, Global Healing.

E.g., Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 151–52; Ma, “Encounter,” 137; Jenkins, New Faces, 114; De Wet, “Signs,” 110–11; Khai, “Pentecostalism,” 270; Zhaoming, “Chinese Denominations,” 451; Kim, “Pentecostalism,” 32; Sánchez Walsh, Identity, 43–44; Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil, 86; Gardner, Healing Miracles, 138–40; Crandall, Raising, 1–5 (and interviews by author, May 28, 30, 2010); Bush and Pegues, Move, 52, 57–60; Harris, Acts Today, 98–99, 101–3; Chevreau, Turnings, 53–56; Baker and Baker, Enough, 74–76; idem, Miracles, 89, 169; Anderson, Pelendo, 69–70; Antoinette Malombe, interview by author, Dolisie, Congo, July 12, 2008; Jeanne Mabiala, interview by author, Brazzaville, Congo, July 29, 2008; Elaine Panelo, interview by author, Baguio, Philippines, January 30, 2009; Iris Lilia Fonseca Valdés (Aug. 11, 2010); Yusuf Herman, interviews by author, July 10; Aug. 7, 2011 (including a follow-up phone interview with Dominggus Kenjam, translated by Yusuf, Aug. 7, 2011); see, further, comment on Acts 9:40. Some claims concern even those dead for two days or more (Bush and Pegues, Move, 118–19; Chevreau, Turnings, 54–56; Wilkerson, Beyond, 81; cf. Tari, Wind, 76–78; Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 152).

Rumph, Signs, 119–24; cf. healing of the functions of a severed spinal cord, attested by Dr. Douglass Norwood, interview by author, Philadelphia, June 6, 2006.

E.g., Williams, Signs, 140–41; Moreland and Issler, Faith, 136; cf. Casdorph, Miracles, 30–32; Jackson, Quest, 256; Lambert, Millions, 115–16.

Rumph, Signs, 110–11; cf. analogous extraordinary reports in Hickson, Heal, 85, 218; Moreland, Triangle, 169; over the course of several days, a disabled leg measurably growing several inches in MacNutt, Power, 51–54.

E.g., Ma, Mission, 65–66; Sung, Diaries, 58; my interview with Gebru Woldu (May 20, 2010); personal correspondence from Bruce Kinabrew (June 24, 2008); Dwight Palmquist (Feb. 2, 2009); cf. Ma, “Encounter,” 136. Overnight, see Ma, “Vanderbout,” 130.

E.g., Kim, “Prominent Woman,” 205; Brown, “Awakenings,” 363; Llewellyn, “Events,” 256–57; Sithole, Voice, 58; author’s interviews with Bill Twyman (Nov. 11, 2007); Eleanor Sebiano (Jan. 29, 2009); Iris Lilia Fonseca Valdés (Aug. 11, 2010); earlier, Duffin, Miracles, 37.

Gardner, Healing Miracles, 25–27 (note the healing of lung scarring); a malformed epiglottis in Rumph, Signs, 49–52.

Certainly, the biblical apostles did not “specialize” in healing, but in the theology of Acts, the signs that God performed through them were meant to confirm the Lord they proclaimed.

On a different point (orality, literacy, and colonialism), cf. Draper, “Orality,” 2: “The study of ancient cultures in the light of cognate contemporary cultures provides a useful yardstick against which to judge claims about what might have happened in antiquity.”

Borg, “Disagreement,” 232 (rejecting the uniqueness of Jesus or the first apostles); cf. similarly Price, Son of Man, 19–21, 131; Ehrman, Prophet, 196; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 310.

See also Keener, Miracles, ch. 12.

Jos. Ant. 20.167–68; Robertson, “Epidauros to Lourdes,” 188. Also cf. the comparison of faith-healing quacks and medical quacks in Frye, “Faith Healing,” 16–17; some non-Christian practitioners (Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 147).

See Jenkins, New Faces, 122–23. Dr. Candy Gunther Brown offers psychological reasons that people tend to extrapolate from isolated cases of fraud to generalize about cure claims in general (personal correspondence, Jan. 1, 2011).

See, e.g., Ludwig, Order Restored, 141–59, 183; Pennington, “Relationship,” 160–61; Kelsey, Healing, 243–77; Hirschberg and Barasch, Recovery, 307; Rose, Faith Healing, 119–34, 176; Robertson, “Epidauros to Lourdes,” 188 (though cf. also 189). For religion’s positive role generally, see, e.g., Matthews, Faith Factor; Koenig, Medicine; Benson, Healing. Many ailments may lack organic causes (Frye, “Faith Healing,” 18; Markle, “Body,” 16–17; Baroody, “Healing,” 87–88); for the placebo effect, see, e.g., Remus, Healer, 110–13; Droege, Faith Factor, 15–33 (esp. 23–26); Hirschberg and Barasch, Recovery, 277–78; Beauregard and O’Leary, Brain, 144–50; also Beecher, “Placebo” (though some of his work has subsequently generated controversy). For the helpful insights of psychoimmunology and psychogenic illnesses, see Pilch, Healing; Capps, Village Psychiatrist; applied to the Gospel accounts, see Davies, Healer, 70–72; Capps, Village Psychiatrist, 8, 57–80.

Eve, Miracles, 354 (citing Kleinman, Healers, 71–82, 139–40, 366).

Eve, Miracles, 355–56.

Gardner, Healing Miracles, 29–31.

Miller and Yamamori, Pentecostalism, 152–53. They critique Durkheim’s approach as too reductionist (“or at least a bit arrogant,” p. 219).

Ibid., 158–59; cf. also 219–20.

Hesse, “Miracles,” 40.

As warned by, e.g., Wink, “Write,” 6.

Anderson, Vision, 93–94; followed by Hunter and Chan, Protestantism, 146.

Opp, Lord for Body, 176–86. The committee attributed genuine recoveries to mass hypnosis (180), a favored approach of that era (166–69), or it dismissed them as the result of a prior misdiagnosis, without citing contrary evidence (187). Cf. discussion of the epistemological issues in Lord for Body, passim, e.g., 208–10.

E.g., Hirschberg and Barasch, Recovery, 113–15, 137 (in the latter case noting that the hematologist feared the prejudice of his colleagues).

Williams, Miracle Stories, 143.

Torrance, “Probability,” 259.

Again, for the sake of space, the reader is referred to Keener, Miracles, especially chs. 7–12, and hundreds of sources cited there. These represent only a sample of the sources that researchers could collect.

By virtue of definition, paranormal events do not fit the expected “regularity” of nature and hence seem most amenable to a case study approach (cf. Ashe, Miracles, 165, 178–79).

For the latter, compare many anthropological accounts that nonjudgmentally report unusual phenomena (see the excursus on spirit possession at Acts 16:16).

Not because they exclude the question of causation or personal agency but because, following Kant’s dichotomy, questions about superhuman agency become delegated to theologians and philosophers of religion.

So Smith, “Metaphilosophy,” 197, although himself not sharing a theistic view.

See, e.g. (among many others), Plantinga, Minds; Davies, Physics; Davis, Proofs; Dembski, Inference; Gale and Pruss, “Argument”; idem, Existence; Koons, Realism; Oderberg, “Argument”; Manson, Design (for both sides); Swinburne, Existence; Nowacki, Argument; O’Connor, Theism.

Cf. Swinburne, Miracle, 33–51.

On Luke’s summary statements in general, see comment on .

See Caird, Apostolic Age, 64; Williams, Miracle Stories, 6–9; at length, Jervell, “Paul in Acts: Theology”; esp. idem, Unknown Paul, 77–95 (pace Bruno Bauer’s sometimes uncontested 1850 claim). Schmithals’s denial (without evidence) of the normal biblical sense of “signs and wonders and miracles” in 2 Cor 12:12 should not be seriously entertained (see Borgen, “Paul to Luke,” 175–76, noting also that a meaning intelligible to the “super-apostles” is necessary here). Unlike later apologists using signs to validate Christianity in general, Paul often had to validate his own (see Kelhoffer, “Paul and Justin”).

Skeptical observers and those who claim healing often differ over whether supernatural causes are at work (though some do not completely rule out the alternate explanation, e.g., Science Digest contributing editor William Nolen in “Woman,” 36–37, addressing accurate prediction of the remission of a spontaneous tumor).

At least of those about whom reports remain extant. Signs workers drew dramatic attention, but usually only elite writings have survived (which means that names in philosophic schools, which were propagated by their followers, are better attested than names of typical signs workers; Jesus’s movement, as a genuine movement founded by a miracle-working sage, is distinctive).

Most of our evidence for Apollonius is later, as already noted; Josephus’s sign prophets are from a more relevant period, but they do not perform healings or, as far as Josephus is concerned, even their promised signs. For a cross-cultural approach to folk healers, see Pilch, “Sickness,” 193–94.

For healing deities and aretalogies, see, e.g., Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 43; Grant, Gods, 54. But as already noted, these differ from human agents of healings such as we find in the Gospels, Acts, and Philostratus’s accounts of Apollonius.

Eunapius Lives 459–60. Eunapius (born ca. 345 C.E.) idealizes Neoplatonists “to compete with the biographies of Christian saints” (Matthews, “Eunapius,” 569) and hence does not provide strong background for Luke’s period.

Strauss had to date the Gospels implausibly late to maintain his view that the miracle stories were mythical; most scholars today who hold his conclusion seem unaware of his premise, which few of them share (Sabourin, Miracles, 64; Bernard, “Miracle,” 392). These stories were undoubtedly recounted as miracles from their first telling (Dunn, Remembered, 672).

Caird, Apostolic Age, 64, citing Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 12:9–10, 28–30; 2 Cor 12:12; Gal 3:5; and, I believe, less clearly, Heb 2:4.

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