II. Jesus: The Preliminaries
II. Jesus: The Preliminaries
1. DOUBTS ABOUT JESUS’S EXISTENCE
A. Doubters
1. Kaufman: Kaufman says that we do not have much reliable information on Jesus. After a lengthy paragraph including statements such as “this radicalization of moral demands by Jesus” and ending with Jesus’s “violent death,” Kaufman says, “This sums up what we know of Jesus.”
2. Price: Argues that “quite likely there never was any historical Jesus.” After commenting on a few mythicists (Arthur Drews, George A. Wells, etc.), Price questions the existence of Jesus: “The gospel story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last.” Elsewhere he adds that Jesus might have been a real person, but we cannot tell.
3. Wells: Wells thinks that either Jesus never existed or he was a little-known historical figure about whom we know virtually nothing.
B. Against the Doubters
1. Callahan: Callahan states that “we must accept the existence” and crucifixion of Jesus. Of these things, Callahan says he has no doubts. Callahan also notes that “while Jesus is firmly anchored in history,” we can’t know much about him.
2. Crossan: Crossan finds the divergent motifs of Jesus (nonviolent versus apocalyptic) a reason to think Jesus was a real historical person. Crossan also states that if Jesus was not a historical person, then the biblical writers would have only used an apocalyptic Jesus and subsequently made him “historical.”
3. Dunn: Dunn argues strongly against this position, stating that every generation has someone who “reruns” this argument, and it involves several poor historical moves such that it “soon falls apart under the weight of its own improbabilities, and is dismissed or simply ignored by the great body of serious students of the subject.”
4. Ehrman: Ehrman notes that many humanists define themselves in negative terms. There are those who are avidly anti-religious, but their agenda is religious. Elsewhere he suggests that they are not typically well-trained except for Carrier and Price and possibly Wells. Ehrman responds to various interpolation hypotheses and refers to them as arguments of convenience. Ehrman argues that there are no references to Jesus by a contemporary of Jesus and that only fundamentalist and conservative evangelicals believe that those believed to be eyewitnesses authored the New Testament books. The Gospels are not eyewitness accounts, but he notes Papias is very close to eyewitness testimony. Paul is the closest we have to an eyewitness because of his connection with Peter and James. Ehrman argues that this point should not be overblown when considering the question of Jesus’s existence and that this point would only be relevant if we would expect more eyewitness accounts. “That, however, is far from the case.” He then points out that there are no eyewitness reports of Pilate or Josephus despite their high prominence. This is due in part to low literacy rates. He adds that the only author we have from Roman Palestine is Josephus. Furthermore, the historical records suggest that there is only one other possible source from that time and place, Justin of Tiberius. This work does not appear to have survived.
2. MIRACLES
A. God Acting in History
1. Beilby and Eddy: They point out that one’s worldview has a “direct bearing” on the historical study of Jesus, especially his miracles.
2. Crossan: The main reason why conservatives and liberals don’t “convert” is because of the different worldviews that are present at the start of their historical-theological inquiry.
3. Davis: Jesus’s resurrection is a “hard miracle” since it is hard to explain naturalistically. Religious skeptics would have to change their worldview in order to accept the resurrection.
4. Fiorenza: Expresses a point very similar to Wedderburn’s below regarding how one’s presuppositions can influence one’s historical conclusions regarding Jesus’s resurrection.
5. Sanders: Like Dale Allison elsewhere, Sanders seems to indicate that one’s worldview might determine how a person interprets Jesus’s resurrection. According to Sanders, most scholars agree that the evidence for Jesus is not enough to convert someone.
6. Wedderburn: Holds that presuppositions are crucial in our conclusions about the resurrection. If we decide positively regarding the possibility of God’s action in history, then the resurrection will not be problematic. Conversely, how we view the resurrection will say much about how we view both God and history.
7. Wright: Wright notes that worldviews, both ancient and modern, are challenged by Jesus’s resurrection.
B. Definition
1. Davis: Davis defines a miracle as an event caused by God and “contrary” to natural laws. He provides a discussion on these issues. He also makes some distinctions between a “soft miracle” and a “hard miracle.”
2. Ehrman: He argues against the idea that miracles are merely a violation of natural law, insisting that miracles are better understood as being contrary to the way nature normally operates. However, Ehrman uses “violation” language elsewhere regarding prayer over an iron bar. He also provides a definition of miracles for historians that appears to reject their possibility a priori. Ehrman’s example of a preacher and a floating iron bar show that one can witness the occurrence of an improbable event and recognize it as a miracle.
C. Determining a Miracle
1. Look for Naturalistic Explanations First
A) Davis: Davis contends that we should consider naturalistic explanations first. Although Davis argues for the resurrection, he thinks we “ought to have a powerful bias against the miraculous” and even assume methodological naturalism.
B) Carrier: Carrier argues that a supernatural explanation should not be considered if there are natural theories. He is not sure what supernatural evidence might even look like or how to confirm it.
2. Difficult or Impossible to Determine
A) Martin: Martin notes that there are several issues when it comes to identifying a miracle.
B) Carrier: Carrier is not sure how we could confirm a miracle or supernatural event.
C) Fales: Fales argues that there is no reason why, if a supernatural agent caused an event to occur in the world, the agent should then—in theory—be detectable.
3. Religious Context
A) Davis: Davis argues that if the event cannot be explained with natural explanations and there is a religious context, then it can be reasonable to think a miracle occurred.
B) Dunn: Dunn provides some very insightful comments regarding historical methods and notes the roles of objective and subjective elements in history. This relates to those who experienced (subjective) a miracle event (objective: e.g., he was dead but is now alive), and it is the context in which the event (objective) was perceived by those who experienced it that identifies it as a miracle (subjective). Thus, had the event not occurred in a religiously charged context, the notion of miracle would probably not be considered as an explanation for the event.
C) Ehrman: While Ehrman is not explicitly stating that a miracle could be determined by a religious context, it certainly seems implied in his hypothetical description of a miracle whereby a priest prays for an iron bar to float.
D. Purpose or Meaning
1. Twelftree: Twelftree discusses the meaning of miracles, specifically those performed by Jesus, and how those miracles are able to convey significant information.
E. Modern-Day Miracles
1. Affirm
A) Davis: Davis notes that events have recently occurred that are best understood as miracles.
B) Keener: Keener notes that millions of people claim to have witnessed miracles, and a number of these are significant and multiply attested. He includes several excellent cases in volume 2 of Miracles.
2. Deny
A) Carrier: Carrier contends that since past events have been shown to be natural, it is reasonable to conclude that other events (including ones we cannot study) are likely natural as well. Recall that Carrier also does not know what type of evidence could be used to demonstrate a supernatural claim.
F. Should Historians Reject Miracles a Priori?
1. General Comments
A) Various Scholars: Various scholars argue that historians cannot rule out miracles a priori.
B) Blackburn: States that some scholars undeniably reject miracles a priori.
C) Staudinger: Notes that history does present examples of events that “do not lie within the bounds of normal experience.”
2. Reject Miracles by Definition
A) Ehrman: As noted above, Ehrman provides a definition of miracles for historians that appears to reject their possibility a priori (similar to Hume). His example of a preacher and a floating iron bar provides a hypothetical scenario in which one could know such events occur historically and recognize them as miracles. Ehrman sounds like Hume in an example he gives of three people who witness a pastor walk on water. Ehrman believes it is more likely that they were mistaken or lied about their experience rather than that the pastor walked across the water. (Yet what if there was more evidence, e.g., the pastor carried something from one side to the other?)
3. Inappropriate to Reject a Priori
A) Habermas: Habermas notes that it is inappropriate to argue against miracles in an a priori manner. The Jesus Seminar may be an example of scholars doing just this.
B) Keener: Keener argues against a priori rejections of the miraculous.
C) Neill and Wright: They comment that when Ernest Renan started to write his life of Jesus on the assumption that miracles do not occur, he was confessing in a single sentence that he was not writing as a historian.
D) Wright: Wright argues that we should not reject the possibility of miracles.
G. Science and Miracles
1. Kee: Alistair Kee argues that modern physics is much more open to what is or is not possible.
2. Martin: Martin makes various arguments as to why miracles limit science (inexplicable, add confusion, etc.).
3. Wright: Wright argues that science must refuse to reject miracles in an a priori manner because otherwise it risks ruling out the possibility beforehand that its own worldview might be wrong. He adds that if such prior judgments are needed to sustain one’s worldview, then one had better find a better worldview!
H. Supernatural versus Natural Distinctions
1. General Comments
A) Fales: Fales notes some questions that arise when there is a strong distinction between the natural and supernatural (especially if a miracle is a violation of a natural law).
B) Wright: Wright argues that “ontologies based on a nature/supernature distinction simply will not do.”
2. People in Antiquity Did Not Observe Supernatural versus Natural Distinctions
A) Ehrman: Ehrman notes that the ancient world did not have the modern distinctions we have today of open versus closed systems or supernatural versus natural. When a miracle was observed in the ancient world, it would raise various questions (e.g., who did it and by what power?).
B) Neill and Wright: Neill and Wright contend that historians should not limit themselves to a definition of natural versus supernatural.
I. Methodological Naturalism and Supernaturalism
1. General Comments
A) Beilby and Eddy: Beilby and Eddy argue that there is no consensus on how to approach the issue of the authenticity of miracles.
B) Johnson: Johnson thinks that since history doesn’t comment upon Augustus’s miracles, neither should it comment on Jesus’s miracles.
2. Methodological Naturalism
A) Beilby and Eddy: Beilby and Eddy note that while some scholars are open to miracles in theory, one must be a methodological naturalist in practice (a functional approach).
B) Carrier: He seems to want to say that we should be open to miracles. But because no evidence has ever been established for them and we do not know what kind of evidence it would take to confirm them, it seems to Carrier that methodological naturalism is the only option.
C) Davis: Davis responds to forms of history that assume naturalism. Curiously, although Davis argues for the resurrection, he thinks we “ought to have a powerful bias against the miraculous” and even assume methodological naturalism.
D) Ehrman: It is unclear whether or not Ehrman thinks historians are required to be methodological naturalists, but he states multiple times that, by the nature of their trade, historians cannot say a miracle occurred. Accordingly, Ehrman thinks the inability to recognize a miracle is an epistemic limitation rather than a self-imposed methodological limitation. Presumably then, if epistemology were not limited, historians could conclude a miracle occurred.
E) Johnson: Following Strauss, Johnson seems to suggest that the historian cannot discuss miracles. Darrell Bock surprisingly appears to agree with Johnson that history cannot prove or verify the resurrection in the same work.
F) Tabor: Tabor argues that historians must work within the (contemporary?) scientific understandings of the world.
3. Methodologically Open
A) Beilby and Eddy: They note that some historians disagree with methodological naturalism and take a more open approach.
B) Davis: Davis argues that a historian who holds to methodological naturalism or deism cannot affirm that Jesus was raised from the dead by God, but such a methodological limitation is unwarranted. As noted above, although Davis argues for the resurrection, he thinks we “ought to have a powerful bias against the miraculous” and even assume methodological naturalism.
C) Twelftree: Twelftree accepts methodological supernaturalism.
J. Criteria
1. Principle of Analogy and Miracles
A) Bird: Bird notes some helpful examples of the limitations of this principle, including the platypus.
B) Dunn: Dunn notes that this principle cannot be based on an individual historian’s experiences alone.
C) Pannenberg: Notes that the uniqueness of the resurrection event is the issue, making analogies problematic. Historical parallels to the resurrection are not required for it to be declared a historical event.
D) Samuel: Argues against the principle of analogy as a guide.
K. Open to Miracle Claims in Other Religions
1. Ehrman: Ehrman notes that if one is open to the miracles of one worldview or religion, one must be open to (or must accept?) the possibility of other miracle claims in other traditions.
L. Concerns about Miracles
1. Dunn: Dunn notes that the earliest significant challenges to miracles came from Spinoza.
2. Martin: Martin, following Christine Overall, argues that miracles are improbable or unlikely even for theistic worldviews.
3. JESUS AS MIRACLE WORKER AND EXORCIST
A. General Comments
1. Beilby and Eddy: They observe that “virtually everyone” today recognizes that Jesus was considered to “be an exorcist and a worker of miracles.”
2. Blackburn: Blackburn comments on the near unaninimity of a positive view on Jesus’s exorcisms and healing miracles among contemporary scholars. Even Bultmann acknowledged it. Blackburn notes that although unanimity rarely occurs in academia, “that Jesus acted as an exorcist and healer can easily be described as the consensus of the modern period” (a point repeated by Blackburn). Yet the consensus appears to evaporate when moving to certain secondary issues. Scholars agree because it is a simple explanation for a claim that arose very early. The reports are also multiply attested. Blackburn also offers seven critiques of Vermes’s thesis of Jesus as a Jewish holy man. On the nature miracles, Blackburn makes some comments very similar to those of Hume.
3. Brown: Miracles cannot be ruled out without checking the data. The resurrection is “the supreme miracle.”
4. Crossan: Crossan thinks that in both Christian and pagan cases (including the Marian apparitions at Lourdes and Fatima), “healings did happen” and that “faith heals, which is exactly what Jesus kept saying in the Gospels.” Strangely enough, Crossan also says of experiences of both Kali (in the Hindu tradition) and the Virgin Mary: “I know it’s a vision. It operates as visions always do.” Crossan’s context here implies that these visions are subjective.
5. Dunn: Dunn highlights that Jesus was widely regarded by his contemporaries as a miracle worker, and it is “one of the most widely attested and firmly established of the historical facts with which we have to deal.”
6. Ehrman: Ehrman makes comments about the general agreement that Jesus was understood and perceived as a miracle worker and exorcist.
7. Evans: Offers an excellent and detailed treatment evidencing Jesus’s miracles and exorcisms as authentic, including the application of seven textual criteria to miracle accounts.
8. Funk: According to Funk, the Jesus Seminar thinks Jesus was a healer and exorcist.
9. Grant: Grant examines the claims of Jesus being a miracle worker and exorcist from an ancient and “modern” perspective.
10. Habermas: Habermas notes the “positive attitude” regarding Jesus as a miracle worker and an exorcist from scholars such as Bultmann, Hunter, Borg, and Crossan, but then notes that these same scholars do not “affirm [Jesus’s exorcisms] as supernatural events.”
11. Hurtado: Hurtado argues that friends and foes alike recognized Jesus as a miracle worker.
12. Kee: Howard Clark Kee states that Jesus offered his healing and exorcisms as evidence that God was working through him.
13. Meier: States that critical criteria indicate Jesus’s miracles. He notes “multiple attestation. . . . Every Gospel source” (naming Mark, Q, Matthew, Luke, and John) and that “all affirm the miracle-working activity of Jesus.” He also claims that Jesus’s miracles are verified by multiple forms and coherence. Multiple sources and forms attest to the historicity of Jesus’s miracles. Meier points out that critics like Morton Smith and Crossan will just agree and say Jesus is a magician. So Meier proposes “seven basic characteristics of the ideal type of miracle.” While “many of the Gospel miracles tend toward the ideal type of miracle . . . most of the Greco-Roman magical papyri tend toward the ideal type of magic.” Meier does the same regarding the ideal types of magic. He ultimately disagrees with Smith and Crossan that miracles are magic.
14. O’Collins: For O’Collins, if miracles are extracted from the text, some texts wouldn’t make sense. Criterion of multiple and enemy attestation apply to miracle texts. Critics admit, however, that there is some legend in miracle texts. O’Collins holds that historians shouldn’t reject miracles before investigating and that science has become more open to their possibility. Jesus’s miracles are “dramatically unlike” those of other ancient miracle workers because he did them in his own name and authority. Jesus thought his miracles “manifested the reign of God” and delivered people “from the grip of evil.” Nevertheless, it is “essentially true” that part of the New Testament reports include the fact that Jesus worked miracles. Virgin birth is also discussed by O’Collins without coming to a particular conclusion.
15. Perkins: Says more recent approaches to the historical Jesus do so without “the rationalist presuppositions of historical positivism.” One result of this has been that it is now “well-established” that Jesus was a miracle worker.
16. Sanders: States healing is part of what we know about Jesus. The combination of Jesus’s miracles, nonviolence, eschatology, treatment of outcasts, mission, and belief in God’s grace is unique.
17. Spong: Spong does not doubt the New Testament depiction of Jesus as one who can perform miracles. Though this is an accurate description, Spong thinks Jesus’s miracles are the result of miraculous power.
18. Twelftree: States it is not a matter of faith to conclude that Jesus performed miracles. Critically evaluating the Gospels, one will find solid evidence for the claim that Jesus was a miracle worker and had a great reputation for being one as well. Jesus as a miracle worker is “so well and widely attested as that he conducted unparalleled wonders. Further, the miracles dominated and were the most important aspect of Jesus’ whole pre-Easter ministry.” Part of the significance of the miracles is that they “reveal his identity as God himself at work: indeed, God is encountered in the miracles.” In simple terms, we cannot possibly “do justice to the historically verifiable material in the Gospels” without understanding Jesus as a miracle worker who was raised from the dead. Jesus was primarily a well-known miracle worker of great deeds, “expressing in his activity the powerful eschatological presence of God.”
19. Vermes: Says Jesus was an exorcist and healer. But he claims Jesus didn’t perform exorcisms the same way others ancient figures did.
20. Wedderburn: Jesus thought God was going to intervene and act.
B. Historical Assessment of Miracles
1. Meier: Reminiscent of Twelftree, Meier investigates Jesus’s miracles in the Gospels and concludes that a good number (apparently more than one-third) of Jesus’s miracles can be traced “to events in Jesus’ ministry.” This includes all three raising-of-the-dead stories. Meier says that multiple attestation is “the most important criterion” leading to “the global assertion” that Jesus was considered a miracle worker by his followers. The historical fact of Jesus acting and being known as a miracle worker has “as much historical corroboration as almost any other statement we can make about the Jesus of history,” and historians must give this component its due in their historical reconstructions.
2. Twelftree: Twelftree provides a list of twenty-two miracles that can be judged “with high confidence to reflect an event or events most likely in the life of the historical Jesus.”
A) Demoniac in synagogue at Capernaum (Mark 1:21–28 // Luke 8:26–39).
B) Gerasene/Gadarene demoniac (Mark 5:1–20 // Matt 8:28–34 // Luke 8:26–39).
C) Syrophoenician woman’s daughter healed (Mark 7:24–30 // Matt 15:21–28).
D) Epileptic boy healed (Mark 9:14–29 // Matt 17:14–21 // Luke 9:37–43a).
E) Paralytic forgiven and healed (Mark 2:1–12 // Matt 9:1–8 // Luke 5:17–26).
F) Withered hand cured (Mark 3:1–6 // Matt 12:9–14 // Luke 6:6–11).
G) Official’s son/servant healed (Matt 8:5–13 // Luke 7:1–10; cf. John 4:46–54).
H) Crippled woman healed (Luke 13:10–17).
I) Healing the paralytic at Bethesda (John 5:1–9).
J) Blind man at Bethsaida healed (Mark 8:22–26).
K) Blind Bartimaeus healed (Mark 5:21–43 // Matt 9:18–26 // Luke 8:40–56).
L) Healing of a man born blind (John 9:1–7).
M) Raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:21–43 // Matt 9:18–26 // Luke 8:40–56).
N) Raising of the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11–17).
O) Raising of Lazarus (John 11).
P) Leper cleansed (Mark 1:40–45 // Matt 8:1–4 // Luke 5:12–16).
Q) Peter’s mother-in-law healed (Mark 1:29–31 // Matt 8:14–15 // Luke 4:38–39).
R) Woman with a hemorrhage healed (Mark 5:21–43 // Matt 9:18–26 // Luke 8:40–56).
S) Deaf-mute healed (Mark 7:31–37 // Matt 15:29–31).
T) The large catch of fish (Luke 5:1–11 // John 21:4–14).
U) Man with dropsy healed (Luke 14:1–6).
V) Coin in fish’s mouth (Matt 17:24–27).
3. Twelftree (Part 2): Twelftree also provides a list of miracles that do not have the same degree of confidence historically but still remain possible, if not probable.
A) Ten lepers cleansed (Luke 17:11–19).
B) Stilling of a storm (Mark 4:35–41 // Matt 8:23–27 // Luke 8:22–25).
C) Feeding a multitude (Mark 6:32–44; 8:1–10 // Matt 14:13–21 // Luke 9:10–17 // John 6:1–5).
D) Jesus walks on the sea (Mark 6:45–52 // Matt 14:22–33 // John 6:15–21).
E) A fig tree withered (Mark 11:12–14, 20–26 // Matt 21:18–19, 20–22 // Luke 13:6–9).
F) High priest’s slave’s ear healed (Luke 22:49–51).
G) Water into wine (John 2:1–12).
C. Miracles
1. General Comments
A) Dunn: Dunn argues that there “must have been many who experienced Jesus’ ministrations to them as miracles” because this would explain why his reputation as a miracle worker was so quickly widespread and firm.
B) Keener: Keener helpfully states that even though miracles occur, they do not always occur and, besides, death is still a present reality. When miracles occur, they provide temporary relief. However, according to the “context of the Gospel’s theology, they are also signs of a better, eschatological kingdom for all who hope in Jesus.” They are “promises of a better future . . . because they reveal the God of the cross.” They “foreshadow the hope that lies beyond the cross.”
C) Twelftree: Twelftree evaluates other reported miracles.
2. Criteria
A) Multiple Attestation
(1) Blomberg: In addition to the Christian sources, Blomberg notes that non-Christian sources, like the Talmud, refer to Jesus as a miracle worker.
(2) Dunn: “It is no exaggeration to claim that [Jesus’s reputation as a miracle worker/exorcist] is one of the most widely attested and firmly established of the historical facts with which we have to deal.” Dunn points out that Jesus was known by Christians and non-Christians to have been a miracle worker (e.g., Mark 1:32–34, 39; 3:10–11; Josephus, Ant. 18.3.3).
(3) Meier: Meier notes that it is a “basic fact” that Jesus was believed to have done miracles, and claims that he did them are multiply attested.
(4) Twelftree: Twelftree points out that Jesus performing miracles is a common thread throughout all the Gospels. He also follows Meier regarding the multiple attestation of Jesus raising the dead.
B) Eyewitness
(1) Twelftree: Twelftree points out that with different levels of probability “the vast majority” of miracle accounts reported in the Gospels “can be traced back to those who witnessed and reported” them.
C) Early
(1) Dunn: “The stories were being told as miracles from the first.”
3. The Dead Raised
A) Clark: Royce Clark’s theme is that Jesus’s miracles of raising others from the dead are never said to be persons who were raised to die again later (resuscitations). He thinks they were raised like Jesus (resurrections). He claims later that “the eschaton and general resurrection have begun even in exceptional cases.” These resurrections were “part of the firstfruits of the eschaton as it breaks in.”
B) Twelftree: Twelftree evaluates the times that Jesus is reported to have raised people from the dead.
4. Crippled or Paralyzed People Healed
A) Twelftree: Twelftree evaluates reports of Jesus healing the crippled and paralytics.
5. Blind People Healed
A) Twelftree: Twelftree evaluates the times that Jesus is reported to have healed the blind.
6. Lepers Healed
A) Twelftree: Twelftree evaluates reports of Jesus cleansing lepers.
B) Healings
(1) Dunn: Referring to various healings in Mark, Dunn writes that the “most obvious conclusion” is that incidents did occur that were considered miraculous, including healings.
C) Nature Miracles
(1) Feeding the 5,000
(a) Multiple Attestation
i. Dunn: Dunn observes that there are two in-dependent traditions regarding the feeding of the 5,000.
(b) Eyewitness
i. Dunn: Dunn notes that the traditions regarding the feeding of the 5,000 appear to “look like flashes of eyewitness reminiscence.” He does so noting the location of the crowd, the numbers (which lack obvious symbolism), and the arrangement of groups, among other aspects.
7. Already but Not Yet (Foretaste of the Kingdom)
A) Ehrman: Like Keener above, Ehrman thinks these miracles were understood as a “foretaste of what that kingdom would be like.”
8. Not Legends
A) Twelftree: Twelftree does not find solid evidence that the miracle accounts were founded on events somewhere external to Christianity.
D. Exorcist
1. General Comments
A) Dunn: That Jesus was known as an exorcist is “beyond dispute.”
B) Jesus Seminar: The Seminar gives Luke 11 and the Matthew parallel a positive consideration.
C) Keener: Keener notes that a majority of scholars recognize Jesus had a reputation for being an exorcist and then provides a discussion on modern exorcisms.
D) Twelftree: Twelftree examines Jesus’s exorcisms.
2. Criteria
A) Multiple Attestation
(1) Dunn: Just as the healings were attested in Christian and non-Christian sources, so too are the exorcisms.
B) Eyewitness
(1) Dunn: Thinks that Mark 1:23–28 // Luke 4:33–37 and Mark 5:1–20 could be considered eyewitness accounts. Events like this must have been seen and then put into an oral form and passed around. Otherwise they are difficult to explain historically.
3. Exorcisms Performed in the Name of Jesus
A) Dunn: Dunn notes the multiple attestation regarding the use of Jesus’s name with regards to exorcism (Mark 9:38; Origen, Cels. 1.25; PGM 4.1233).
E. Miracles and Divinity
1. Twelftree: As noted above, Twelftree comments that Jesus’s miracles “reveal his identity as God himself at work: indeed, God is encountered in the miracles. Thus the miraculous activity of Jesus is the eschatological work and message of salvation.”
F. Modern Miracles
1. Davis: Davis argues that in addition to the biblical miracles, there are also modern events that he thinks are miracles.
G. Objections
1. General Comments
A) Dunn: Dunn notes that Enlightenment believers were embarrassed by miracles and this had a subsequent effect on historical Jesus research until Strauss dealt an even stronger blow to the research.
2. Natural Explanations
A) Dunn: Dunn summarizes various natural explanations for miracle accounts in the New Testament as recorded by Reimarus and Strauss.
B) Kaufman: Kaufman says the virgin birth is a legend.
C) Küng: Küng says that the stories of Jesus raising the dead are legends.
3. Against Natural Explanations
A) Dunn: As noted above, Dunn argues that these miracle reports were early. Further, he disagrees with the thesis that they were late additions.
Notes
Gordon D. Kaufman, In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 382.
Robert M. Price, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point,” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 55. See also 55–83.
Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2000), 250–51, 260–261.
G. A. Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, rev. ed. (London: Pemberton, 1986), 56, 65, 215; and Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988), 170, 217–20.
Tim Callahan, Secret Origins of the Bible (Altadena, CA: Millennium, 2002), 370.
Callahan, 419.
Callahan, 370.
John Dominic Crossan’s response to Robert Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 88. See also 86–88.
Crossan in Beilby and Eddy, 88.
James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 4–5.
Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperOne, 2012), 2, 17–20, 167, 194–96, 268, 332–90.
Ehrman, 55, 59, 118, 132–33, 191, 253.
Ehrman, 45–47, 49, 101, 144–48.
Ehrman, 49–50.
Ehrman, 49–50.
Ehrman, 49–50.
Paul Rhodes Eddy and James K. Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 38.
John Dominic Crossan, in Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, ed. Paul Copan (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 148.
Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 12.
Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Resurrection of Jesus and Roman Catholic Fundamental Theology,” in The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 232, 247.
E. P. Sanders, “But Did It Happen?,” Spectator 276 (1996): 16.
Sanders, 11.
A. J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 170. Cf. 178, 180.
Wedderburn, 19, 171, 204.
N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 69, see also 67. See also N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 27.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 10–13.
Davis, 11–12.
Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 208.
Ehrman, 210.
Ehrman, 210–11.
Ehrman, 210.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 13.
Stephen T. Davis, “The Question of Miracles, Ascension and Anti-Semitism,” in Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate between William Lane Craig and Gerd Lüdemann, ed. Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 74.
Richard C. Carrier, “The Burial of Jesus in Light of Jewish Law,” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005), 370.
Michael Martin, “The Resurrection as Initially Improbable,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 46.
Carrier, “Burial of Jesus,” 370.
Evan Fales, “Reformed Epistemology and Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 479.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 28.
James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 673.
Ehrman, New Testament, 210.
Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and Theological Study (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 343.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 15, 28.
Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 2:743.
Keener, 2:665, 673–82, 747, 752–56, 815, 837–43.
Carrier, “Burial of Jesus,” 370.
Carrier, 370.
See Copan, Real Jesus, 60–61; Hugo Staudinger, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Saving Event and as ‘Object’ of Historical Research,” Scottish Journal of Theology 36, no. 3 (1983): 313–15; N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 92; Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus (London: Chapman, 1983), 57; George Eldon Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 23–24, 133; David Samuel, “Making Room in History for the Miraculous,” Churchman 100, no. 1 (1986): 52–53; Samuel, “Making Room in History for the Miraculous (Part 2),” Churchman 100, no. 2 (1986): 101, 106, 112. See also Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Die Auferstehung Jesu—Historie und Theologie,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 91, no. 3 (1994): 328; Thomas C. Oden, The Word of Life, vol. 2 of Systematic Theology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989), 499–500.
Barry L. Blackburn, “The Miracles of Jesus,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce D. Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 370.
Staudinger, “Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 313–15.
Ehrman, New Testament, 210–11. See also 212.
Ehrman, 210.
Ehrman, 211–12.
Gary R. Habermas, “Did Jesus Perform Miracles?,” in Jesus Under Fire, ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 127.
Habermas, 127–29.
Keener, Miracles, 2:697–700.
Stephen Neill and N. T. Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1986, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 301.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 92.
Alistair Kee, From Bad Faith to Good News: Reflections on Good Friday and Easter (London: SCM, 1991), 94.
Michael Martin, “The Resurrection as Initially Improbable,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 46–47.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 92.
Fales, “Reformed Epistemology and Biblical Hermeneutics,” 478.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 97.
Ehrman, New Testament, 209.
Ehrman, 209–10.
Neill and Wright, Interpretation of the New Testament, 301.
Eddy and Beilby, “Introduction,” 39.
Luke Timothy Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus: Historical Criticism and Literary Criticism,” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 157–158. Johnson curiously adds that he agrees with Strauss that history can only concern itself with what is potentially verifiable within time and space.
Eddy and Beilby, “Introduction,” 39.
Carrier, “Burial of Jesus,” 370.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 27–34.
Davis, “Question of Miracles,” 74.
Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 143. See also 132, 173–74.
Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus,” 158.
Darrell L. Bock’s response to Timothy Luke Johnson, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 194–95; see also Darrell L. Bock, “The Historical Jesus: An Evangelical View,” in Beilby and Eddy, 278–79, esp. 279n37.
James D. Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 233–34.
Eddy and Beilby, “Introduction,” 39.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 27.
Davis, “Question of Miracles,” 74.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 330.
Michael F. Bird and James G. Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and Non-Believer Examine the Evidence (London: SPCK, 2008), 64–65.
James D. G. Dunn’s response to Robert M. Price, in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 94.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2:361.
Pannenberg, 2:360–61.
Samuel, “Making Room in History,” 52–53.
Ehrman, New Testament, 210.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 29.
Martin, “Resurrection as Initially Improbable,” 47.
Eddy and Beilby, “Introduction,” 38.
Barry L. Blackburn, “The Miracles of Jesus,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce D. Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 354–55.
Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951, 1955), 1:354–55.
Blackburn, “Miracles of Jesus,” 362. See also 354–55, 368, 392.
Blackburn, 393.
Blackburn, 355–56.
Blackburn, 356.
Blackburn, 378–79.
Blackburn, 370.
Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1994), 61–67.
Raymond E. Brown, “The Resurrection of Jesus,” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland Edmund Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 1373.
Crossan, in Copan, Real Jesus, 45.
Crossan, in Copan, 62.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 670.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 261, 269, 315–17.
Craig A. Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology,” Theological Studies 54, no. 1 (1993): 17–36.
Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 34.
Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 32–43.
Gary R. Habermas, “Did Jesus Perform Miracles?,” in Wilkins and Moreland, Jesus Under Fire, 124–25.
Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 3.
Howard Clark Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 112.
John P. Meier, “Dividing Lines in Jesus Research Today: Through Dialectical Negation to a Positive Sketch,” Interpretation 50, no. 4 (1996): 360–61.
Meier, 361.
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 5 vols., Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1991–2016), 3:643.
Meier, “Dividing Lines,” 361.
Meier, 362, emphasis added.
Meier, 363.
O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus, 55.
O’Collins, 56.
O’Collins, 57.
O’Collins, 58.
O’Collins, 59. Cf. 58.
O’Collins, 56.
O’Collins, 95–99.
Pheme Perkins, “The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce D. Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 423.
E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin, 1993), 13; and Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 11.
Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 319.
John Shelby Spong, The Easter Moment (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 182.
Spong, 177.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 345. See also 330.
Twelftree, 345.
Twelftree, 343.
Twelftree, 330.
Twelftree, 358.
Geza Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (London: SCM, 1983), 5–10, 27–28.
Vermes, 8.
Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 199–200.
Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:969, see also 2:968. Also note all three raising-of-the-dead stories on 2:970.
Meier, 2:967.
Meier, 2:970.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 328–30.
Twelftree, 328–30.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 673.
Keener, Miracles, 2:767. He notes “Hezekiah Effect” claims on 2:604.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 314–28.
Craig L. Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” in Jesus Under Fire, ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 40.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 670.
James D. G. Dunn, “Remembering Jesus: How the Quest of the Historical Jesus Lost Its Way,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 222.
Meier, Marginal Jew, 3:643.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 343.
Twelftree, 305.
Twelftree, 330.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 672.
Wayne Royce Clark, “Jesus, Lazarus, and Others: Resuscitation or Resurrection?,” Religion in Life 49, no. 2 (1980): 238.
Clark, 235.
Clark, 237.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 304–10.
Twelftree, 293–98.
Twelftree, 299–303.
Twelftree, 311–13.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 683.
Dunn, 685.
Dunn, 687.
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 316.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 330.
Dunn, “Quest of the Historical Jesus,” 222.
Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Scribner, 1993), 186, 330.
Keener, Miracles, 2:784, 788–90. For spirits fearing Jesus as deity, see 2:800, 815. Cf. 2:843. For spirits doing supernatural things, see 2:800–803.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 281–92.
Dunn, “Quest of the Historical Jesus,” 222.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 674. See also 675–77.
Dunn, 677. On 677n298, Dunn notes that the Jesus Seminar and Lüdemann make similar conclusions.
Dunn, “Quest of the Historical Jesus,” 222.
Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, 343.
Davis, Risen Indeed, 15, 28.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 34.
Dunn, 31–32.
Kaufman, In Face of Mystery, 384.
Hans Küng, Eternal Life? Life after Death as a Medical, Philosophical and Theological Problem, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 112.
Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 672. See also 673.