Although the evidence is limited concerning most particular miracles, all of the many ancient sources that comment on the issue agree that Jesus and his early followers performed miracles: Q, Mark, special material in Matthew and Luke, John, Acts, the epistles, Revelation, and non-Christian testimony from Jewish and pagan sources.41 Underlining further the point, Mark would hardly have invented the idea that Jesus could not heal where faith was lacking (Mk 6:5).42
The testimony is not limited to Christian sources. The most explicit non-Christian sources available on this point, the rabbis43 and Celsus44 are clear. (Many of these later non-Christian sources attribute the miraculous works to sorcery, probably the earliest anti-Christian explanation for Christian miracles.) 45 Earlier than these, Vermes has argued persuasively that the miracle claim for Jesus in Josephus is authentic, based on Josephus’ style.46 Josephus calls Jesus a “wise man,” who also worked “startling deeds,” a term by which Josephus also depicts the miracles worked by the prophet Elisha.47 This unanimity is striking given the conversely unanimous silence in Christian, Jewish and even Mandean tradition concerning any miracles of respected prophetic figures like John the Baptist.48
The evidence for Jesus as a miracle-worker is stronger for this claim than for most other specific historical claims we could make about earliest Christianity; miracles characterized Jesus’ historical activity no less than his teaching and prophetic activities did.49 Because miracle claims attach to a relatively small number of figures in antiquity (itinerant or not), there is little reason to suppose that Jesus would have developed a reputation as a wonder-worker if he did not engage in such activities.50 As Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz put it, “Just as the kingdom of God stands at the centre of Jesus’ preaching, so healings and exorcisms form the centre of his activity.”51 That particular stories would be preserved is also not surprising. If followers would preserve his teachings, how much more would they (and especially those who experienced recoveries) spread miracle reports!52
The “Third Quest” is more respectful toward the Gospels’ miracle tradition than the so-called first and second quests were;53 scholars who treat Jesus as prophet and miracle-worker appear to be the mainstream.54 Thus, regardless of their philosophic assumptions about divine activity in miracle claims,55 most scholars today grant that Jesus’ contemporaries viewed him as a healer and exorcist. 56 E. P. Sanders regards it as an “almost indisputable” historical fact that “Jesus was a Galilean who preached and healed.”57 Using traditional historical-critical tools, John Meier finds many of Jesus’ miracles authentic.58 Raymond Brown notes that “Scholars have come to realize that one cannot dismiss Jesus’ miracles simply on modern rationalist grounds, for the oldest traditions show him as a healer.”59 Otto Betz regards it as “certain” that Jesus was a healer, a matter that “can be deduced even from the Jewish polemic which called him a sorcerer.” 60 The miracles are central to the Gospels, he notes, and without them most of the other data in the Gospels are inexplicable.61 Israeli scholar David Flusser notes that the picture of Jesus in the Synoptics is consistent and Jewish, hence reliably attests to Jesus as “a Jewish miracle-worker and preacher.”62 Even Morton Smith argues that miracle-working is the most authentic part of the Jesus tradition,63 though he explains it along the magical lines urged by Jesus’ and his movement’s early detractors.64
The emphasis on healings and exorcisms seems fairly distinctive to Jesus (fitting a positive use of the dissimilarity criterion regarding his environment, though healing and exorcism continued among many of his subsequent followers). By way of contrast, most types of miracles reported in Josephus’ accounts show little interest in healings.65 Stories of postbiblical miracles are not very common outside Josephus,66 and healings are particularly rare.67
That Jesus would draw a following performing such signs is not at all surprising. Once word of Jesus as healer spread, one cannot doubt that people throughout Galilee would flock to him.68 People in antiquity traveled long distances to reach healing sanctuaries,69 and one may compare the masses flocking to the hot springs at Tiberias in Galilee70 and similar sites71 to recover their health.72
Because of the philosophic questions involved, it is not possible to address Jesus’ miracles further here without considerably expanding this book. I have therefore devoted a separate book to this subject, deferring further discussion on the issues of ancient miracle reports (especially the plausibility of eyewitness claims about them in historical narrative) and their interpretation to that book. I have treated most of the Gospels’ individual miracle reports in my commentaries, 73 so anyone apt to complain that I have omitted prior discussion of them need only examine this work elsewhere. In the later book regarding miracles I will focus on the broader question of miracle reports and the extent to which they can be held to reflect or develop eyewitness material.
