Loading...More on conversions coming from miracle stories — as reported by Christians, in their later legendary tales. You might object (or probably will object) that if these tales are legendary, they don’t show how people actually converted. My point is not that these relate real events, but they show how Christians (the story tellers and authors) understood how/why people converted, and it is striking that in virtually every case, it is precisely because of miracles, not other things. (In my next post I’ll talk about tales connected with actual historical figures). Again, this is from my book Triumph of Christianity.
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Once we move outside the New Testament the tales of conversion-inducing miracles continue. Few are more intriguing than the conversion of the entire city of Edessa in Syria, allegedly because of miracles worked by Jesus’ follower Thaddaeus.
In no small part the tale intrigues because it starts with Jesus himself, before his death, and a personal letter he sent to the king of Edessa, Abgar, in response to the king’s written request to be healed – the only piece of correspondence ever attributed to Jesus himself. The two letters are cited by the fourth-century church father Eusebius, who claims
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Bart,
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As you point out, the Christians were using stories of miracles as propaganda to convert people. That is true for the New Testament stories as well as the so-called apocryphal stories. I think you have shown that stories of allegedly miraculous events were instrumental in converting pagans (mostly Romans) to various forms of “Christianity” that was, by then, non-apocalyptic. But don’t you think that the earliest “conversions” were motivated by the apocalyptic ideas of getting an immortal body and getting into the Kingdom of Yahweh (within their own lifetime) instead of claims of the miraculous? For example, John the Baptist seems to have made scores of “converts” based solely on the fervor and excitement of an imminent judgment day and acquiring immortality and all of these things happening within their own lifetime.
John wasn’t converting people to a new religion; he was urging them to return to a faithful commitment to the God of Israel. So too Jesus. If people were converting in order to enter the imminent kingdom of God, it was again a conversion based on miracle (a superhuman invention of God into the world) — but an expected one rather htan a past one.
Oh yes, but most of the miracle stories in the New Testament and the Apocryphal ones probably were the result of later Christian story telling. So, it seems that the earliest “converts”, including those joining the Jerusalem Church, were not conversions based on those, and maybe other, miracle stories. In other words, the original motives for joining the Jesus movement were to prepare for the imminent coming apocalypse (and not the idea that miracles were happening through Christian leaders). Although some conversions probably happened from people who believed the apostles’ claims that Jesus had been resurrected. Do you think that the idea of imminent apocalyptic events, as you say future miracles, was probably the major motivation among the earliest conversions?
I don’t know of any sources that suggest that. The fact the miracles didn’t happen isn’t, in my view, evidence that the stories were not led to conversion. How’s that for a lot of negatives in one sentence?
I sometimes get a lot of negatives in one sentence too. As you know, it is important to get clear what the motivation for conversion was in early Christianity. Once the miracle stories were out there in a big way then it obviously was a major factor in converting people. But when did that happen? Suppose it happened around 50 CE or 55 CE then conversions between 30 CE and 50 CE would have been primarily motivated by something other than claims of miracles. In other words, when do you think claims of the miraculous became a major player. Was it right at the start, say 31 CE, or some years or decades later?
If happened the moment some of Jesus’ followers believed he was raised from the dead. That miracle converted them and others. And it led then to other miracles that also brought conversoins.
Your examples of miracle stories are so fantastic that they raise a question for me: if such stories really led many people to conversion, is there a threshold beyond which a miracle story becomes too implausible to be believed?
In the ancient world, where scientific knowledge and critical historiography were far less developed, I can understand this to some extent. But what I find striking is that even today, some forms of Christianity still seem vulnerable not only to dramatic miracle claims, such as faith healing or snake handling, but also to highly implausible conspiracy theories.
This also reminds me of a disturbing case in Japan a few decades ago, when a bizarre cult carried out terrorism. Some members were highly educated, including scientists and medical doctors from elite universities such as the University of Tokyo. Yet, as far as I understand, relatively few had serious training in the humanities. This may be relevant. Scientific knowledge alone may not protect people from religious manipulation if they lack training in historical thinking, textual interpretation, philosophy, or the critical study of belief.
So what really separates ancient people who accepted such stories from modern people who still find comparable claims persuasive?
I’d say everyone has a threshold for what is “believable.” For me, anything that breaks the laws of physics is out of bounds.
Yes, as Bertrand Russell pointed out long ago, religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence. It will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. Considering those miracles, people should apply Occam’s razor. Do humans make up stories? Yes, that happens all the time. Do the laws of physics occasionally get turned off? There has never been any evidence of that happening. And reading your books, and watching your courses and videos certainly helps increase one’s intelligence.
Thanks!
Unrelated questions. In a YouTube video you said “the devil is an immortal being in early Christian thinking. . . . He can’t die.” Is the idea of the devil being immortal biblical?
1 Timothy 6:16 says only God alone has immortality. Hebrews 2:14 states that “through [Jesus’s] death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”
Colossians 1:16 says “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.” It seems odd that God can create something he cannot destroy.
In Mark 1:24 a demon says to Jesus “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”
Yet, in Luke 20:36, Jesus states that those in the resurrection “can no longer die; for they are like the angels.” I presume that includes fallen angels.
In Revelation, humans get destroyed in the lake of fire, while the devil and demons are tormented forever. Is this because God cannot destroy the latter?
In antiquity “mortal” referred to humans because they could die, unlike “super-humans” who would always live, and so were called “immortals” “Destroying” someone doesn’t necessarily mean making them cease to exist. You can destroy a city but the city is still there, e.g. One of my favorite players got destroyed in the French Open yesterday but will still be around for Wimbledon. I’m not saying the God of the Bible COULD not annihilate anyone/anything he wanted. I’m saying that superhuman beings were generally considered immortal. And in Revelation, the devil is said to be tormented forever in the lake of fire; humans are not. disabledupes{f87cfc0ad1a6fea0b68bd2d1aa92af03}disabledupes