In the feeding of the 5000, a unique miracle in that it is the only one which is repeated in all four Gospels, one can discern a clear parallel between Elisha’s feeding of 100 men with the 20 loaves of bread and 2 ears of grain in 2 Kings 42-44. Was this the model? Perhaps this was an attempt to amplify the mystical, supernatural powers of Jesus by the early Christian writers? There are many parallel miracle stories which come up again and again, seeming to have some roots in the prophet Elisha.
| 2 Kings 4:44 – They ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord | Mark 6:42-43 – They all ate and were satisfied and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish |
The inspiration for the feeding of the multitudes is the Book of Deuteronomy. This book contains the final instructions of Moses before the 12 tribes cross the Jordan and enter the land of Israel to dispossess the 7 Canaanite nations living there. Deut 7:1
The feeding of the multitudes takes the place in the desert – Jesus instructing his disciples before the entry into the new kingdom.
“Man shall not live on bread alone but on the very word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4, Deut 8:3.
The word of God is the Law & the Prophets. The five loaves and two fish are the Pentateuch and 2 stone tablets – the Law of Moses. When they have entered the land flowing with milk and honey the 12 tribes are to take some of the firstfruits and put them in a basket for the Lord. Deut 26:2
The 7 loaves and a few small are the 7 Major Prophets and the 12 minor prophets. This manna is given to the 7 nations who collect 7 baskets for the Lord.
The new kingdom of God will include the 12 tribes with the 7 nations.
One need not deny the obvious influence of the Jewish scriptures to ask whether or not we can also find additional echoes in the Hellenistic literary tradition.
Of course. McDonald and others have done this. The NT authors are either Hellenized Jews* or Gentiles, reading and writing in Greek. It would be odd if they didn’t absorb the dominant culture. But that’s not the same thing as saying the gospel stories were based on Greek literature. The proof is in the pudding. And McDonald’s ingredients are thin. Is there really a relationship between the Homeric story of the Cyclops and the Gadarene Demoniac in Mark 5, other than the presence of farm animals?
Wherever we land on this issue to me the important thing is the realization that these works are acts of creative literature not reportage. I’ve been reading a lot of so-called ** you do not have permission to see this link ** lately. Down with pericope! Up with plot! Whoever Jesus may have been what he is foremost is a character in a book.
* Prod Ehrman has hinted a couple times that gMatthew and gJohn might have been composed by Gentiles. I would be very interested to see that case made. Another suggestion to add to the list of possible topics! (Of course I have my own pet theory that Mark was not a Gentile but a Hellenized Jew…)
I don’t agree that the feeding of the 5000 has a recognizable parallel in Homer’s Illiad and Oddysey (i.e., the two feasts prepared for Telemachus), and so the posts here make it seem more likely borrowed from the Old Testament and the Elisha miracle story.
It has been suggested that the early Christian church may have wanted to use Dec. 25 at the birthday of Jesus to embrace and attract the believers who celebrated the holiday of Mithra within the Roman pagan religion. So perhaps the author of Mark, being an educated Gentile with in depth knowledge of both Greek mythology and the books of the Old Testament, it would seem likewise reasonable that there was intermingling between at least two knowledge bases of culture to attract a wider audience, syncretize a bigger and bolder story for the unwashed masses with the new and improved, latest and greatest miracle stories from a humble god known as Jesus Christ.
Borrowing stories from other creeds and faiths has been a common technique used to develop a new religious mutation. The ancient Romans themselves appeared to have been syncretic and capable of intermingling foreign deities from outlying regions to adapt into their own religious culture. Religious transmutation is apparent in Buddhism, Islam, the various African tribal beliefs based on nature worship, which transmigrated through the slave trade into the Caribbean, Brazil and elsewhere.
The fact that Protestant denominations exist due to the Reformation from the Catholic Church suggests to me that this process is universal and will continue in the future as long as we have organized religions.
Actually, I’ve recently come over to the fact that the ‘multiplication of food’ is a plausible reality, although miracles are impossible to prove by the scientific method. These are single, unique events which can’t be easily duplicated in a controlled setting using statistical hypothesis testing with a null and alternative hypothesis.
As for Jesus feeding the 5000, other than some kind of advanced Star Trek replicator machine, it seems physically impossible to increase food supplies out of thin air.
Buddha seems to have done something similar in the ** you do not have permission to see this link **:
Then husband and wife came before the Master and said meal-time had come. And the Master, passing into the Refectory, sat down on the Buddha-seat prepared for him, with the Brotherhood gathered round. Then the Lord High Treasurer poured the Water of Donation over the hands of the Brotherhood with the Buddha at its head, whilst his wife placed a cake in the alms-bowl of the Blessed One. Of this he took what sufficed to support life, as also did the five hundred Brethren. Next the Treasurer went round offering milk mixed with ghee and hooey and jagghery; and the Master and the Brotherhood brought their meal to a close. Lastly the Treasurer and his wife ate their fill, but still there seemed no end to the cakes. Even when all the Brethren and the scrap-eaters through-out the monastery had all had a share, still there was no sign of the end approaching. So they told the Master, saying, “Sir, the supply of cakes grows no smaller.”
St. Dominic in 1218: Because the friars had given all they had to the poor, they had no food for themselves. Two were sent into the city to beg, but at the end of the day they had received nothing. When they returned to the convent, Dominic called them all to the refectory, and began to pray for bread. Two angels carrying loaves of bread in two white cloths that hung from their shoulders miraculously appeared in the refectory and began to serve the brothers, beginning with the youngest. When the last loaf was placed in front of Dominic, the angels disappeared.
More recently, The Lord’s Ranch outreach ministry located in ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
There have been alleged accounts** you do not have permission to see this link **
According to Father Richard M. Thomas — who for more than twenty years has organized mission work to impoverished Mexicans and Mexican-Americans — he and those who work in his mission have encountered the inexplicable multiplication of food on dozens of occasions. It has occurred at a jail they visit. It has occurred at a place known as The Lord’s Ranch. It has occurred as they have fed poor families that scavenge at dumps.
So there may be unknown laws of physics at work which we don’t fully understand to rationalize the above incidents through history.
And not so much multiplication of food. Instead what’s really needed today is subtraction, and on a global scale. Removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Pray has much as you can, but Jahweh and/or Jesus Christ can’t sequester CO2 from the atmosphere, currently at 415ppm and it is rising at a slightly exponential rate. This foreboding reality of climate change will, according to science, eventually lead us into a mass extinction event if we continue pumping massive amounts of waste CO2 into the troposphere.
Although technically the Bible does suggest global warming in Revelations 16:8 — “The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire.”
Also to be fair the theme is also echoed in Buddhism’s Sermon on the Seven Suns:
“Again after a vast period of time a sixth sun will appear, and it will bake the Earth even as a pot is baked by a potter. All the mountains will reek and send up clouds of smoke. After another great interval a seventh sun will appear and the Earth will blaze with fire until it becomes one mass of flame. The mountains will be consumed, a spark will be carried on the wind and go to the worlds of God….Thus, monks, all things will burn, perish and exist no more except those who have seen the path.”
Actually, I’ve recently come over to the fact that the ‘multiplication of food’ is a plausible reality, although miracles are impossible to prove by the scientific method. These are single, unique events which can’t be easily duplicated in a controlled setting using statistical hypothesis testing with a null and alternative hypothesis.
But there’s a philosophical problem here much deeper than testability. If one believes that at each discrete moment all the laws of nature can be altered then science itself becomes impossible. Why? Because science is based on the assumption of regularity in nature. Science rests on a foundation of ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Not philosophical naturalism, the belief that the natural is all there is – that overreaches – but methodological naturalism, functioning as if the natural is all there is. We can’t test miracles because there is no methodology for testing them. One either believes – or not.
Being true children of the Enlightenment even moderns who still believe in miracles see them as only occasional interruptions of a fundamental order at work. But it is science which has taught us to think this way. As absurd as it sounds the ancients had no concept of the supernatural . Then they had no concept of the natural either. These are modern categories. To them “reality” was a seamless continuum. The world of the gods interpenetrated the world of humans. A flock of birds could portend victory in battle. A glimmer of sunlight on the surface of a pool of water could be a dance of sprites. The upshot is that miracles (omens, signs) happened all the time.
So there may be unknown laws of physics at work which we don’t fully understand to rationalize the above incidents through history.
Which raises another philosophical question. How can we distinguish between a supernatural event and a natural event that we simply don’t understand yet? I’ve heard Christian apologists make the claim that if the Resurrection is true then all the claims of Christianity must be true. But that doesn’t follow at all. Just because raising the dead is beyond our comprehension doesn’t mean it might not be within the power of an alien civilization. I’m not suggesting that Jesus was raised by aliens. Only that it is a mistake to assume.
Stephen said
Actually, I’ve recently come over to the fact that the ‘multiplication of food’ is a plausible reality, although miracles are impossible to prove by the scientific method. These are single, unique events which can’t be easily duplicated in a controlled setting using statistical hypothesis testing with a null and alternative hypothesis.But there’s a philosophical problem here much deeper than testability. If one believes that at each discrete moment all the laws of nature can be altered then science itself becomes impossible. Why? Because science is based on the assumption of regularity in nature. Science rests on a foundation of ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Not philosophical naturalism, the belief that the natural is all there is – that overreaches – but methodological naturalism, functioning as if the natural is all there is. We can’t test miracles because there is no methodology for testing them. One either believes – or not.
As it happens, the latest and best philosophical thinking about science tells us that science does not require *unalterable laws of nature* at all. I don’t think there is any philosopher of science who would agree with your claim that “If one believes that at each discrete moment all the laws of nature can be altered then science itself becomes impossible.”
You can check out Ronald Giere’s “Science Without Laws” or Nancy Cartwright’s “How the Laws of Physics Lie” if you wan to do a deep dive into these topics.
There are overall regularities, but these could, in principle, be overriden by higher-order regularities, and they can have very rare exceptions. That is all we need for a miracle to occur, an occasional exception, since not even theists think that miracles happen all the time and in every respect — they are rare events, and everyone, atheist or theist or whatever, has to acknowledge very rare events.
Nathan Gant said
I don’t agree that the feeding of the 5000 has a recognizable parallel in Homer’s Illiad and Oddysey (i.e., the two feasts prepared for Telemachus), and so the posts here make it seem more likely borrowed from the Old Testament and the Elisha miracle story.It has been suggested that the early Christian church may have wanted to use Dec. 25 at the birthday of Jesus to embrace and attract the believers who celebrated the holiday of Mithra within the Roman pagan religion. So perhaps the author of Mark, being an educated Gentile with in depth knowledge of both Greek mythology and the books of the Old Testament, it would seem likewise reasonable that there was intermingling between at least two knowledge bases of culture to attract a wider audience, syncretize a bigger and bolder story for the unwashed masses with the new and improved, latest and greatest miracle stories from a humble god known as Jesus Christ.
Borrowing stories from other creeds and faiths has been a common technique used to develop a new religious mutation. The ancient Romans themselves appeared to have been syncretic and capable of intermingling foreign deities from outlying regions to adapt into their own religious culture. Religious transmutation is apparent in Buddhism, Islam, the various African tribal beliefs based on nature worship, which transmigrated through the slave trade into the Caribbean, Brazil and elsewhere.
The fact that Protestant denominations exist due to the Reformation from the Catholic Church suggests to me that this process is universal and will continue in the future as long as we have organized religions.
If we’re going to talk of borrowing, let us not forget that the Hebrew Book of Genesis borrowed substantially from Zoroastrianism and, especially, the Epic of Gilgamesh, both extant in Mesopotamia and to which the Hebrews in Babylonian exile would have been exposed to.
Stephen said
So Yahweh can multiply the loaves and the fishes but he can’t stop the Holocaust?
He can do all that and more, but chooses to govern the universe in a way that is, overall, very consistent and regular — at least till the Day of Judgment, which is when all those who instigated crimes like the Holocaust will face the consequences of their actions. Prior to that, the universe is — thankfully — overall very regular, and so miracles only happen in special circumstances involving special people; yet even those special people will never get all their prayers answered in the way they want — all religions recognize this.
I guess I’m ready to firmly reject this miracle based on science.
It violates one of the basic laws in modern Physics, the Law of Energy/matter conservation. The law of conservation of mass states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as the system’s mass cannot change, so quantity can neither be added nor be removed.
To digress sligtly, in regard to the ‘Feeding of the Five Thousand’, the previous editions(1st, 2nd, & 3rd) of the Talmud of Jammuel claimed that Jmmanuel (aka Jesus Christ) divided 5 loaves of bread and 3 fish in order to feed 5000 people/listeners. However it is now claimed that this incident was not properly translated and this error was corrected in the 4th edition. Note: this is not mainstream scholarly research, it is fringe ET based New Testament subject material. But not as outlandish as claiming that a magical picnic actually happened in real life.
Granted then, you can’t take mass X and make it into mass Y>X without taking more mass from somewhere. Therefore we have to assume that it’s a fictional story.
According to the previously cited UFO/Plejaren records, initially only 253 human beings listened to Jmmanuel / Jesus Christ, but not long after, most of them wandered off again. In this version of events, Jmmanuel/Jesus Christ fed no more than 51 persons, including himself and his disciples. Also according to the new TJ ( 4th edition, p. 135), Jmmanuel / Jesus Christ had 15 loaves of bread and 30 fish for this.
The wonderful thing about standards in Christian theological storytelling is that there are so many versions to pick from.
In the ET cosmic alien/celestial scriptures of the NT Bible, there tends to be a mixed bag when it comes to the miracle stories of Christ. Both seem to have supporting roles or influences from advanced celestial beings (the Talmud of Jmmanuel/TJ, the Urantia Book/UB).
OTOH in these two Christian NT bibles there is a divergence of the legitimacy of the Jesus miracles, either outright denial as feeding the 5000(in former case of TJ) or in the latter (UB/Urantia Book), the resurrection, turning of water into wine, the feeding of the five thousand, are all considered factual events or miracles but at the same time the UB rejects the miracles of walking on water and virgin birth.
I can’t accept that physical laws of the universe have to be negated in order to accept the moral and ethical teachings found in the NT.
First hellenistic influance is in LXX – translation annomalies from Plato. Hellenistic interpretations of jewish books through lenses: language and culture.
The whole story of crucifiction, resurection, empty tomb is present in greek novels in every each way. Torah observant Jew is sombody else than LXX observant Greek. It is a bush of interpretations with no clear paths. Feeding 5000 Jews and 4000 Gentiles, Moses in chiton in Dura Europas. Neither Jewish nor Greek
If Jesus really did feed the 5000/4000, and it was not a singular one-shot miracle event meant only for converting the pagans and Jews to his newly founded religion, and supposing then it were physically possible to duplicate such events, it would be especially useful for military powers to use that and other miracles it as a tactical advantage on the battlefield. No need for C-rations to resupply the troops since all the army chow can be replicated on site and on demand. No need for amphibious vehicles, you just walk over or operate machinery on top of water as if it were land. Who needs medics when you can simply revive or resurrect the dying and the dead troops?Who needs to resupply with ammo if you can just conjure it up on demand?
One has to assume it never happened and it was probably a literary device to convert the Greeks and Jews over to the Christian religion.
As for the Hellenistic influences, if that is correct the miracle stories were partly borrowed from Greek mythology, it’s long been suggested that this likely came from the Dionysus miracle stories, in which water was transformed into wine centuries before Jesus, and he also appears among many other similarities, for example, to have been associated with parthenogenesis or being born of a virgin. D.M. Murdock wrote on that topic years ago.
Perhaps it was a literary device as one finds in the movie “Conan the Barbarian”, in which Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger ) brags to his newly found sidekick Subotai (Hawaii surfer Gerry Lopez) about the power of his god Crom, a storm god. Subotai’s is the god of the four winds.
Subotai:
Ah, my god is greater.
Conan:
[chuckles] Crom laughs at your four winds. He laughs from his mountain.
Subotai:
My god is stronger. He is the everlasting sky! Your god lives underneath him.
We shouldn’t need to be pretending whose god is bigger and better than another one, and constantly use one-upmanship to gain competitive advantage by inventing more miracles and more elaborate stories to improve the ‘product’. Just let the historical record speak for itself and quit with all the fanciful nonsensical embellishments. Keep Christianity as a rational exercise in faith.
Just let the historical record speak for itself and quit with all the fanciful nonsensical embellishments.
Well said. Precisely why I am a nonbeliever.
He can do all that and more, but chooses to govern the universe in a way that is, overall, very consistent and regular — at least till the Day of Judgment, which is when all those who instigated crimes like the Holocaust will face the consequences of their actions. Prior to that, the universe is — thankfully — overall very regular, and so miracles only happen in special circumstances involving special people; yet even those special people will never get all their prayers answered in the way they want — all religions recognize this.
How can you possibly know all this? Are you sure this is not just a rationalization for divine hiddenness? And even if the Almighty punishes the instigators of the Holocaust at the end of things that in no way mitigates the experience of horror and suffering endured by the victims while it was happening.
Omar, unalterable laws of nature is your formulation. Think of the “laws of nature” as a colloquial term for perceived regularities in nature. They certainly appear to exist and without them science becomes impossible. Very rare events happen all the time but your “very rare exceptions” are still exceptions. The purpose of my post was to explain why we have no methodology to investigate miracles. Precisely because they are exceptions!
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