(7 votes, average: 4.86 out of 5)
Loading...Miracles seem to be everywhere in the early Christian literature, and it is striking how insistent all these ancient sources are it was precisely the wonder-working abilities of the Christians in the name of Christ and the Christian God that convinced potential converts to leave the religious traditions that nearly everyone around them had and had had for time immemorial to join this bizarre new faith in only one God who would provide salvation only to those who believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
But that’s the consistent testimony, and to cap it off I turn to Augustine, the greatest theologian in the history of Christianity, famous still today, incredibly learned, devout, and sincere, and not one who was prone to deception. Augustine in fact wrote two treatises about lying, arguing that in NO circumstances, WHATSOEVER, was it EVER right to lie. Not EVER.
He too reports that Christians did miracles and more than that, he claims explicitly that he had seen a whole lot of them. He gives some details.
Here’s what I say about him in The Triumph of Christianity.
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Augustine of Hippo, the greatest theologian of Christian antiquity, published his famous City of God, in twenty-two books (416-422 CE). Augustine had a clear sense of why the great miracles of Scripture had been recounted: “The miracles were published that they might produce faith, and the faith which they produced brought them into greater prominence.”[1] But some people – possibly a large number of people
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Do you think that Christian’s could make a case that the Holy Spirit should be a much greater object of devotion than he/she/it currently is? After all, the Spirit is thought to be actually present to us now in ways that Jesus and the Father are not.
Is part of the problem that it’s hard to relate to a dove, tongues of fire, or wind?
What do you think of imagining the Spirit to be a kind of fairy (maybe like Tinkerbell?)? Fairies are usually thought of as small and kind of “spark-like”, they can fly in the air/wind, are small enough they can be blown about by the wind, and small enough to be thought of as having a more subtle influence on people. I can imagine one hovering above my head like a tongue of fire. And I, at least, tend to think of fairies as female. That would be consistent with the Hebrew word for spirit and introduce some diversity into the Trinity.
Or even more fancifully, how about a firefly/lightning bug?
I’d say that if the Spirit were worshipped more and more seriously as a member of the Trinity (one could certainly make the case that of the three it gets short shrift) it would not be as a fairy or firefly….
Hello Dr. Erhman,
I apologize if you have already addressed this. In your scholarly opinion, did Paul think that Jesus was God/divine? If so, did he think that Jesus should be worshipped?
Yes. He believed God had made him equal with Himself and that he was to be worshipped. (see Philippians 2:6-11)
Thank you Dr. Ehrman,
Do scholars think that is a belief the original disciples like Peter held as well?
Thank you so much for time!
Yes, I think as soon as they realized he had been raised from the dead, they began to consider him a divine being.
Dear Bart,
I’m not sure if you know, but there have been some truly remarkable archaeological finds unearthed in Turkey recently.
One is an exceptionally well-preserved fresco of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, dating to c. 225. It’s stunning! A good photograph of the fresco can be found here: https://www.dailysabah.com/life/3rd-century-christian-fresco-shows-jesus-as-good-shepherd/news
They’ve also found an inscription going back to c. 150 in Smyrna, when Polycarp was likely still bishop of the city!
(Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/turkey-archaeology-christianity-jesus-image-iznik-b2984296.html)
This must be the earliest autograph found of Christian writing, surely?
Thanks! I knew about the portrayal of Jesus — one of the earliest we have, and stunning. I didn’t know yet about the inscriptions. I haven’t dug around further yet, and I found the terse discussion in the (popular) articlle a bit confusing. Have you looked at them yet? I can’t tell from it why they think these are Christian? One has the word “logos” and the other has the number “800.” But is that all they have? Logos, of course, is a very common word and 800 can mean all sorts of things. So there must be something else that is making them think “Christian”? Or is this it?
I’ve tracked down the academic work: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctt1w8h3mx
[LOGOS] The “Logos” reference seems to be a red herring.
[800] The 800 reference relates to the following inscription:
“ἰσόψηφα
κύριος ω
πίστις ω”
“Equal in numerical value:
Lord = 800
Faith = 800”
Bagnall comments: “Both κύριος (20 + 400 + 100 + 10 + 70 + 200) and πίστις (80 + 10 + 200 + 300 + 10 + 200) in fact add up to 800 as isopsephisms.” (p.423)
[SPIRIT] We also have:
ὁ δεδω̣κ̣[ὼς]
τὸ πνεῦμ̣[α]
“The one who has given the spirit…”
Bagnall: “It is certainly true that πνεῦμα can occur in funerary contexts as well as in magical texts. Funerary usage here seems improbable, and in magic, ‘giving’ the spirit is not at stake.” (p.47)
[POLYCARP?] What’s *especially* interesting (and not mentioned in the popular article) is Bagnall’s suggestion that Polycarp may be mentioned: “similarly, the location in Smyrna makes it tempting to think that the καρπο̣[ of T28.4 could be [Πολύ]καρπο̣[ς], the martyred bishop of the city. There is space to the left for four letters, and we cannot say whether anything was originally written there.” (p.47).
This is dated <180.
Very interesting. Thanks.
It is indeed a beautiful fresco. But I’m wondering what identifies it as specifically Christian — the article mentions that it’s in a burial chamber, so I’m assuming the burials gave some evidence of Christian beliefs, but the article doesn’t say so. The mere depiction of a shepherd carrying a sheep on his shoulders is not, in itself, evidence of Christianity, since the kriophoros (“ram-bearer”) was a very common representation of Hermes. Here’s one example
https://albertis-window.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Hermes_crioforo-Roman-Copy-Museu-Barroco.jpg
As with so much early Christian iconography, a pagan image — here, of a young man carrying a sheep — was adapted to specifically Christian purposes. That means that it can be very difficult to know whether an image from the 2nd or 3rd century is pagan or Christian, when looking at the image in isolation. I wish the article had said more about the surrounding context of this fresco.
Right! Me too! Thanks,
Another question, did Paul think the pre-existent christ before the resurrection was at the level of God (what would later become the trinity?)
No. He was elevated to equality at the resurrectoin. In his pre-existent state he did not seek for equality. See Philippians 2:6-11.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. I have read all your ‘miracle’ posts carefully now and I can’t help wondering if there really were some miracles, albeit modest ones. I am saying this on the basis that ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ and you have told us that St Augustine put a premium on telling the truth. Just a little blue sky thinking.
I’d say that if you’re willing to think there is smoke where there is fire in Islam, Hasidic Judaism, Mormonism, Hinduism, Christian Science, etc. etc., then sure, you could think that about Christianity too.
I understand why historians generally avoid supernatural explanations, since such claims cannot be evaluated by ordinary historical methods. At the same time, I sometimes wonder whether appeals to “natural law” can be stated a bit too simply.
Modern physics, especially quantum mechanics, has shown that nature does not always operate in ways that fit ordinary human intuition. Issues such as the problem of observation, and the fact that the behavior or even the state of matter can sometimes be described only probabilistically, suggest that our understanding of “nature” is more complex than a simple appeal to fixed natural laws might imply.
Of course, I do not mean that quantum mechanics proves miracles, or that it can be used to explain resurrection stories. But it does make me wonder whether historians should avoid saying that miracles are impossible simply because they “violate natural law,” and instead say more modestly that historians, as historians, do not have the tools to verify supernatural causation.
Would you agree that the issue is less about proving that miracles are impossible, and more about the methodological limits of historical inquiry?
Yes, my point is that there is no way to demonstrate a miracle on historical even if it did happen. But I also think it’s a mistake to say that features of nature we don’t understand (quantum mechanics) are the same as violations of laws that we do understand. It would be a mistake to think Newtonian laws (or laws of Thermodynamics, etc.) apply at the subatomic level, but that doesn’t mean they don’t apply at the level we’re concerned with when talking about “miracles.”
It is interesting that you mention Augustine, because he may have believed in miracles, but in his works he explains why he converted, and it was not because of miracles.
I suspect there were differences in the reasons slaves and other downtrodden people converted in the first century A.D., and the reasons the senatorial and educated classes converted, legalized, and eventually mandated Christianity starting with Constantine in the fourth century A.D.