Loading...Here’s an interesting question I received from a reader many years ago that I had forgotten all about, but I bet it’s one some others have had (If you know the “Jefferson Bible” you’ll see it has a long history of sorts):
QUESTION:
I have looked up the content of all the papyri of the New Testament I’m aware of (i.e. the most ancient manuscripts) .
It is my understanding that although p52, p90, and p104 are dated around 125-150 AD, they contain fragments of John 18 and Matt 21 only, and that it’s not until 200 AD that manuscripts emerge which actually contain accounts of supernatural actions by Jesus.
So, it’s possible that accounts of miracles existed in copies that got destroyed, but is it fair to say that the earliest available copies of accounts of Jesus’s supernatural actions date from around 200 AD?
In other words, assuming people on average had kids by age 20 back then, and thus 20 years counts as a generation, is it fair to say that the earliest available accounts of miracles by Jesus were written by the great, great, great, great, great, great, grandson of somebody who would have been alive at the same time as Jesus?
RESPONSE:
This is an interesting question!
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So, you don’t believe Jesus did any miracles, or that he did not do the specific ones sited in the gospels? Meaning, perhaps, that they were made up to represent ones that he did do? And, why do you think so?
I personally don’t think the laws of nature get violated. It doesn’t matter how religious you are or how good your prayer life is: if you stir cream into coffee you simply cannot stir it out so it forms its own substance again. Can’t happened, has never happened. Second law of Thermodynamics. Never failed us yet and it will lead to universal destruction….
if there were miracles, Jesus used divine or Godly powers, not human.
Hi Bart wow that cruise looks amazing hope you have a great time! Would like to come as well but am swamped with exams at the moment so can’t come unfortunately. On a more serious note I have a personal question I hope you don’t mind answering if you don’t mind as know it can be a touchy subject for some. Now you’re an agnostic atheist do you ever from time to time experience a fear of Hell? I was listening to an older video of an atheist podcaster (who has coincidentally interviewed you on his youtube channel) and to my suprise (as he has always come across as quite sure it wasn’t true) he admitted that the issue of going to Hell was something he has dealt with in the past although I think bothers him slightly less now. So am curious if you don’t mind me asking as to whether you have experienced something similar and if so how have you learnt to deal with it providing it actually is something that you have dealt with in the past that is?
I dealt with the fear for some years after I left the faith, but it doesn’t really affect me any more. I’m a bit of a rationalist and was able to overcome it as an irrational fear. If there is a good and loving God in the universe, he’s not interested in torturing me for 2 trillion years, with that only as the beginning….
“If there is a good and loving God in the universe, he’s not interested in torturing me for 2 trillion years, with that only as the beginning….”
Maybe he/she/it isn’t good and loving…
Yup! And then the question remains why one should think he/she/it exists.
Hello!
If the miracle stories were fabricated or embellished, is there any way to discern what actually occurred, if anything? When I was an evangelical, it was assumed – and preached from the pulpit – that such events are to be taken literally.
Thanks1
Good question. I strongly resist the idea that “something” must have happened (Jesus knew where the stones were in the lake so he “seemed” to be walkig on water, etc.). I think these are simply amazing stories that cropped up about an amazing man. False stories come up all the time, still today, when in theory they can be checked, often just as unusual as the Gospel accounts.
Maybe I should start with an apology…… But I am reminded of a newspaper photo of a Church billboard announcing (perhaps ill considered) coming Sunday sermons:
07:00 Jesus Walks on water
09:00 Searching for Jesus
Fantastic!
1. Does Paul’s failure to mention any of Jesus’s miracles tell us anything about when the miracle stories developed? 2. Does John’s alternate set of miracle stories compared to the Synoptics suggest that the early evangelists simply invented miracles to suit the occasion, or rather just expanded actual events into miraculous form?
1. I’d say no, since Paul gives almost NO informatoin about Jesus’ activities, and so shouldn’t be expected to have told about the miracles. 2. I don’t think it shows that the evangelists necessarily did (though they could have), but they show someone(s) did. I usually don’t credit the evangelists themselves with a lot of creation, though of course it could have happened. The known tendency they *do* have is to copy and edit previous stories in circulation.
Before high school, I recall Sunday School teachers spouting that Jesus did not use his divinely nature [triune God background] for any of those miracles during his human life.
Have any otherwise historical-critical NT scholars taken an excursion-perhaps just out of curiosity-from their historical-critical methods to consider which NT miracle stories, if any, might meet the other criteria for historical material, eg, multiple independent attestation? Given that approach have any of these efforts been recognized as convincing? If so, who or what would be a good example?
Oh yes, many, many times. Taht is one of the historical critical methods. None is convincing to me because I don’t think it’s possible with any historical criteria to demonstrate the supernatural, which is beyond historical proof by its very nature (even if it happened!)
Thank you for your post, clear and convincing. Yet Matthew 12:39 is problematic, is it not?
“… Yet no sign will be given to it [this evil and adulterous generation] except the sign of the prophet Jonah… ”
NO other sign?? Are all the miracles which Matthew himself narrates not signs?
Mark 8:12 is similar, except Jesus does not even mention the sign of Jonah.
Which makes the situation even more puzzling.
Not in Matthew. The miracles are not signs and are not called signs. They are acts of power performed in the assistance of others, but in the Synoptics Jesus flat-out refuses to do miracles in order to demonstrate his divine nature (= SIGNify his identity). Notice the second temptation in Matthew 4, the temptation narrative. To publicly show who he was, for the synoptics, is a Satanic temptaioun.
The posting on Jesus’s sarcasm reminded me of something I think I read but now I can’t find the relevant passage despite skimming the section headings in the Synoptics and searching the internet.
It seems like the disciples were asking Jesus what they needed to do in order to be saved. The interpretation I read seemed to think that Jesus must have been exasperated by the question. Haven’t they heard anything I’ve been saying? That it’s not a matter of following rules but of realizing and responding to God’s love for us? Well if they want rules I’ll give them rules, ie, “love your neighbor as yourself,” something very simple (though not easy) that they don’t really want to do.
I don’t think it’s the one about the rich young man giving all he has to the poor or the times Jesus presented the Great Commandment.
Can you help me identify the passage? Maybe I’m misremembering it or misunderstanding it. But I remember being being deeply moved by something like this when I realized it was (according to this interpretation) intended to ironic or sarcastic.
Nope! Are you thinking of jesus’ exasperation in Mark that the disciples can’t understand who he is (repeatedly expressed in the first 8 chapters and coming to a climax in the passion predictions and their responses in 8:31; 9:31; and 10:33-34)?
Is this an argument that actually exists within the tradition of biblical criticism? Perhaps from the early 20th and 19th centuries? I know that liberal theology sought to extract the miracles from the Gospels, but that is not the same as positing that there were original manuscripts without the miracles.
I don’t think so. I’m not sure others have argued it.
If one worships at the alter of the immutable rules of nature and physics, don’t we have to grapple with the issue of what started it all? Did all that has happened from the “beginning” result from nothing? Did an atom, molecule, grain of sand, etc. start the evolution to what we have today? Is the lack of a definable answer and mystery of it all reason enough to believe in a supreme being? Isn’t the beauty in the world enough to know there is something that started this, whether we can explain “it” or not? Isn’t the good in humanity enough to know there is more, whether we can define “its” qualities or powers? As tempting as it is to deny the existence of a supreme being because of the theory that it could not be merciful and allow suffering, isn’t our inability to understand these mysteries enough reason to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least as to whether he exists?
Yes, these are questions that astronomers, phycisists, virtually everyone interested in the Big Bang wrestle with all the time. And no, I’d say that not knowing how to answer it is not proof that it didn’t happen. (None of my friends can explain how a microwave works, but we know it does.)
I thought Coleman Organ’s question a fine one. It seems clear that if the Big Bang theory is correct, it follows that the instigation of it had to come from somewhere, something. This mystery is the ground of all Being. Call the mystery God or Supreme Being, or any other symbol, no theology can authentically be extrapolated nor any goodness nor evil imputed to it. To overcome the impossibility of knowing humans create vast symbolic universes, like religion, in efforts to gain certitude and refuge.
Yes, the idea that the Bib Bang requires a God beofre it may make sense to those of us who are not phycisists and assume that nothing can come from nothing. My view is that understanding the Big Bang requires scientific study. There are lots of things in the world that don’t “make sense” — beginning with the basics of the nature of light and getting deep into quantum mechanics. We can’t deny that something happened/happens because it’s contrary to our own experience of the world. Or rather we can do that, but maybe shouldn’t?
I’m late commenting on this (ironically I took time off from the New Testament to celebrate Christmas), but it’s quite clear and firmly established in quantum physics that “things” can appear from “nothing”. The Big Bang is consistent with this and does not require a First Cause, regardless of what philosophers and theologians may believe
I’m not a quantum physicist, as you probaby have noticed, but my sense is that there are very big debates about exactly *how* the Big Bang could come from nothing leading to something. (That is, my sense is that there are plausible theories but no widespread view). Please correct me if I’m wrong about that, and tell me what to read! (I’ve read Sean Caroll, Brian Greene, Neal DeGrasse Tyson, Katie Mack and a few others.)