Christ’s Undeniable Miracles
August 6th, 2008
(By Nathan Busenitz)
Today’s post is adapted from Nathan’s new book, Reasons We Believe: Fifty Lines of Evidence that Confirm the Christian Faith. This article is adapted from part of reason no. 34, regarding the authenticity of Jesus’ miracles.
In the course of His ministry, Jesus healed diseases (e.g. Matthew 4:23–25; Mark 3:7–12), cast out demons (e.g. Matthew 7:22; Luke 10:17), calmed storms (e.g. Matthew 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41), raised the dead (e.g. Luke 7:11–17; John 11:1–44), fed thousands at one time (e.g. Matthew 14:13–21; 15:32–39), walked on water (e.g. Matthew 14:22–23; John 6:15–21), turned water into wine (John 2:1–11), and even controlled the whereabouts of fish (e.g. Matthew 17:23–27; Luke 5: 1–11). Because His miracles were so well-known, Jesus Himself appealed to them as verification that He came from God. As He told His critics, “For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36; cf. Matthew 11:5; John 10:38).
Significantly, Jesus’ opponents never denied His miracles. Though they questioned the divine origin of His power (Matthew 12:24), they were never able to deny that the works He and His apostles performed were supernatural (John 11:47–48; Acts 4:16). Even today, “the fact that miracle working belongs to the historical Jesus is no longer disputed.”[1] In the words of the German scholar, Wolfgang Trilling: “We are convinced and hold it for historically certain that Jesus did in fact perform miracles. . . . The miracle reports occupy so much space in the Gospels that it is impossible that all could have been subsequently invented or transferred to Jesus.”[2]
Jewish literature from the first few centuries A.D. confirms that the Jews, like the Christians, accepted the fact that Jesus performed supernatural acts. Unlike many of the pseudo-miracles done today in the name of Jesus, the actual miracles of Jesus were irrefutable. But while they could not deny His power, the Jewish religious leaders rejected the idea that God was the source behind it. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day attributed His power directly to Satan (Matthew 12:24). In later centuries, the rabbis attempted to pass it off as sorcery and magic.[3] Thus, in the Babylonian Talmud we read this accusation: “Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic and deceived and led Israel astray.”[4] Though intended pejoratively, the statement provides backhanded confirmation of the fact that Jesus performed amazing wonders (“practiced magic”) which were so compelling that many in Israel believed in Him because they were convinced by what He did (“deceived and led Israel astray”).
Jewish sources further acknowledge that Jesus’ followers also had the power to heal in His name.[5] Princeton Scholar Peter Schäfer comments on one particular account in the Talmud, in which the grandson of a Jewish man named Yehoshua b. Levi was miraculously healed by a Christian. Though the healing was successful, Yehoshua b. Levi was mortified that his grandson had been subject to such “magical” powers. Based on that account, Schäfer explains the Jewish perspective of Jesus’ miracles:
The story about Yehoshua b. Levi and his grandson . . . presents an ironical critique of Jesus’ and his followers’ belief in their magical power. True, it argues, their magical power is undeniable: it works, and one cannot do anything against its effectiveness. But it is [in the minds of the Jews] an unauthorized and misused power.[6]
Faced with the reality that Jesus and His immediate followers could perform miraculous deeds, the Jewish leaders (both in Jesus’ day and in the centuries that followed) had a clear choice. But rather than attribute “the chaste, ethical, and redemptive nature of the miracles of Christ”[7] to God, they chose instead to attribute them (either directly or indirectly) to Satan. Jesus Himself pointed out the self-contradictory nature of their claim (cf. Matt. 12:25–32): Why would He use His miracle-working power to fight against Satan, if He was in fact empowered by Satan? That Jesus used His miracles to further the kingdom of God clearly revealed the true source of His power.[8]
Though neither the Pharisees nor the later rabbis responded in belief, their writings (from the first few centuries of church history) provide historical confirmation of Jesus as a miracle worker.[9] Thus Christians today can look to Christ’s miracles as verification that He is indeed the Son of God (John 3:2; Acts 2:22). As the early Christian leader Justin Martyr (d. 165) explained to the Jewish antagonists of his day, “[Jesus] was manifested to your race and healed those who were from birth physically maimed and deaf and lame, causing one to leap and another to hear and a third to see at his word. And he raised the dead and gave them life and by his actions challenged the men of his time to recognize him.”[10] Even today, two millennia later, Jesus’ miracles still give us good reason to take His claims seriously.
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NOTES:
[1] William Lane Craig; cited from Norman Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, 314.
[2] Wolfgang Trilling; cited from Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli, eds., Jesus’ Resurrection, Fact or Figment? (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 181.
[3] Graham H. Twelftree, in Jesus the Exorcist (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993), 207 argues persuasively that “it is false to think that Jesus’ contemporaries considered him to be a magician,” but that this was a charge that was invented centuries later. Our purpose here is simply to show that, because it was undeniable that Jesus did something, His opponents desperately searched for alternative explanations than those given by Jesus Himself.
[4] Cited from Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton University Press, 2007), 35.
[5] Cf. Ibid., 52–62.
[6] Ibid., 61–62.
[7] Bernard Ramm in Protestant Christian Evidences, 143 points out that, “Pagan miracles lack the dignity of Biblical miracles. They are frequently grotesque and done for very selfish reasons. They are seldom ethical or redemptive and stand in marked contrast to the chaste, ethical, and redemptive nature of the miracles of Christ. Nor do they have the genuine attestation that Biblical miracles have.”
[8] Cf. David K. Clark, “Miracles in the World Religions,” 199–213, In Defense of Miracles, edited by R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 207–8. Clark responds convincingly to the charge that Jesus was merely a magician. Clark shows that there were significant differences between Jesus’ miracles and the supposed miracles of other “magicians.” For example, while magicians usually used objects in their work, combined with incantations and spells, Jesus simply spoke, commanding demons and diseases on the basis of His own authority.
[9] Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 49–51 asserts that some of the rabbinic stories about Rabbi Eliezer may have been representative of Jesus. In one such account, Eliezer’s message is confirmed by miracles and an audible voice from heaven. Yet, the other rabbis reject it nonetheless, because it goes against their established traditions. If Schäfer is right, his conclusions give us an interesting insight into why the Jews rejected Jesus even after His message was confirmed by miracles and a voice from heaven.
[10] Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 69; cited from Colin Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984), 4.
For those who are interested, I just discovered that the full contents of the book can be browsed online at Crossway’s website.
Reasons We Believe (click here).
Nathan,
In regard to footnote #9, it is clear from Schäfer’s work that his point was not that the stories about Rebbe Eliezer in the Talmud were “representative” of Christ, but were, rather, a parody of Christ. It was a way in which the Rabbis of the time took “pot shots” at the beliefs of Christianity. The fact that later Rabbis rejected the stories about Eliezer was also another way to take a “pot shot” at Christianity. It was, in effect, saying, “The Christians might believe these things about their “Messiah,” but we know enough to reject them as fantastic fables.”
Art,
Thanks for your comment. I completely agree with you. Perhaps my use of the word “representative” was confusing. I meant “representative” in the broadest sense, which I think can include the idea of parody. By criticizing Eliezer, the rabbis were in reality criticizing Jesus.
Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate the sharpening. By the way, have you read much of Schäfer’s work. If so, what did you think of it?
In Christ,
NB
Nathan,
Thanks for your response and for your clarification. I suppose that I read too much into the term “representative.”
Besides “Jesus and the Talmud,” I have only read “History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World: The Jews of Palestine from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest” by Schäfer. I find it very interesting to read his work because most of what I have read is from a Christian perspective.