The Miracles: History or Myth?
Sisyphus ·
April 17, 2012 at 4:41pm
In particular, let's focus on Christ's miracles, so famously redacted in Jefferson's reworking of the New Testament. I was raised in a church that knew the miracles were historical. At a modern religious university the doctors of theology poo-pooed the miracles as cultural-religious theater, with many of the magician's tricks known and commonly practiced in biblical times. Jesus of Nazareth played by Penn Gillette and his twelve Tellers.
Pick a side. Take a stand. It's no skin off my back if you go over 200 words.
- Comment (116)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (13)
Comments:
Jan '12
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
Uh oh, Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox are tussling in the briar patch again, and the fur is flying. Ol' Br'er Bear was looking for the Practical-Steps-for-Defeating-Obama thread, so he's jus' gonna shamble on by.
Zippy-de-doo-da!
Dec '10
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
Salieri:
Aside from a "Damascus" road experience there are few people I suspect who really change over the course of a life time. I think we grow into the position that we feel more comfortable with and probably already have. If I'm a skeptic in Sunday School at age 8 I will likely be a non-believer at 48; and vice versa...some people do dramatically change, but I think a true and complete change is rare.
Count me as a rare case. Atheist at 40. Full-bore small-"o" orthodox Catholic at 50.
One more comment about faith as a matter of trust. I've been listening to a Great Course about St. Augustine, specifically today about the concept of predestination, which is a difficult teaching to accept. But, faith itself is given by grace and not fully our choice to trust. God makes choices -- Jacob over Esau; the Jews over other peoples -- and he changes the hearts of some, not by coercion, but by favor, and tragically from our limited understanding, not others.
I've got to run and do my part to keep Christopher Hitchens spinning in his grave. Off to indoctrinate some fifth graders! Tah!
May '10
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
Re: Fred Cole's #56. Uh, Fred, other than eye-witness accounts and assorted chronological documentation from roughly contemporary sources, there is no evidence that George Washington or Abraham Lincoln ever lived, either. It is the nature of historical facts, and especially people, that the only evidence we have of them is what eye-witnesses and contemporary documentation can tell us. If a persons contemporaries recognize their significance, they write and they save. That's why we know more about Washington than we do about the slave that cleaned his stables. The people who'd been in the presence of Christ recognized His significance. The events of the Gospels are better attested documentarily than any other historical events of comparable age. Everyone would accept as true the history of the Punic Wars. But the documentary evidence is far less contemporary and far sparser than the evidence for the Gospels.
Jun '10
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
What proof do we have that the Constitution was actually written by the Founding Fathers? The consensus view among modern scholars is that the text we have today could not possibly have been written earlier than the 1860's, probably compiled from earlier oral traditions.
In fact it's now well established that the historical George Washington was an ardent socialist. Historical-critical analysis revels that it was not until the Guilded Age that the robber barons, anxious to legitimize their vast power and wealth, conveniently "discovered" the Bill of Rights in the national archive and fabricated the claim that the Founding Fathers had actually favored private property and opposed high taxes.
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
This perhaps? From the Journal.
Sep '10
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
I don't know of anyone who can top Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine, by the late Charles Norris Cochrane and published by Liberty Fund for the juxtaposing of early Christianity and Roman civilization. Cochrane was head of the Department of Roman and Greek history at the University of Toronto, so there is an extensive glossary of Latin and Greek terms used throughout the text.
Feb '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
No, The elect are known only to the counsel of God. If we contemplate the idea of predestination (and here I follow the less rigid and less tidy pre-Dort English reformers) the contemplation that God in His mercy will sustain, support and delivery those who are elect is a comfort, because if one searches after the things of God, this is a sign of hope of one's election, but one cannot be presumptuous about the matter. If we feel pulled and compelled by the inner prompting of the spirit to be lovers of Christ and doers in the Kingdom of God, it is to be hoped that this is a sign of God's favor, and it helps energize us to be zealous - but it could be false piety, pride, arrogance, etc., we must be humble, hopeful and faithful. The 39 Articles of Religion are very useful in this regard, nos. 9-20, but especially 17-19
Joseph Stanko
But ultimately isn't their reasoning and evidence irrelevant to you?
Feb '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
I do not think that my religious convictions are the end or beginning of God's mercy, love or power. I hope that what has attracted me here is a true understanding of God's word, but I may be in error, and if so, God have mercy on my should; and I think all within the great sweep of the church have hope, and perhaps those beyond, for only God can know and judge their heart's aright. In the meantime we must use our human reason and other divine gifts, though tainted by our sinfulness and frailty, pride and egos, and at best our truth is seen through the glass darkly to try to understand and serve God aright. Trying to discover the clearest idea of what he wants of us, and to fulfill that idea with love, charity and acts of kindness to all.
Joseph Stanko
But ultimately isn't their reasoning and evidence irrelevant to you? That is, if you believe you are a Christian because God elected you and gave you irresistible grace, then any evidence or reasons you cite are ultimately just rationalizations and not the real root cause of your belief, correct?
Feb '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
Yes, I thought it was a useful short hand (perhaps not so much) for those who are convinced and confirmed in one world view and suddenly find themselves compelled to reject it. Not literally experiencing a Christophany in the manner of St. Paul.
Although, in another sense, as I think about this - I believe that all people must be converted by the grace of Christ to enjoy him forever, therefore in a sense all must have a Damascus moment, when we fall down and worship the living God. However, it seems for many this is a life-long process, or at least a long term process, sometimes with twists and turnings towards and away.
Lucy Pevensie
I'm a little surprised by this--or are you using Damascus road experience fairly loosely? Because I know a number of people (my husband is one) who went through a lot of their lives as militant unbelievers, and were suddenly converted and changed their minds completely. Are you calling any sudden conversion a Damascus road experience? · 6 hours ago
Dec '10
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
Lucy Pevensie
Fred Cole: Isn't the whole point of faith that you're supposed to believe a thing despite it lacking evidence supporting it?
If you think faith is a virtue, then the virtue is believing despite a lack of proof and despite knowledge of science. If you're asking for proof, then that's not faith.
I would argue that faith is slightly different from this. Faith is the openness to belief, the willingness to believe, if one is convinced that something is right. Thus, "I believe, Lord; help thou my unbelief." This is why you can't talk someone into faith, particularly if the person is adamantly opposed to it.
This is a common conceit among atheists -- that believers must suspend reason in order to have faith. Fr. Barron has a commentary in which he describes what he has in common with unbelievers, one aspect of which is, if something requires suspension of reason, it isn't true. If it requires suspension of reason, a characteristic we share with God in His image and likeness, it isn't faith either.
Feb '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
I actually don't like predestination/election, but it is there in the New Testament, it is a hard doctrine, but Augustine has the clearest and most powerful exposition of it; although his ideas are not the only approach to those passages in the Church fathers.
“in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity”
Marco Antonio de Dominis or Peter Meiderlin (Rupert Meldenius)
Western Chauvinist
Salieri:
some people do dramatically change, but I think a true and complete change is rare.
Count me as a rare case. Atheist at 40. Full-bore small-"o" orthodox Catholic at 50.
One more comment about faith as a matter of trust. I've been listening to a Great Course about St. Augustine, specifically today about the concept of predestination, which is a difficult teaching to accept. But, faith itself is given by grace and not fully our choice to trust. God makes choices -- Jacob over Esau; the Jews over other peoples -- and he changes the hearts of some, not by coercion, but by favor, and tragically from our limited understanding, not others.
Dec '10
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
After considering this further, I realize the evidence which brought me into the fold was witnessing the efficaciousness of faith in Christ in the lives of individuals, families, and society. The fact of Western Civilization in America at its peak was evidence enough for me to desire to understand its genesis. And once desire to understand sets in, then, as Augustine says, "our love is our weight."
Individuals, couples, families, and societies which have Christ at the center, have life abundantly. This is self-evident to anyone with eyes to see. No one I know is spared suffering, but those with faith have peace, and even joy, knowing their suffering is redeemed in the end.
Many atheists have come to realize this and advocate for Judeo-Christian cultural sensibilities as a result. Melanie Phillips, David Horowitz, and Lee Harris come immediately to mind. Hitchens was exactly right about many things (especially his passion for justice), but got it exactly wrong on religion. It's Leftism which poisons everything.
Apr '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
St. Salieri: Yes, I thought it was a useful short hand (perhaps not so much) for those who are convinced and confirmed in one world view and suddenly find themselves compelled to reject it. Not literally experiencing a Christophany in the manner of St. Paul.
Although, in another sense, as I think about this - I believe that all people must be converted by the grace of Christ to enjoy him forever, therefore in a sense all must have a Damascus moment, when we fall down and worship the living God. However, it seems for many this is a life-long process, or at least a long term process, sometimes with twists and turnings towards and away.
Although it was a conversion within Christianity, indeed, within Orthodoxy, I managed to flip more or less 180 degrees over my five years of Theology. I've always felt terribly blessed that the conversion was so slow as to be perceptible only in hindsight, as I believe it would have caused considerable angst had I not been distracted, much as I might feel gratitude to a nurse who successfully persuaded me I was not being injected.
Apr '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
I don’t think the bald dismissal of the Gospel reporters as mistaken or deceived can stand up. While any witness to the 2008 presidential campaign cannot doubt the human will to credulity, the evangelists were at least as aware of the charlatanry in their world as are 21st C. professors. Their laconic accounts sometimes tried to counter skeptical assumptions, and even reported more than they knew, e.g., John 2:1-11 (Cana) and Mark 8:22-26 (Blind man cured in two stages).
Ignore the mother-son interaction at Cana, except to note that if anyone knew who Jesus was it was Mary, and she is asking him to perform a parlor trick, like Harry Potter peeling potatoes by magic (well, he did keep that carpentry shop awfully neat). John sees the jars being filled with fresh water, to show there is no set up. He “maintains the chain of custody” by following the servants with the sample and getting the witness of the chief steward that it is wine, indeed very good wine. He finishes by saying that the disciples found the miracle credible.
Apr '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
This is not dispositive of the miracle (and the account does not explicitly rule out that John got it second hand), but it does present John as an active and critical witness.
The blind man at Bethsaida is a different matter. Jesus’ first effort at curing him falls short. When Jesus asks him what he sees, the man says “I see men as trees walking”. Whatever a blind man’s mental images of men and trees might be, obviously his vision is still not whole. Jesus tries again, and the man sees clearly.
No one in the first century A.D. could have known that vision has a learned component as well as physical sense organs. We know today that even when the wetware is put in working order, vision is distorted unless the brain, before it has developed too far, has been able to learn to process the visual signal. Thus, the account contains information that neither charlatan nor dupe could have inserted deliberately.
Edited on April 19, 2012 at 4:58amApr '11
Re: The Miracles: History or Myth?
Could it be a coincidence? Maybe Jesus or the reporter added the hitch to heighten the drama and just by chance included significant medical details. It would be a very small chance. It looks more like the story is especially structured to make a point: no other miracle needs two tries (or any other literary devices), nor in any other cure does Jesus ask the patient how things are going.