Miracle Stories In Luke

Josepheus, the Jewish historian of first century Palestine, comments that Jesus was known for performing many marvelous deeds. In the New Testament, Jesus performs seven exorcisms, cures fourteen diseases, works eight nature miracles, and raises three people from the dead. I am skeptical regarding the historicity of these claims for several reasons. We will examine the issue using stories from Luke.

The first point is that the ancient world looked differently on this issue than we do. The question for ancients was not whether miracles took place, but rather who was performing them. Miracles were associated with great religious figures. They offered proof that God was working through this person. Jesus could not be a great religious figure in the first century unless he performed miracles.

Moses, Elijah, and Elisha of Old Testament fame were seen as miracle workers. The Rabbi Hana ben Dosa, a contemporary of Jesus, performed similar deeds to Jesus according to the stories written about him. The same is true for Apollonius of Tyana, a pagan and also a contemporary of Jesus. In addition to performing miracles, Apollonius was known for his miraculous birth and resurrection.

In my blog on Luke’s portrait of Jesus as a prophet, I pointed out that Jesus’ cure of the centurion’s servant (Luke 7: 1-10) was patterned after a similar cure by Elisha. His cure of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7: 11-17) was modeled after Elijah. God must be shown to be working through Jesus. In fact, the gospels point out that Jesus was even greater than the Old Testament prophets. That is why Jesus is able to feed five thousand with five loaves while it takes Elisha twenty loaves to feed a hundred (see 2 Kings 4: 42-44).

Do we believe in the historicity of miracle stories for ancient religious figures? If not, why was Jesus different? If we believe them, why have these miracles stopped happening? Why aren’t there recent examples of people being raised from the dead?

It is also important to understand that ancient people knew nothing about the biological causes of disease. Disease was caused by Satan, by evil forces invading the body. Healing was a matter of getting right with God. People sought cures from priests and prophets. Jesus is pictured in the New Testament curing disease, but his cures are always associated with defeating the forces of evil. See Luke 4: 38-41, 5: 17-26, 6:19, 8:2, 9:1-2, 9: 42-43, and 13: 10-17. Jesus did not cure people the same way my son the doctor does. Jesus battled Satan.

Equally troubling from a modern perspective, the descriptions of the cures are vague. We do not have medical opinions to document the disease or to confirm the cure. If a cure takes place, we are given no evidence that it has a lasting effect. As humans who know something about story creation, we also suspect that the oral tradition took unusual events and exaggerated them.

Finally, I have pointed out several cases of where miracle stories were created to make a theological point. All of Jesus’ cures make the point that the battle for the kingdom had begun. The two cures of Luke in chapter 7 cited above signal that Jesus came from the prophetic tradition. Remember the story in Mark where Jesus cures the blind man in two stages (Mark 8: 22-26). I argued in the blog on Mark’s Messianic Secret that the author of Mark creates this story to illustrate his point that the disciples really never understand the significance of Jesus. We will soon examine the gospel of John. The resurrection of Lazarus is the most spectacular story in the New Testament. As you will see in a future blog, the author of John uses the Lazarus story to make the point that Jesus gives new life, a life centered in love. The fact that this amazing story is found only in John is puzzling. If the gospel writers were eye witnesses reporting history, you would expect that this story would be in all four gospels.

As more and more people came to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead, stories were created to explain him. That is how ancient biographies were written. The miracle stories make two important points about Jesus: that he was a great religious figure and that the kingdom of God was imminent, that in fact the battle to establish it had begun with the healing work of Jesus to defeat Satan. The fact that the miracle stories about Jesus were more spectacular than stories about other religious figures says something important about the man Jesus. I am comfortable leaving it at that.