Amy-Jill Levine - Signs and Wonders: A Beginners Guide to the Miracles of Jesus

Signs and Wonders

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AMY-JILL LEVINE

A BEGINNERS GUIDE to the MIRACLES OF JESUS

Abingdon Press | Nashville

Signs and Wonders

A Beginners Guide to the Miracles of Jesus

Copyright 2022 Amy-Jill Levine

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Rights and Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 810 12th Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203-4704 or emailed to .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022937507

978-1-7910-0768-3

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org/

Quotations and background information from The Works of Josephus are taken from the translations of William Whiston as published in The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Academic, 1987).

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To Joseph Sievers

Uncanny, Amazing, Confusing, Consoling

The Gospel writers depict Jesus as having authority over illnesses to cure, over demons to exorcise, and over nature to control. His earliest followers, and followers subsequently, have similarly regarded him as a miracle worker. In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus, who was not a Christian, likely recorded that Jesus was a doer of wonderful works (Antiquities 18.63). Although I am not a Christian, I have no difficulty in recognizing this historical memory. I doubt people would have gathered around Jesus, let alone left their homes and families to follow him, if all he had was a story about a sower who went out to sow. He must have had what we today call charisma: the ability to seem superhuman, so much so that he could calm those who were disturbed in spirit and bring a feeling of wholeness to those who felt physically incomplete.

More, he must have conveyed not only this impression but also this ability to his followers. In Acts 2:22, Peter preaches to the people of Jerusalem about Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know. Hebrews 2:4 similarly asserts, God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will. Indeed, these early followers, and some Christians to this day, continued to experience miracles: they prayed for storms to be stilled, and the weather calmed; they placed their hands on an ailing person, and the tumor shrank; they prayed to be closer to God, and they began to speak in tongues or be slain in the Spirit. Good timing? The power of mind over matter? Psychological openness to altered states of consciousness? Or, miracles? The answer will depend on whom we ask.

Debates over whether the miracles the New Testament recordsenabling a paralyzed man to walk, stilling a storm, healing a hemorrhaging woman, multiplying loaves and fishes, restoring sight to a blind man, raising Lazarus from the dead, and many other accountsare ultimately unhelpful. People who believe in miracles, in the sense of events that contravene what we know of nature, will believe Jesus performed them. Others, perhaps adherents to non-Christian religions, may claim that while their spiritual leaders did miracles, Jesus did not. Still others will look for scientific explanations: if a magician can make a red liquid green, so Jesus can turn water into wine. The concern to ensure Jesus was not seen as a magician was already in play by the second century. Justin Martyr, in his mid-second century Dialogue with Trypho 69.7, notes that some regarded Jesus as a sorcerer and a magician (Greek: Magos, as in Magi).

A few may argue that the Gospel texts have been mistranslated: Jesus did not stand on the water but by the water (how powerful prepositions can be!). Some will see Jesus as in cahoots with the people he ostensibly cured. Still others propose that not only was Jesus a visionary, he also taught his followers to have visions, including visions of him doing amazing things. And quite a number of critics suggest that the healings were of psychosomatic problems; Jesus does not regrow limbs, they note.

Such arguments get us nowhere on the question of history. Historians cannot state that something that contravenes the world as we know it happened. Belief in miracles is a matter of faith. Further, where one person sees a miracle, someone else sees the practice of medicine or an example of magic or an optical illusion. Sometimes these distinctions are gendered (heres my feminism coming to the fore): for generations, if a woman healed a person with a combination of herbs she learned from her mother, it was called witchcraft or at best folk medicine, but if a man, with a medical degree, using the same herbs, healed a person, it was called medicine.

Either we believe in miracles of the sort the Gospels describe, or we dont. Butand heres the good newsfor the stories to have value for us, the question of historicity is not of ultimate import. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Johnthe convenient designations for the authors of the Gospelsbelieved Jesus did miracles or, as John prefers, signs. To understand the Gospels in their own context, it therefore helps to enter into the way the authors and their readers thought.

Now we can address what the miracle stories did, and can, mean. Additionally, we can do more than point to the obvious, which is that the miracle stories are designed to tell us something about Jesus. We learn from these stories that he has authority; he can do amazing things. We shall see how several of the miracles connect him to Israels story: he controls nature as the God of Israel controls nature. Psalm 107:25 reports that God commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea, and verse 29 concludes, he made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. As the God of Israel, so Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus also must have reminded his first followers of the assurance Moses gave the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 18:15, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This prophet could split the sea in half to allow the people to escape from slavery to freedom; he could make food, like manna, appear to feed the hungry. Jesus would also have reminded his followers of the great miracle-working prophets, Elijah and Elisha, both of whom also raised the dead. Further, Elijah provided the widow of Zarephath a jar of meal [that] will not be emptied, and the jug of oil [that] will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth (1 Kings 17:14).