Bede:

Personally I accept the work of the medical professionals who carry out this work and have not seen any reports that cast doubt on their integrity.

Have you checked out Edith Stein? She was canonized based on a miraculous cure from an overdose of acetaminophen, despite testimony from one of the consulting physicians that her cure would have been expected given the treatment administered. Check out:

http://www.wexnerheritage.org/review...o8/review.html

In reading the Bible, we see no examples of miracles that could not have been imagined or fabricated by the writers. For instance, Jesus turns water into wine. He never turns wood into plastic. Why is that?

Several of the miracles in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) look like cures of psychosomatic diseases, and the necessity of faith for a miracle to happen would be consistent with that.

Also, if the Edith Stein example is typical, the Vatican has had a hard time finding certifiable miracles to attribute to would-be saints in recent decades.

It's just like the old comment "Why do miracles only happen in the Bible?"

I've never heard of death, blindness, lameness, leprosy or many of the other healings described as "pscyhosomatic." I guess it might have been possible in some of the miracles and you and I are probably thinking of different ones, but I don't really see that as a problem... :]

He was solving the problems people had (e.g. everything from being out of wine to being dead); what good would plastic wood do anyone? :] I really want to know about that one...

But as for anything unimaginable the minute someone showed it to us, it would probably become imaginable. I mean, that's how it usually works... Still, there are descriptions elsewhere in the NT of people unable to describe what they saw & that's how we'd probably wind up hearing about unimaginable things :] I think the verse I'm thinking of is somewhere in Revelation [which has a lot of interesting descriptions... :] or perhaps elsewhere in the rest of the NT besides the gospels :]

what good would plastic wood do anyone? :] I really want to know about that one...


Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

Plastic is, of course, a useless material, which is why it is never used today.

I've never heard of death, blindness, lameness, leprosy or many of the other healings described as "psychosomatic." I guess it might have been possible in some of the miracles and you and I are probably thinking of different ones, but I don't really see that as a problem... :]

Actually, all of these conditions can be brought on by hysteria. Hysterical blindness and lameness have been well described.

Death is another question, but one that has fooled people in the past. Of note is that resurrections from death were much less common after embalming became a standard practice.

As far as leprosy, read Crossan’s comments on that.