GakuseiDon

:huh: You had asked: "Do you really think the apostles were able to perform miracles that convincingly? Or that they performed miracles at all? ... Show me one account of one miracle attributed to an apostle in the epistles. (Maybe I've temporarily forgotten one.) Does Paul attribute miracles to himself? Does he ever say that he uses miracles to persuade people to believe in Jesus?"

Thanks, Earl.

GakuseiDon

Nope.

Earl wrote just above: "Most critical scholars today reject that [the apostles performed miracles], even in regard to Jesus. Such things, they think, were only attributed to him and to them later (as in the Gospels and Acts)."

Ben C Smith

I wonder whether Earl has counted just how many of his own theories would collapse if we stuck to what most critical scholars say.

Ben.

Amaleq13

I offered what seems to be a good reason to think they performed them, regardless, and you offered nothing to counter it. In fact, you accept that they did later in the post so I don't understand the point of this comment.

Tell that to the numerous folks who believe they, too, have received the same sort of "spiritual gifts". That an entire congregation believes it can speak in tongues, etc. does not appear to diminish their faith one whit nor does it seem to discourage similarly credulous individuals from continuing to join such congregations.

And no good reason to think they would need to be.

Though you do not explicitly acknowledge it, thank you for conceding my point.

I think it helps if you genuinely believe it and you have a credulous crowd but, yes, it is generally pretty easy to fool people who want to believe. Ask John Edward how hard it is to talk to the dead.

Um, what you described is the point I made so I guess I agree that I don't realize how you have made it "better". :huh:

My point about Paul's "silence" regarding Jesus' miracles doesn't do a damn thing to my argument.

First, I disagree that Paul "knew nothing about him or his death and resurrection" since Paul claims to have been persecuting prior to converting.
Second, that you think something you consider "dramatic or compelling enough" is required for someone else to believe they had a vision suggests you need to study more psychology.

Amaleq13

I'll go with "surprising" (I'm professionally inoculated against being easily disturbed ). As I said, I would have bet money that it was included in his book. I guess I got it from one Wells' books rather than Earl's.

Agreed and even beyond his lifetime, apparently.

Ben C Smith

Indeed, perhaps the only thing better than something like...:

You can believe me because I perform wonders.

...is something like...:

Believe, and you will perform wonders.

Agreed. That has been a strawman from the beginning.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

IIRC, Wells does not strictly rely on the Pauline silence on the miracles. He mounts a positive case based on 1 Corinthians 1.22-23:

For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.

Wells (again IIRC) argues that this practically rules out the dominical miracles (assuming signs equal miracles), since the Jews do not seem to be getting what they want.

I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, the gospels say pretty much the same thing in Matthew 12.38-42 = Luke 11.29-32 (the sign of Jonah); Matthew 16.4 = Mark 8.11-13 (no sign for this generation), yet the gospels are full of miracles, so the sentiment may merely be that no sign will be granted, even if miracles are worked (distinguishing between miracles as signs and miracles as something else). On the other hand, as Robert M. Price argues (again IIRC), the synoptic no sign sayings may be holdovers from an earlier time, quotations that originally justified the absence of miracles in the ministry of Jesus, since the prima facie meaning of the saying seems to be that no miracles will be worked for this generation.

At any rate, the absence of dominical miracles has at least a little bit more than mere silence going for it.

Ben.

Jeffrey Gibson

They do not. "Signs" (σημεῖα) = proofs were thought of in Judaism as phenomenon that were formally and functionally quite distinct from "miracles" (δύναμεις). And as Is. 7:11; Lk. 2:12: Jn. 2:18; 6:29-30 show, no trace of the miraculous need hang about them in order for signs to be recognized and accepted as signs, let alone for signs to do their work -- i.e., to prove the truthfulness of a distrusted utterance or the legitimacy of a claim that a person and his actions are `of God'. Indeed, the Jewish distinction between "miracles" and "signs" is patently demonstrated in the attested fact that it was the performance of "miracles" which gave rise to the demand for "signs".

On all of this, see S. V. McCasland, "Signs and Wonders", JBL 76 (1957) 149-52, V.K Robbins "Dunameis and Semeia in Mark", Biblical Research 18 (1973) 1-16, O. Linton, "The Demand for a Sign from Heaven (Mk 8, 11-12 and Parallels', StEv 19 (1965) 112-29, and my discussion of what is denoted by the term σημει̂ον in my 1990 JSNTS article "Jesus' Refusal To Produce a 'Sign' (Mk 8.11-13)" [available here: http://jnt.sagepub.com/cgi/content/citation/12/38/37] and reproduced in part below.

But what is it they want when they preach "christ"?

What Wells and others fail to consider is that what Paul has in mind when he speaks of the "signs" he says Jews seek were the particular phenomena that (1) the so called "Sign Prophets" like Theudas, Josephus' unnamed GOETES who were active during the procuratorships of Antonius Felix and Porcius Festus, and the Egyptian sought to give them and which, according to Josephus, "the Jews", "ate up", and (2) which the evangelists record as being demanded of Jesus when he acted contrary to Messianic expectations and offered to Gentiles and those "not of Israel" what Jewish nationalists thought properly belonged only to Israel-- which as Paul Barnett ("The Jewish Sign Prophets - A.D. 40-70 - Their Intentions and Origin", NTS 27 [1981] 679-97), O. Betz ("Miracles in the Writings of Josephus' in Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, ed. L.H. Feldman and G. Hata [Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987] 212-35), and K. Regstdorf ("σημει̂ον" TDNT VII [1971] 200-261) have shown, and as I have argued in the article noted above and elsewhere -- were re-runs of certain of the Exodus events that would stand as "proofs" that God was about to initiate a holy war against the enemies of Israel .

Jeffrey

*******

Quote:

1. the meaning of the term σημει̂ον in Mk 8.11-13 The temptation to which Jesus is subjected in Mk 8.11-13 is related to whether or not he would `give' a σημει̂ον. But what is a σημει̂ον? A survey of the instances of the use of the term in both Classical and Biblical Greek shows that a σημει̂ον was an object of (usually visual) sense perception which imparts in various ways insight or knowledge. Thus a σημει̂ον could be a `signal' or `hi-sign', i.e., something which transmits specific information (such as a warning) from one party to another (Cf. Herodotus, 7.128; Thucydidies, 1.49, 63; 3.91; 4.42; Polybius 5.69). It is also, and most generally, could be an `indictor', that is, a distinguishing, corroborating, or authenticating `mark' which contributes to the recognition of a person or a thing. Herodotus 2.38; 8.92; Plato, Rep. 614c; Aeschylus, Ag. 1355; Diogenes Laertius 8.32 (of symptoms by which illness or health is detected); Sophocles, Antig. 257f.; Aristophanes, Ra. 933; Xenophon, An. 1.10, 12. Sometimes, however, a σημει̂ον was also more particularly thought of either as an event worked by a deity or a thaumaturge which signifies and manifests the presence of the numinous and inspires awe (Sophocles, Oed. Col. 94; Plutarch, Alex. 75.1; Sep. Sap. Conv. 3 C II, 149c.), or as a `portent', i.e., that by which the future or the will of the gods is made known (cf. Plato, Phaedrus 244; Apol. 40b; Xenophon, Cyr. 1; Rhes. 529; Plutarch, Alex. 25 (1, 679b). In the Greek Old Testament and the literature dependent on it a σημει̂ον may also be any of the wondrous deeds performed by God in the time of Moses and Joshua to deliver the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage and secure their salvation (Cf. Ex. 7.3; Deut. 4.34; 6.22; 7.19; 13.2f.; 26.28; 28.46; 29.2; 34.11; Isa. 8.18; 20.3; Jer. 32.20f. Ps. 78.43; 105.27; 135.9; Neh. 9.10; Bar. 2.11; Sir. 36.5; Wis. Sol. 10.16.) And it is also found there thought of as a `token of trustworthiness' or `proof'. This occurs at Gen. 4.15; Exod. 3.12; 4.8-9; Num. 14.11, 22; Deut. 13.1-12; Jdgs. 6.17; 1 Sam. 2.4; 10.1; 14.10; 1 Kngs 13.3; 2 Kings 19.29; 20.8, 9; 2 Chron. 32.24; Neh. 9.10; Isa. 7.10, 14; 37.30; 38.7, 22; Psalms 78 [77].43; 105 [104].27; 135 [134].9; 2 Esdras 4.51; 6.11, 20; 7.25, 8.63; Josephus, The Jewish War 2.258; 6.258, 288; Ant. 8.347; 10.28; 20.99-97, 168; Mk 13.4; 13.22; [16.17, 20]; Mt. 12.39; 16.4; 24.3,4; Lk. 2.12; 11.16, 29; 21.7; Jn 2.18; 6.30; Acts 4.16; 8.16; 14.3; 1 Cor. 1.22; 2 Thess. 2.9; Rev. 13.13-14. As these instances show, a `proof' σημει̂ον - a `sign' - has several distinct characteristics: First, a `sign' is always a public event. Its occurrence is meant to be seen or perceived, as well as publicly acknowledged as having happened. Second, a `sign' happens - or is anticipated as happening -not accidentally or fortuitously, but on command. It is something that can be sought, promised, worked, or produced. Third, a `sign' is sought, promised, worked or produced for one of two reasons: either to certify the truth of a distrusted prophecy, or to establish the validity of a disputed claim that a certain course of action and the person initiating it are `of God'. The context of such activity is typically as follows: * A claimant to divine authority or insight into the mind of God engages in an activity, or utters a prophecy or doctrinal statement, that in his eyes bears God's approval. * Observers are struck by the fact that the action or the utterance is either (a) strange and surprising, or (b) contrary to common sense, conventional wisdom or practical considerations, or, worse, (c) a direct contravention of Mosaic Law. Given this, they conclude that the truth of the action or utterance and its divine origin is not immediately apparent. * The claimant, wishing to secure acceptance of what he has said or done, responds to the skepticism with which his action or utterance is greeted by proposing (or agreeing to submit to) a kind of test. He selects (or accedes to a demand for) some phenomenon and promises to have it come to pass. He does this with the understanding that should the phenomenon occur both as and when he says it will, the skepticism surrounding his disputed action or utterance will then vanish. When, for instance, Ahaz doubts Isaiah's prophecy that `within sixty five years Ephraim shall be broken', Isaiah offers to produce a `sign' (cf. Isa. 7:8ff.). When Isaiah wants to prove to Hezekiah that, contrary to all available evidence, he is not to die, Isaiah proposes to work a `sign', letting Hezekiah himself choose between two such phenomena, one that is difficult or one that is `easier' (LXX ) to produce (2 Kings 20:1-10; cp. Isa. 38:1-20). Theudas and other so-called `Sign Prophets' promise to work specific `signs' expressly to substantiate their respective claims that they were anointed by God and divinely commissioned to the sacred purpose of delivering the Jewish nation from the yoke of Roman oppression (cf. Josephus, War 2.259, 261-263; Ant. 20.97-99, 167-168, 188). A `sign' is demanded of Jesus when he claims that divine authority stands behind his `cleansing' of the Temple (John 2:18, cp. 2:13-18, esp. v. 16), and, later, when he teaches that he is sent from God (cf. John 6:29-30). A `proof' σημει̂ον -- a 'sign' - is, therefore, an event that was thought of as having the power to certify or confirm something that could otherwise be doubted and dismissed. Fourth, the function peculiar to a `sign' - i.e., its ability to prove the truthfulness of a distrusted utterance or the legitimacy of a claim that a person and his actions are `of God' - is grounded in the public experience of a coincidence between a prior prophecy (what is designated as the `sign') and a subsequent event (the `sign's' actual manifestation). For instance, in the story of Jonathan and his armor bearer (1 Sam. 14:6-15) Jonathan is initially skeptical of the idea, placed in his mind by God, that if he but tries, he will be able to conquer a garrison of Philistines on his own. It is only when the requested authentication, the `sign', actually occurs that he believes God and engages the Philistines in combat. Indeed, Jonathan himself admits that if the `sign' had not come to pass, he would not have risked the undertaking, being as it was, on purely practical grounds, extremely foolhardy (cf. vv. 9-10). Accordingly, a `sign' does its work when it is effectuated in exact conformity with its predicted or previously stipulated `shape'. Finally, as either promised or manifested, a `sign' does not need to have a spectacular content in order to stand as a token of trustworthiness. In the instances cited above, `signs' whose content is ordinary (e.g., the `sign' promised to Ahaz by Isaiah in Isa. 7) are offered or accepted as `tokens of trustworthiness' as readily as those which are stupendous or extraordinarily miraculous (e.g., the `signs' offered by Theudas and the other `Sign Prophets' or the `signs' of the `False Prophets' of whom Moses spoke). The important thing about a `proof sign's' `shape' is not whether it is in itself miraculous or ordinary, but whether, once manifested, it then appears in complete correspondence with its own terms, whatever they have been stated to be.

Ben C Smith

Excellent point, and very detailed response. Thank you. And I completely agree that what Theudas and the Samaritan prophet and others were doing is offering signs.

Your link has an unnecessary bracket, BTW. Without that it works fine.

Ben.

TedM

Ok Doug. I'll attempt to answer some of your response.

First we have to ask what Paul means when he refers to "ALL that may be known of God". Does he REALLY mean "ALL"? And, WHO is he talking about--mankind in general or specific people at specific points in time?

For the first question, the wording is a bit different in the translation I prefer, the NASB: "that which is known" could refer to less than "ALL that which is known.". I submit that the context helps clarify whether that is the case or not. Let's see..

Lets be realistic. If Paul REALLY meant "ALL" then would he not have referred to the OT scriptures and all of the prophets, for what was their purpose if not to provide necessary knowledge of God and his workings, of all the laws he thought should be followed and rules about human behavior? About the nature of sin, etc. Paul doesn't do that. That very fact suggests that Paul didn't really mean "ALL".

What does Paul say WAS revealed about God? That's it. Paul seems to be using nature as evidence for an invisible creator with attributes of power and divinity.

Is that ALL? For his purposes here (ie, the context), it appears to be. Now, this is very important for understanding the context: Note that what IMMEDIATELY follows the list of what Paul says is known about God through nature is a CONCLUSION by Paul that mankind was GUILTY when he writes It looks to me like Paul is saying that Nature was enough to give man direction to know what kind of God made him, and Paul says they were GUILTY of not honoring God. One obvious way they did this was by making idols, a practice that the monotheistic God of the Old Testament damned over and over again. Paul refers to this in the next verses:


I submit that when Paul refers to "ALL" that may be known of God, he is referring to that which was sufficient to properly honor God through faith. He isnt' talking about God's plan for mankind and how Jesus was a part of that. If that were the case Paul could easily have talked about a cosmic Christ as part of the revealing of knowledge about God here. Or he could have talked about a historical Jesus' teachings about God's nature. But, it appears that neither of those had to do with what Paul was really talking about. "ALL" doesn't appear to have meant what Earl and you think.

The second question is WHO Paul means when he refers to "all that may be known of God". What may be known, BY WHOM? Again I believe the context reveals the answer. When Paul writes "since the creation of the world" (the passage Earl intentionally extracted from his quotation) and those who "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image" he is clearly referring to people who lived and died before Jesus came along. How could those people have been "without excuse" if Jesus' appearance was necessary for them to know about God? The answer is obvious--Jesus' appearance was not necessary. It would have confused the main point that all of mankind since the creation of the world had enough information through nature to have faith in an invisible God, yet since they turned away from him they were "without excuse", guilty of sin.


So, Earl's question "How could Paul fail to conceive and express the idea that Jesus himself was the primary revealer of 'all that may be known of God'?" is easily answered given the context of the passage: He isn't simply talking about ALL that may be known about God. He is talking about guilt before God since the creation of the world. Jesus' revelations were unnecessary for man to know enough to be declared guilty, and they came too late to apply to ALL of mankind that Paul is writing about.

I'm stopping at this issue. I hope I have made my points clearer now. If Jesus' revelations about God are a "silence" in Paul's work, Doherty needs to find a different passage to illustrate that.

ted