ThinkingMan

How many of these miracles can you believe?

FEVER/SICKNESS:
Luke 4:38-39 - Jesus cures Peter’s mother-in-law of her fever by rebuking it.
John 4:43-54 - Jesus proclaims a nobleman's son to be cured of a deadly fever. The nobleman is upset that Jesus refuses to see his son, but finds out the next day that the fever broke approximately the same time he was speaking with Jesus.
Luke 4:40-41 - Jesus cures sick people by touching them.
Luke 8:43-48 - Jesus unintentionally cures a hemorrhaging woman when she touches him. He says her faith has healed her.
John 5:1-18 – Jesus cures a sick man who is lying on a mat at the pool of Bethesda. Sometimes an angel will stir the water of this pool, and the first sick person to enter the pool gets cured. This man had failed for thirty-eight years because someone else always got into the pool before him. Jesus tells the man to pick up his mat and walk and he is cured.

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS:
Luke 6:6-11 - Jesus heals a man's withered hand by having him stretch it out.
Luke 13:10-17 - Jesus cures a woman's crooked back by laying his hands on her. A spirit had caused her back to be crooked.
Luke 22:49-51 - Jesus reattaches a man’s severed ear. This incident is also recorded in John 18:10-11, but without any mention of miraculous healing.
Luke 14:1-6 - Jesus heals a man with dropsy by touching him.

LEPEROSY:
Luke 5:12-14 - Jesus cures a leper by touching him.
Luke 17:11-19 - Jesus cures ten lepers by having them walk to the priests. Jesus says that the one leper who returned to thank him was healed because of his faith. It's not clear how the one leper’s recovery differed from that of the other nine.

BLINDNESS:
Luke 18:35-43 - Jesus heals a blind man by telling him to receive his sight. Jesus says the man's faith has healed him.
Matt 9:27-31 - Jesus heals two blind men by touching their eyes. He says their faith has healed them.
Mark 8:22-26 - Jesus heals a blind man by spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him. It doesn't work the first time, so Jesus lays his hands on him again.
John 9:1-23 - Jesus cures a blind man by making mud out of spit and dirt and putting it on the man's eyes. He then has the man wash his face in a pool.

DEAFNESS:
Mark 7:31-37 - Jesus heals a deaf man with a speech impediment. Jesus takes the man aside, puts his fingers in the man's ears, spits, and touches the man's tongue, then shouts, "Be opened!" The man is healed.

DEMONS:
Matt 15:21-28 - Jesus talks to a mother who has a demon-possessed daughter. He says the daughter is cured because of the mother's faith.
Mark 1:23-28 - A man with an unclean spirit enters the synagogue. Jesus rebukes the spirit and the man convulses and cries out as the spirit leaves him.
Mark 5:1-20 - A man is possessed with a legion of demons. Jesus commands the demons to leave, but the demons protest. Jesus compromises with the demons and gives them permission to enter a herd of pigs.
Matt 9:32-34 - A man is mute because of a demon. Jesus casts out the demon and the man speaks.
Matt 12:22-24 - A man is blind and mute because of a demon. Jesus casts out the demon and the man both speaks and regains his sight.
Matt 17:14-20 - Jesus cures a boy who has epilepsy (sometimes interpreted as a demon). The disciples had attempted to drive out the demon, but failed because they lacked faith.

DEATH:
Matt 9:18,23 - Jesus resurrects a dead girl. First he has all the mourners leave the room. He then takes the girl by the hand and says, "Child, arise!" and the girl comes back to life.
Luke 7:11 - Jesus resurrects a widow's dead son. He says, "Young man, I tell you, arise!" and the boy comes back to life.
John 11:1-43 - Jesus is hiding outside Judea and hears that Lazarus is sick and about to die. He waits two days before returning. When he finds that Lazarus has been dead for four days, he is deeply moved and cries. He goes to the tomb and shouts, "Lazarus, come out!" Lazarus comes out wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. Jesus dispassionately tells the bystanders to take the grave clothes off him and let him go.

Steven Carr

You will find all you need to know at http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/mirc1.htm where it is shown that the miracle stories are literary creations.

schilling.klaus

Miracles in the story are to be understood allegorically, not literally as Holding does.

Klaus Schilling

Sigma

Then surely allegories that are so close to literal interpretation will inevitably confuse readers. And what allegorical purpose do they all serve?

schilling.klaus

only readers without ears to hear or eyes to see would be confused

They represent the fall of soul into matter and the rise of the soul from matter to pure intellect, thus wholly metaphysical reality, no physical reality as pseudo-Christians would believe.

Klaus Schilling

makerowner

0.
I can believe that a HJ was a faith-healer/exorcist type, but obviously his "cures" would be no more effective than today's equivalents.

RareBird

If it's about "faith" in the first place then the posture is about NOT questioning. Ergo the default is to take what might have been meant as some sort of symbolic parable as literal and proceed convinced that it's history and not symbolism. Personally, I suspect that is what happened with the "trinity". It was most likely a solemn invocation that people made at times of consequential decision in which they called upon the past for knowledge, tried to envision an ideal outcome in the future and act with the correct spirit to honor past and future in the present. In parable symbolism, someone could substitute the word "father" to encompass the past and use "son" to symbolize the future. They are then left with themselves between past and future as vessels of spirit charged with responsibility to do "right"--or honor to past and future. Thus the trinity could merely symbology for the past, future and present and not three personages of god. I wouldn't expect anyone already blinded and deafened by the fear tactics of faith to reason that simple symbology to make sense of the trinity as I have--and most of them probably have better eyesight and less tinnitus than me.

Roland

Actually, the "miracle stories" are some of the latest elements to be added to the Jesus myth. Apart from the largely un-dateable gospels, most of the earliest Christian writings are mute on the topic. Paul, for instance, seems completely unaware of - or at least uninterested in - the fact that Jesus allegedly performed miracles.

gdeering

He does seem to be the most "uncurious" fellow considering that there were so many congregations thirsty for knowledge?. Except that I forgot, there are all those "lost" letters where he relates, in detail, the life and achievements of Jesus...


Gregg

Splarnst

So 99.999% of Christians throughout history were and are wrong about what the text meant? Are you going to argue next that Marx never promoted communism, it's just that his pseudo-disciples totally misunderstood his promotion of capitalism?

This is why I come to this board. I never hear ideas this ridiculous offline.