NON-MIRACULOUS
WITNESSES
Were Jesus’ Miracles really Miracles?
INDEX FOR THIS SITE – CLICK TO SEE THE CHAPTER
A STUDY IN
THE MATTHEW HEALINGS
INTRODUCTION
A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It is a supernatural occurrence. It is paranormal.
The gospels are seemingly full of accounts of Jesus having performed miracles.
If we can reduce the number of explicit miracles Jesus allegedly worked
we automatically reduce the evidence for the supernatural and the case for
believing that he is God or his Son and has any right to govern our lives. The purpose of this work is to prove that to
believe that Jesus has this exalted position is as bizarre as believing that
anybody who appeared after death must be the Son of God or the Daughter of
God. Jesus, assuming that he existed,
undoubtedly did believe in miracles. But
all I am saying is that there is no reason to hold that his miracles were
visibly supernatural and that Jesus for most of his miracles believed that
their supernatural element could not be plainly seen. For example, Jesus may have regarded a
healing by seemingly natural means as the supernatural work of God. The supernatural was working invisibly.
Even the Catholic theologian Hans Kung admits in his On Being a
Christian that the gospellers were not interested in the exact events
surrounding Jesus’ miracles but in making him look impressive (page 231). He says that when Jesus said that those who
have not seen the miracle of his risen body but still believe he meant believe
in him not in miracles thus denying that miracles including resurrections were
signs (page 237). This is taken among
liberals as evidence that John’s gospel was a deliberate fairy story in order
to teach spiritual truths.
The purpose of this study is to prove that the miracles of Jesus are not
that impressive. If Jesus did all those
miracles he was a fraud for miracles are not signs from Heaven and result only
in delusion. If Jesus didn’t do the
miracles and they were more normal than we have been taught to think then he
wasn’t a very convincing Son of God. Let
us put together the reconsideration of the miracles of Jesus that sees them as
more natural events than miracles are seen to be.
NON-MIRACLES IN MATTHEW
The gospellers may be surprised that how their books have been twisted by
Christians to make them testify to Jesus doing more miracles than he really
did.
Here, let us look at Matthew’s gospel.
Joseph’s seeing an angel in his dreams who told him that Mary was
pregnant by God and to go to
The magi were led to
The Baptist saw the Holy Spirit hover over Jesus like a dove (Matthew
Matthew never said that the Devil who was with Jesus in the desert was a
supernatural being. The Devil was
probably just a bad man who pretended to have vast magical powers (4:9) or
perhaps he was a bad man through whom the Devil was believed to be
speaking. He and Jesus visited the
Jesus boasted that he could raise the dead to life and had done it
(Matthew 11:5). There is nothing
wonderful about this when Matthew does not say if this was certainly
miraculous. Any popular healer will have
worked with people who only seemed to be dead and then recovered.
Matthew never said that Jesus walked on water right up to the boat which
was several hundred yards out from shore (14).
The boat was only this far away when Jesus was up the mountain. Jesus did walk through or on the water to get
them to come for him. Jesus was walking
on water but not on top of it like some weightless being. Peter sank for he panicked and went unto a
deep spot. He was told by Jesus he
hadn’t much faith for he thought God was going to let him down. The wind died down when Jesus got into the
boat making the disciples believe that he was the Son of God for he seemed to
them to control the weather. Matthew
doesn’t say if they were right. If Peter
had seen miracles before as the traditional interpretation of the gospels would
have you believe, he had to have some faith in Jesus and Jesus promised that
when God willed to move mountains he would do it if faith was strong enough so
here we have Peter sinking meaning he had no faith which would imply he knew
Jesus’ miracles were not miracles in the full sense but had normal explanations
or that Jesus broke his promise that God would never let a believer down when
he has faith and wants that believer to walk on water or whatever.
The pagan lady’s daughter that Jesus cured probably was bothered by
depression and it lifted when she started to believe in Jesus. This was the demon (15) that was put out of
her.
The transfiguration, Jesus shining in the middle of the two long dead prophets
(17), might have been an exercise in creative visualisation by the
apostles. Matthew neither calls it a
miracle or a surprise. The voice from
the cloud that told them that Jesus was God’s Son might have been an inner
voice, like a hunch. The voice from the
cloud means the inspiration that seemed to come from the cloud. Matthew does not rule out this
understanding. If there was a bright
cloud the men could have thought they saw ghosts in it. The cloud came near when they heard the voice
but it could have been there before. The
approaching cloud could have made Jesus’ robes look bleached.
Matthew says that the possessed boy was instantly cured by Jesus
(17). The boy seems to have been an
epileptic which does not afflict one all the time anyway. Matthew is just saying that the symptoms
stopped but if they stopped permanently, that we will never know.
Matthew does not say how Jesus made the fig tree wither up so fast (21)
so why read a miracle into it?
Matthew does not necessarily see a miracle in the tearing of the temple
veil when Jesus died for he mentions an earthquake.
He claims that the saints were raised from the dead before Jesus
was. He says they stayed in their tombs
and appeared to some people later. He
does not say there is any evidence for this or what he meant by appearing. Did the visionaries see them in dreams? Perhaps Matthew was sure they appeared to
people though nobody said they had seen them.
This account is not meant to be taken as evidence for miracles.
Matthew does not attest to as many miracles as the Church would like to
think.
There are hardly any miracles in Matthew.
A STUDY IN THE MATTHEW HEALINGS
Matthew does not impress me with his healing tales. They give no satisfactory evidence of Jesus
being God’s prophet or whatever.
The mind has tremendous power when it comes to healing illnesses which it
itself has caused or made the person falsely think he or he is suffering
from. Many people only imagine they are
ill. Every healer who lays hands on the
sick a lot is bound to get what appeared to be some incredible results. Jesus might have just worked with
hypochondriacs or cranks who imagined their health problems. He could have chosen his sick people
carefully to avoid dealing with those he could not cure. The gospel says he did not offer his services
to everybody (Matthew
Jesus allegedly healed “all the sick” of
The all is all the sick who were brought to him for obviously all sick
people on the verge of death could not be brought. This makes it less forceful and
impressive. His followers would have had
some say in who approached the Lord.
At Gennesaret, it was only those who touched the cloak of Jesus got
better not all the afflicted so Jesus chose the people he wanted to work on
carefully. Anybody that wasn’t cured
would be embarrassed to say so for Jesus blamed his failures on the lack of
faith and goodness of the person wanting healing. The sick deserve no compassion if their lack
of faith is their own fault and faith is the only way to get better.
The book does not claim that the cures happened in the twinkling of an
eye. It does not say that the healings
were complete, that all their problems were healed, and permanent. For many, the healing may have been just a
healing of the mind or the heart. A good
psychologist can cure something, some nasty kink or symptom in everybody at
least for a while.
When Matthew says that Jesus cured all who were afflicted he has those
who were bothered by evil spirits in mind (
A demon could mean a subconscious artificial personality that harms so
Jesus exorcisms could be nothing more than psychiatric work. A person could be said to be possessed by a
demon simply because it succumbs to its charms rather than in the sense of
being taken over by one. Or a person could
be said to be possessed by demons if that person is sick, the demons being
regarded as the cause of the illness.
There is no reason at all to believe that Jesus regarded his exorcisms
as provably and clearly supernatural or that they were. I mean he could have taught they were
supernatural but not provably so. This
is more important than trying to show that Jesus did not consider the demons to
be miracle beings because if they did not look supernatural then there is no
need to believe that they were supernatural.
It is not said that when Jesus cured the “possessed” man and dispatched
the demons into swine which drowned themselves after that that the swine did
this there and there for if when they did it a miracle was the only explanation
(8).
Jesus did not say he had the kind of casting out of demons that we read
of in horror novels in mind in 12.
Perhaps he just means the casting out of demons that were merely a
source of temptation. 12 does not prove
that he was sure that the unclean spirits he put out of people who were crazy
were thought by him to be real personal entities and not mental forces.
In Matthew 8, Jesus cures a leper. The story says the leprosy vanished
immediately and Jesus told him to go and show himself to a priest. Notice that Matthew does not actually say
that the appearance of the disease disappeared or when it will. Matthew feels that the disease was instantly
cured but nobody can be sure of that. It
might have been supposed that it can take time for the signs of the disease to
go after the disease has been taken away.
How did the healed know they were better? They didn’t.
Jesus made them feel as if they did.
When he cured paralytics they might have managed a few struggling
steps. They would have believed they
were cured and the struggle was about just their need to relearn how to walk. Jesus blamed sin for relapses – the perfect
way out should the cured be soon see not to have been cured at all. We read in Matthew 12 that our Lord taught
that when a demon leaves a man it searches for a new home and if it can’t find
one it comes back to the man so he was blaming demons and perhaps sin as well
for failed or temporary or imaginary “cures”.
It is not said that Jesus instantly cured the centurion’s servant (8) or
that he got better at all. Jesus told
him to return home and the servant would be better but if he wasn’t people
would say the promise was conditional on the centurion keeping the faith. We have no reason to believe that Matthew
viewed Jesus, who promised that the servant would recover, as infallible.
Matthew knew that there may have been a natural reason for why Peter’s
mother recovered from an alleged fever when Jesus took her by the hand. Perhaps that gave her the strength to recover
fast and perhaps she was already a lot better than she thought she was.
Matthew does not ask us to believe that the paralytic was cured by
supernatural power (9).
Matthew never wrote that the daughter of
Jairus was raised from the dead by Jesus (
Matthew does not tell us that the blind men were instantly healed
(9). He does not say that this or the
cure of the mute was miraculous.
The man with the bad hand might have only believed that it was useless
(12) and Jesus cured this belief and so cured him. The blind men (20) may have been cured of
hysterical blindness by Jesus. Matthew
doesn’t dogmatise about it being a miracle.
IMAGINED
MARKAN MIRACLES
Mark was the first of the four gospels to be written. It goes without saying that its purpose was
to make converts to Christianity.
It shies away from attributing miracles to Jesus. It gives only a few. This is important. If Mark had heard of Jesus’ more amazing
wonders he would have woven them into his story.
When Mark declared that the Baptist saw the Spirit coming down on Jesus
like a dove he may have meant that he saw evidence that the Spirit was with
Jesus not that he had a vision. The
voice from Heaven is not said to have been an audible voice. The spirit could have come like a dove in the
quiet gentle way that a dove has, not in the form of a dove. The Baptist saw the sky split – probably a
division in the clouds that made him feel that it was a sign that the Spirit
was coming down.
Angel means messenger so were the angels who looked after Jesus in the
desert (Mark
Incredibly, Mark says that Jesus told people not to tell he cured them. What was the point of doing miraculous cures if people were not allowed to tell? Mark says that the more Jesus forbade them the keener they were to tell. And they did tell (Mark 7). They betrayed Jesus for they must have given the impression they would honour his request and not tell. So when they were so dodgy maybe they lied about being cured in the first place? Jesus must have wanted them to deny it after they had spoken. This looks like Jesus knew they were mad. He knew that he did not cure them and they embarrassed him. He wanted them to lie. And then in the next chapter, Jesus decides to do what some consider to be the miracle of multiplying food for thousands and when the Jews ask him for a sign he refuses and does not tell them that the food was a sign. Is he denying that his miracle really was a miracle? If it wasn't then it was a trick.
The demon cast out in
It is likely that Mark felt that “unclean spirits” were really mental
disorders when he wrote that Jesus had to shut the spirits up when they called
him the Son of God (3:12). Real demons
would not have told all and sundry that Jesus was God’s Son to advertise his
gospel – unless he was a charlatan and was really one of their own.
Where does Mark say that the almost instant healing of Peter’s
mother-in-law was a miracle?
It is not said that Jesus cured all who were brought to him and we know
that every popular healer will have some seeming successes (
While Mark says that the leprosy instantly left the man Jesus cured he
does not say the same of the symptoms.
The man probably didn’t have real leprosy at all for the word covered
many skin ailments in those days.
Perhaps the man never got any worse which made Mark presume that he was
cured as would the man gradually clearing of the symptoms. There could have been a lot of explanations
for that.
Mark doesn’t say that the cure of a paralytic (2) was a miracle. When he didn’t say he wouldn’t mind anybody
thinking that the paralysis was all in the “paralytic’s” mind.
In Mark 3, we read that Jesus perfectly restored the shrivelled hand of a
man. But in what way was it perfectly
restored? Was he able to use it again or
did it develop flesh it never had a moment before? Mark does not tell us what to think or what
to make of the event. He does not write,
“And this cure would have been impossible by natural means”. None of the New Testament writers had the
gumption to use this statement.
Mark 8:22-26 is alleged to say that Jesus
healed a blind man of
Jesus tells the Jews that he could really expel
demons. He is not saying that the
casting out of evil spirits we read about in the Gospel are the expulsion of
evil personal beings. He might not be
talking about clearly miraculous exorcisms at all. Maybe he just meant those demons that do not
actually possess or harm a person but which dwell in him or her or to be a bad
influence? He is not necessarily
claiming to be the kind of dramatic exorcist we read about in the novel, The
Exorcist.
Mark does not inform us that when Jesus calmed the
storm it happened in a second (4). He
doesn’t let us know if he agrees with the apostles that Jesus had power over
the wind and the sea. He is only
reporting. The storm looked worse than
it really was when Jesus slept through it.
It was probably bound to settle anyway.
The story proves that the witnesses exaggerated the storm when Jesus
slept through it and that gives us an important insight into the kind of people
they were. They were not suitable
witnesses to the risen Jesus.
Mark does not say that the swine drowned themselves
the second Jesus put demons into them or that this was supernatural (5).
Mark asserts that Jesus denied that he raised
Jairus’ child from the dead for she was asleep (5).
Mark does not say that the demon departed from the pagan lady’s daughter
because of Jesus or some power above nature (7). He does not say that any obvious
transgression of natural law took place.
He puts the story in just in case Jesus was responsible.
Nor does he tell us that the healing of the deaf man with the speech
impediment was a miracle. Jesus stuck
his fingers in his ears probably to scrape out wax. When the man could hear right again he
started to talk properly too. The man
might have been stupid and though this was a miracle. A lot of people were amazed but Mark is
careful to imply that he thought they should be. Some people find it hard to speak correctly
when they can’t hear themselves.
Mark does not declare the transfiguration to have been a miracle or a
dream (9). He lets you take your pick if
you want to.
Mark says that Jesus did not know everything so he would not have felt
bound to agree with Jesus that a spirit had really been cast out of the boy who
was probably and epileptic (9). The boy
had been depressed and was getting more attacks. Jesus put him into a better frame of mind to
stop them. Mark does not say that the
laws of nature were suspended.
Mark says that the instant healing of the blindness of Bartimaeus
happened but not that there was no natural explanation (Mark
Unlike, Matthew
who related that Jesus made a fig tree wither instantly, Mark says that it took
longer than that so a natural case is allowed for (11).
Does Mark say that the resurrection of Christ was a miracle? He says that Jesus knew that he would be
crucified and killed long before it happened.
He does not claim that he considers this to be a miracle because Jesus
needed no God to tell him that this would happen the way he was carrying
on. He says that Jesus promised to rise
again. Mark’s Gospel ends without a resurrection
account. It finishes with the story of
the empty tomb. 16:9-20 seems to have
been written by someone other than the author of the Gospel. The shorter ending which simply says that
Jesus sent the disciples out to preach the good news is probably not from Mark
either. The Gospel therefore fails to
prove that Jesus rose from the dead.
Neither the gospel or the endings say what they mean by Jesus rising and
appearing to the disciples. They do not
say why the body disappeared from the tomb.
In the longer ending the Magdalene’s vision of Jesus might have been a
dream. The two walkers who saw Jesus
might have imagined it. Jesus was
revealed to the Eleven which could mean that they felt his presence but did not
see anything and got the impression that they were to preach him to the nations
and do healing. The ending permits this
interpretation but wants us to regard these things as inspired by God.
Mark says there were men at the tomb of Jesus after he rose. Whether or not he regarded them as supernatural
angels we do not know. But it is not
likely that he did think they were not just men when he didn’t say so. Remember, when there is a natural
interpretation you must take it when you can.
Jesus simply goes up to Heaven at the end of this gospel. No witnesses to him ascending like a rocket
are mentioned. Jesus could have walked
away from the disciples saying that he was going to Heaven. Mark does not ask us to accept that he did
fly away.
Even the story of the cure of the woman with the haemorrhage does not
reveal a miracle though healing power is supposed to have left Jesus and went
into her body (5). Love can heal and the
power that left Jesus was love or apparent love.
Mark would have considered the actions of Jesus to be evidence that he
was from God even if hardly any of them involved obvious paranormal
forces. In the same way, Christians take
seeming responses to prayer as evidence for God though they might just be
coincidences.
Theologians that accounts like Mark’s are vivid as if they are
authentic. But they are not vivid for
they are too incomplete and skeletal to be anything like vivid. And why would Mark or any gospeller be vivid
when they were not there but were rewriting their notes of interviews with the
storytellers if they had any? Novels are
even more vivid.
IMAGINED LUCAN MIRACLES
It is not true that the Gospel of Luke is the one that attributes the
most miracles to Jesus.
In the following stories from Luke we see no evidence that the author
thought that they were miraculous.
Zechariah may have seen the angel in the
It was possible for a woman like
Angel just means messenger so maybe the angel
Gabriel who told Mary that God wanted her to be the mother of his Son was just
a man. Luke does not say how Mary saw
the angel so maybe he did not know.
Could it have been a dream? The
principle of taking the simplest interpretation says yes if Gabriel was a
non-human entity. There is no evidence
in the Bible that angels are not just human beings who receive orders from
God. The Epistle of Jude gives us
evidence that they are. The Old
Testament says that Jacob fought with an angel all night.
Luke does not say that there was anything obviously miraculous in what Anna and Simeon knew about he baby Jesus (2).
At Jesus’ baptism, the spirit came down upon him in visible form, in the
shape of a dove (3). The dove may have
been a real dove which Luke thought was possessed by the Holy Spirit. He says a voice from Heaven was heard but he
does not say if he has an audible voice in mind.
The Devil in Luke could just have been a bad man who seemed to Jesus to
have had the power to give Jesus a host of kingdoms. No need for a supernatural Devil in this
story.
At
Luke says that healings happened in Jesus’ presence but does not ask us
to believe that miraculous power was responsible. He does not say that the unclean spirits
Jesus cast out of the allegedly possessed were real personal beings. They may be artificial personalities. Then how did the “spirits” know he was the
Messiah? The people were desperate for a
Messiah so insane people might have been impressed by Jesus so that they told
him he was the Messiah. Jesus mean a lot
of insane and gullible and silly people so he had to have been the subject of
the rumour that he was the Messiah.
Did Jesus make the leprosy leave the man in Luke 5:12-16? Luke says he did but not that it was a
miracle. The leprosy could have left
leaving the symptoms to clear up.
Perhaps the man got no worse and that was taken to mean it was gone.
Luke does not say that the paralytic walking again was a miracle (5) or
that the healing of the Centurion’s servant was one (7).
The catch of fish in Luke 5 need not have been supernatural for we are
told that they had stopped working but not for how long until Jesus told them
to try again. Jesus could have noticed
fish in the water for he was sitting in the boat preaching.
Does Luke say that Jesus put demons out of a man into swine which then
drowned themselves? The demons may be
psychological forces. Jesus put the
anger that made the man insane perhaps into the swine. He did this by enraging the swine which then
charged into the lake. Luke does not say
that their over-reaction was all Jesus’ fault.
If somebody felt possessed by a spirit that was making them very angry
all the time, magicians and exorcists made animals angry which they thought
meant that they were putting the person’s anger into the animals and then they killed
the animals to kill the anger. They thought
they were putting the evil spirit into the animal.
Luke says that the breath of life went back into Jairus’s daughter in
Jesus’ presence. It could go back into
her if she were not really dead but on the edge of it. She started breathing properly again but Luke
does not say she was properly dead and then resurrected. Jesus was sure she was not dead right when he
said that she was only asleep and not dead.
Luke says that the apostles were half-asleep when they saw the vision of
Jesus and the two prophets on the Mountain of the Transfiguration (Luke
Luke attributes the cure of the epileptic boy to God but that is not the
same as saying that it is a miracle (9).
In 11, Jesus casts out a Devil that made a man dumb (11). Perhaps the man wouldn’t speak to anybody due
to the purely mental influence of a demon.
The Jews argue that the Devil is helping Jesus which he says is
ridiculous. This does not prove that
Jesus considered the unclean spirits he put out of people that behaved like
lunatics to be real evil persons for he may not have this type of problem in
mind. He may be thinking of demons that
simply make bad suggestions to you.
There is no evidence that Luke considered the straightening of the cured
woman in 13 to have been a miracle for she might have only imagined that she
had to go about stooped. He says it was
a marvel and so it was, whatever caused it.
Curing the disease is not curing the symptoms. Luke (10) says ten lepers were cured while
they made their way to the priests. The
one who came back must have been relieved of the symptoms but notice that Luke
does not say when he came back. Luke
implies that it was a while for his Jesus was a very busy man and would have
been hard to see. Perhaps nature did the
whole thing? Leprosy in those days meant
almost any contagious skin ailment.
In Luke 16, Luke and his Jesus let it slip that miracles and
resurrections of people from the dead to tell us about the dangers of dying in
sin are not needed because the law and the prophets are enough. Anybody who won’t believe in the law and the
prophets, according to him, will only sin more if they see miracles for they
will still not believe and their stubbornness will be increased. This is a hint that the Devil will inspire
any miracle tales attributed to Jesus.
He will manipulate lives and memories with his superior knowledge to get
the lies believed.
Jesus told the blind man of
There is no evidence that Luke viewed the two men who were loitering
about Jesus’ empty tomb as angels or stated that the risen Jesus was able to go
from one place to another without traversing the space in between.
The ambiguous “he was taken up to Heaven” at the end of Luke is no
indication that Luke thought that Jesus literally rose up to Heaven like a
hot-air balloon. Mystical traditions in
Judaism believed that a person who experienced Heaven had ascended to it bodily
even though the body never rose off the ground.
The miracles mentioned in Luke are, the vision of angels that the
shepherds saw for it told them something they could not have otherwise known,
the raising of the widow’s son from the dead for Luke says he was dead long
enough to be really dead and says he was dead (7), and the resurrection. But these are only his interpretation.
NON-MIRACLE ACTS
Now to Acts, Luke’s sequel to the gospel.
We want to check if it really is as full of accounts of magical
happenings as is popularly assumed.
Acts does not say that Jesus floated away about the clouds but that he
went up to Heaven in a cloud. He might
have walked into a mountain mist and disappeared. The men who accosted the disciples when Jesus
had gone are not said to have been supernatural angels. Many manuscripts have “he parted from them”
rather than he ascended into Heaven (Earliest Christianity,
G.A.Wells, Internet Infidels)..
Were the tongues of fire that appeared over the heads of the infant
Church at Pentecost really supernatural?
Luke does not say that they all saw them or indeed that anybody saw
them. Because Jesus said that people
would be baptised by the Holy Spirit and with fire then the fire of grace was
burning in those people so believers did not need to see tongues of fire to
believe they were there. Perhaps Luke
felt that he had a revelation saying that God saw the tongues of fire. Perhaps somebody present had a
hallucination. Luke would have regarded
this hallucination as a work of God though not a miracle.
Luke never said a miracle was involved when the apostles spoke in many
languages on Pentecost as a result of the Holy Spirit coming on them like
tongues of fire.
They had been told by Jesus to preach the gospel with great urgency to
all so they would have done some study in language. They didn’t have a lot to say anyway.
The day the Holy Spirit came on them is said to have been the day the
Church was founded and when the effects of the salvific death of Christ and the
resurrection were administered. From then
on the Church had the Holy Spirit. So
here we have and event even more important than the death and resurrection of
Jesus for they have no importance without effects. The Bible itself says that the natural man cannot
take in the things of God and only redeemed people can be reliable in relation
to finding out the wisdom of God. So it
was because of the visit of the Spirit that we can believe in the apostles
writing about Christ. So if Pentecost didn’t
happen then nobody can oblige us to believe in Christianity.
Neither did Luke contend that the cripple by the Beautiful Gate was
healed by divine power as in miracle (3).
He simply records that Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead in front of
Peter but he doesn’t say if God’s defiance of nature struck them dead. When Peter was allowed to use God’s power to
kill them why wouldn’t he be allowed to kill them by more mundane methods –
like poisoning? Sapphira came in three
hours after Ananias and when Peter told her what happened Ananias she died
too. Of shock perhaps?
In Acts 5 we read that all the sick who were brought to the apostles were
cured. They probably just dealt with
those who were going to get better anyway.
Luke says that Stephen saw Jesus in the clouds (7). Stephen was in a highly emotional state for
his cruel death was imminent and may have seen Jesus in his imagination. All Christians agree that we can have
inspired visions in our imagination. It
if it a present from God then every thought of God or Jesus may be regarded as
a gift.
The story about Simon Magus and the charisms does not say that there
could be no natural explanation for them (8).
Food is a natural thing but yet Christians are able to say it is a gift
of God.
Acts 8 does not say that Philip literally heard the Holy Spirit talking
to him. Christians tell us to listen to
the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts which does not mean that we really hear
a voice. Nor does it mean that Philip
just vanished from the desert route to instantly appear at Azotus. The Spirit snatched Philip which may mean
that he took over him and he didn’t know what he was doing until he found
himself at Azotus or maybe all it is saying is that he was urged by the Spirit
so the Spirit was the reason not Philip that Philip went to that place..
Paul’s vision may have been caused by overexposure to the sun (9) and his
blindness could have been due to the fall from the horse. It is not said that Ananias immediately
restored his sight but that “something like scales fell off his eyes and he got
his sight”. We are only told that the
sight came back later not if it came back quickly or slowly later.
Luke omits to tell us if the vision of Cornelius and Peter’s vision of
the animals was or wasn’t a dream (Acts 10).
The information gained could have been stored in the subconscious mind
and then replayed.
We are not told how Peter’s chains came to be unlocked (12) or that the
angel was not a mere human being carrying a light. Mary thought that Peter was the angel though
she knew it was just a man which is evidence that an angel means a human person
acting for God as well as a spirit that works for God.
Herod may have collapsed while he was worshipped and the death by being
eaten by worms may have come later (12).
Some imagine that this story tells us that worms broke out of him all at
once – miraculously. Wrong! Perhaps he was already sick!
Luke does not say how Paul struck Bar Jesus blind (13) so don’t read a
miracle into this.
In 14, it seems that the crippled man who was cured was said to have been
cured by faith. That is naturally
possible.
In 16, we read that a fortune-teller ran after Paul and his friends for days
while her “spirit” told everybody to listen to them for they had the true
gospel. Paul got fed up and cast the
spirit out. Luke did not believe that
this evil spirit was a demon but a creation of the mind for a demon would not
bear witness to God.
Eutychus, who had a fatal fall, had died but Paul brought him around
(20). No need for a miraculous
explanation here. Dead does not always
mean dead for good.
In Acts 22, Paul says that his sight was instantly restored when Ananias
laid his hands on him. This does not
prove a miracle happened nor does Luke say Paul was certainly not mistaken.
Nowhere in Acts 28 do we read that Paul did not suffer from the deadly
snakebite because of divine magic. The
snake may have just been hanging on to his skin and it may have been dark which
made it look worse than it was. All who
were there misjudged the seriousness of the wound when they were so
baffled. They probably didn’t ask. Luke does not say a miracle happened.
The only miracle in Acts is, Peter raising Dorcas from the dead (9) for
he makes it clear that she was dead in the straightforward sense of the
word. That is all that Luke undeniably asks
us to believe to be a miracle.
WATER INTO WINE?
The famous miracle of the wedding feast of
The miracle is recounted in John chapter 2.
It does not say that Jesus miraculously turned water into wine. It says that water was made wine but does not
say how he did it. He could have put
something in the water to make artificial wine.
It says it was a sign but helping others is a sign of God’s love in the
Christian faith. If Jesus could create
wine what did he need the water for? He could
have used empty jars instead of jars of water.
It will be answered that if Jesus put something in the water then he must
have been playing a trick for the result would not be wine. But people in those days relied on smell and
taste and colour to tell what something was.
Maybe Jesus believed it was wine he made.
If Jesus changed the water into wine with supernatural power then why did
the waiter in charge not know about it?
If Jesus had done a miracle he would not have hidden it. This is a clue that nothing supernatural
occurred.
Christians will surmise that Jesus did tell everybody later on but didn’t
do it just then because the guests would look for more water to be turned into
wine. But if people were that fond of
the bottle he would never have told the story to anybody and the author of John
made the water into wine up. Perhaps the
waiter in charge was not told for he would not believe it. But it didn’t matter what he thought as long
as he was told. He would have to have been
told for the water for the purification would have been noticed missing.
Sceptics would think they could not tell in case there would be a scandal
for letting Jesus put something in the water.
Many would not approve.
John believed in the wisdom of God and in the infallibility of
Jesus. Mary, Jesus’ mother, told Jesus
that there was no wine. He told her it
was not his hour yet so he would do nothing.
He meant he had not reached the hour of attaining supernatural power yet
and would do no miracle. Yet he went and
changed the water. This tells us he did
it naturally. That is how you reconcile
the contradiction.
To Nicodemus, Jesus moaned that nobody believed in his supernatural
claims to have come from Heaven and to be infallible (John
The superintendent of the banquet tasted Jesus’ wine and thought that the
best wine was still being served even though the guests were drunk and would
not have noticed if they got cheap wine.
Would God who forbids drunkenness turn water into wine at a stage in the
feast in which the bad wine was ready to be served for the guests were too
intoxicated to care or notice? The
miracle must not have been supernatural.
There must have been some wine left when the superintendent thought the
cheap wine was not done yet that the others knew nothing about. Jesus probably mixed it up with the
water.
Now, is the gospel nodding its head to drunkenness? Now, is the gospel nodding its head to drunkenness? Yes. We
must conclude that there is an antinomian (belief that we don’t need to try and
keep the law of morality) influence in the gospel. Antinomians can lie and can expect us to take
their gospels as true. That’s another way
that the gospel of John gives support to those who wish to challenge the miracle
stories. It shows there were good liars
about – that is if you think the gospel stories are good lies. Many people think they are bad lies.
NON-MIRACLES IN JOHN
John does not tell us to agree with the Baptist that the Holy Spirit really
came to rest on Jesus in the form of a dove (
Nathaniel believed in Jesus because Jesus said he saw him under a fig
tree (
Jesus’ seemingly psychic knowledge of the Samaritan woman may just have
been the result of trained observation and what they call cold reading. The woman might have thought he was
clairvoyant but John does not indicate that she was right if she did (4). Perhaps she just thought that God had given
him incredible but natural wisdom?
In John 5, Jesus was said to have cured a man who was sick for
thirty-eight years. We are not told what
was wrong with him but it seems he couldn’t walk or was afraid to walk. Perhaps he had been sick and for some
neurotic reason imagined he was still sick.
We are told that Jesus knew this man for he knew he was sick a long
time. Then Jesus sneaks away and the man
does not know who cured him. Jesus never
actually told the man he cured him even when they met later in the
John neglected to tell us if the cure of the man born blind was a miracle
that Jesus did or if it was natural (9).
The healings in John are not said to have been miracles. We can believe they were natural.
In John 6, the apostles rowed their boat three or four miles but not out
to sea for they suddenly came aground.
They saw Jesus walking on water which means he was paddling. They got a fright when they saw him probably
because they thought he was a ghost, the credulous fools. John just says that they saw Jesus but not
that they recognised him so don’t think that they were necessarily shocked by
seeing a man walking literally on top of the water. John never claimed that there was a miracle
here.
The footnote in the New American Bible says that when the text says Jesus
walked on the sea “the Greek would permit a translation “on the seashore” or
“by the sea”. This would eliminate the miraculous
from the story and leave it pointless (see also page 115, Doing Away
with God?). They want us
to think that recording that Jesus was walking on the water was pointless
unless John meant that Jesus really did walk on water as if it were solid ground. This would have been an unnecessary miracle
and a form of showing off power of that would be out of character with
God. Jesus could have travelled on water
in a boat of his own. John did write a
lot of seemingly pointless stuff. There
is a lot of repetition in the gospel.
Jesus told the apostles when he stepped into the boat not to be afraid
which could have been the point of the whole story.
It is not said that Jesus knew that Lazarus was dead by some clairvoyant
power (11).
John seems to say that Jesus miraculously raised Lazarus from death to
life. Jesus told his friends that
Lazarus’s sickness would not end in death.
Christians say that he meant that the final result of it would not be
death but resurrection. But they surely
claim that the result of the sickness was death and the result of death was
resurrection. They say that he meant
that death would not be the final result of the sickness. But if Jesus meant that he would have said
that it would finally end not end. There
is a huge difference. They are
lying. Jesus denied that Lazarus would
fully die. He said that Lazarus was
asleep and the apostles said that if that was true then Lazarus was not
dead. Then Jesus said that he was
dead. So Lazarus is asleep and
dead. This tells us that Lazarus was in
a coma. Jesus could not be any clearer
because he was describing a coma the best way he knew how.
Lazarus came out of the tomb when Jesus called him to. The resurrection of Lazarus was not a true
resurrection. Perhaps Jesus knew that
Lazarus had been taking some kind of drug that could have made him look dead
all along so he came round and got away when Jesus had the tomb opened.
If you take the story as it is interpreted by Christians you will see
that the story exalts Lazarus and not Jesus.
It does not tell us much about Lazarus and we don’t know if he might
have fooled Jesus. Lazarus and his
sisters might have staged the resurrection without Jesus knowing. Jesus might have thought he raised him from
the dead. The fact that John thought he
was exalting Jesus by the story shows he was not divinely inspired for we have
to trust Lazarus on the basis of gossip that this miracle really took place and
Lazarus is the one being trusted and not Jesus.
John says that Jesus died and rose again but does not say that this was a
miracle, an unnatural event. And what
does he mean by dead? That the heart or
the breathing stopped for a minute? He
says only that Jesus was dead when he was stabbed on the cross and does not
rule out the notion that Jesus began to recover when removed from the
cross. We have already seen that John
does not use the word death to mean what it usually means. His Jesus called Lazarus asleep when he could
have been dead or in a state not far from it.
There is no evidence in John for a miraculous resurrection or miraculous
appearances of Jesus afterwards.
John is the one who gives the least reason for believing that Jesus died
and miraculous rose again. In those
days, they thought that you could die for a few moments and come back. His Jesus got into where the apostles were
though the doors were locked which only tells us he got in not that he
necessarily dematerialised himself to pass through a closed door.
In John 21, the Risen Jesus tells the disciples to cast their net over
the starboard side to get fish. This
seems miraculous until it is realised that the passage does not suggest that
the disciples were using the other side at that time. They caught nothing all night and may have
stopped and been about to start again when Jesus came along. The fact that they were near the shore adds
weight to this. Commentators think they
must have been using the other side when Jesus told them to change. But he may not have been giving practical
advice but telling them to use that side for some kind of symbolical
reason. The starboard side is the back
of the boat so the symbolism of a boat dragging fish after it is that they are
to drag men after them into the Church of God.
A parallel story implies that Jesus had this meaning in mind (Luke
5:1-11).
John doesn’t say that Jesus miraculously knew that Peter would die by
martyrdom but just that he said it would happen (21:18, 19). Peter allegedly died by crucifixion. Jesus tells him he will stretch out his hands
and someone will tie him and carry him off and John says this will glorify
God. This need not be a prediction of
crucifixion for it doesn’t say that his stretching his hands has anything to do
with his death. It says his capture will
lead to his death. If Jesus meant crucifixion
he would have been clearer but he seems to be describing a death in captivity
for nobody was tied to a cross and carried off before crucifixion. He says that Peter’s death will give glory to
God but even an unholy one can do that.
Jesus asked the Jews to believe in him or if they could not, to believe
in his works to believe in them instead (John 14:11). Let’s assume he meant miracles. So he wanted them to believe in his miracle powers
rather than in him if that was the best they could manage. But it is universally accepted in religion and
theology that miracles shouldn’t be accepted for their own sake but as pointers
to God. Jesus miracles couldn’t point to
God unless they pointed to himself as the spokesman and prophet of God. To believe in miracles done by a man who you don’t
consider a reliable mouthpiece of God would be saying that God does miracles just
for the hell of it.
If Jesus did not mean miracles but only that his good works were to be
believed in that is fine. But then Jesus
is saying that he does not need to do any miracles. He is saying they are not important. Jesus would say that God does not do silly,
that is, unnecessary miracles. We would
all have seen them if he did. So Jesus
is indicating that his miracles are not magical. Jesus is really saying that his signs are not
miracles for he would not contradict himself and John would not be writing what
he said down if he thought he did. The signs
are just good works. A miracle-worker
would not emphasise his natural goodness over his supernatural goodness. Jesus did so Jesus was not a super-powered
magician.
The interpretation of some that Jesus meant miracle powers and was
thinking that he would do the miracle of the resurrection and they would do
better. In that case, Jesus contradicted
his claim that the resurrection of Jesus would be the best, the most inimitable
and most credible miracle ever. And we
know for a fact and are one hundred and ten percent sure of it that it is the
opposites of these things.
Jesus in the John gospel says that the man who believes and trusts in him
will the same works as him and even do greater works than him for Jesus will go
back to the Father (John 14:12-14).
Some say this is a false prophecy for believers cannot walk on water and
make hundreds of loaves out of one loaf or rise from the dead. If that is so then it follows that the author
of John was a religious maniac and his gospel should be regarded with derision
for he would have known believers could not do these things. And if Jesus could give somebody better
powers than he had it follows that two or three witnesses could come along and
when the disciple of Jesus renowned for miracles is dead make it seem that that
person had appeared to them and testified that the miracles were done to draw
attention to himself as saviour and not Jesus and that he had had to testify in
Jesus’ favour just like Jesus had to feign devotion to the Jewish
religion.
Others say that Jesus was putting a natural interpretation on, and
requiring one for, the stories about his powers and so there would be people
who would think of better things to do than him.
Others say Jesus only meant that believers will do better than him for
they will be the ones going out and finding converts for God and him. This interpretation denies he meant miracles,
his own or theirs. This is the standard Christian
interpretation. And the only one they
can think of. But the interpretation is
wrong. He said the reason they would do
better than him is because he would go back to the Father. But he promised that he would be with his
people just as much as ever when he cannot be seen any more and when he is in
Heaven again.
The next verse says that whatever the Father will be asked in the name of
Jesus for, he will do it. He means that
they will do better than him for he will go back to the Father to get the
Father to answer their prayers better – which implies by the way that he did
not consider himself to be literally God.
A man who is God would get results from God whether he was on earth or
in heaven for he is God. So what Jesus
could have meant was that they would get better results from God by prayer
after he goes back to God’s side to whisper in God’s ear for all eternity. Jesus then would be doing better works for God
when he goes back to him than what he was doing on earth. This certainly never happened. No tradition said that Jesus did more miracles
after going back to Heaven than before he went back. It is no wonder Christians hate this interpretation. The interpretation says that there was
nothing unusual or obviously supernatural about Jesus’ teaching and works and others
would do more interesting and spectacular things than him. It is correct.
There are no miracles spoken of in this gospel. But the miracle of the food being multiplied
in John 6 seems to be an exception. In
the light of what John’s Jesus said about his own miracles it is clear that
this was no miracle.
CONCLUSION
Christianity has not changed since it started. Even now with the gospels written it is still
telling lies about Jesus and his powers and even using them to do it when the
truth is that very few miracles are attributed to Jesus in the Bible. When he did so few when he was alive why has
he done so many since? Suspicious! Suspicious!
BOOKS CONSULTED
On Being a Christian, Hans Kung, Collins/Fount Paperbacks, Glasgow, 1978
Miracles or Magic? Andre Kole and Al Janssen, Harvest House Publishers,
Eugene, Oregon, 1987
BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible
26 December 2007