Literal miracles in the Bible?

[-57]

Personally, I think the miracles of Jesus are there to express an idea of wholeness. The idea that God is wholeness: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, etc., etc..., would be teased by the writers of the New Testament.

One man was born blind and healed so that the works of God would be displayed in him

 

[TLK Valentine]

That, is the perfect answer, proving the Scripture provided.

"perfect"? It would indicate that people who claim to be believers are afraid to ask the questions, lest their fellow believers think less of them for their ignorance.

"Perfect," perhaps... but for whom?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Inspired, Inspiration

Theological
1. a divine influence directly and immediately exerted upon the mind or soul.
2. the divine quality of the writings or words of a person so influenced.

I don't see how quoting a dictionary helps matters... unless God is somehow bound to obey it?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Really? You blew me off in post 3.

No, I pointed out a discrepancy in your answer. If you choose to take it as a personal affront, I can't help that.

 

[TLK Valentine]

One man was born blind and healed so that the works of God would be displayed in him

But displayed to whom? One thing to remember from secular history is that first century Palestine was crawling with faith healers, miracle workers, "messiahs" and assorted wannabes, charlatans, and con artists.

Two things set Jesus apart from the others:

1. We know (well, you believe and I'll stipulate for the purposes of this discussion) that Jesus was the real deal, while the others were fakes. But the people back then didn't know that... they believed in all the "healers," and the healers always claimed divine or magical power...

No, what got the people's attention was 2. Jesus did his works for free, while the other guys demanded cash in advance...

So you see, the "works of God" were nothing new to the people at the time... Jesus simply undercut the competition.

 

[TLK Valentine]

This makes me think a little bit of Luke 4:23-27, where Jesus does quite explicitly point out that the prophets only rarely and selectively performed miracles. Seems like it isn't the sort of thing that you can just demand.

There aren't too many performances of miracles even among the prophets, really.

They start with Moses and his successor, Joshua... then there's a gap of a few centuries... then you have Elijah and his successor, Elisha... and after that, it's pretty much miracle-free up until Jesus (and his successors, the Apostles).

Those four men and their stories don't take up a lot of space in the Bible, and if we were to remove them, the miracles would dry up pretty substantially.

I do think the miracles of both the Old and New Testament are meant to be taken literally, just as heroic stories elsewhere in Antiquity seem to have been taken literally. This wasn't a world where people thought that their gods weren't active in history, so I think it would be stranger if the ancient Jews understood everything metaphorically. That seems to have been a later development (see Philo of Alexandria).

Interesting... I'm curious about whether ancient people took their stories literally like that (I'm thinking Greek and Roman myths)

I personally don't really believe in the major miracles of the Old Testament, but I think it would be anachronistic to project that back on the actual authors of the Hebrew Bible. I also don't see a theological problem with the possibility of selective miracles throughout Israel's history--given the idea of omnipotence, God could miraculous bend or break the laws of nature even if he never chose to do so, so I don't see much of a difference between never acting and only occasionally acting where the Problem of Evil is concerned.

My understanding of Christian theology is that the "Problem of Evil" is a continuous one, and will be until Jesus returns and settles things once and for all. But as I've pointed out -- the miracles may get a lot of attention, but they take up a relatively small portion of the Bible.

 

[icxn]

Why stop, then? Because the children are gown up?

Are we, as God's children, "all grown up" now?

He hasn't stopped. It's just that now He has a lot of older children (spiritually mature Christians) and He expects them to help the younger ones. In other words, He uses humbler means to provide for His children, believers and unbelievers alike.

 

[JIMINZ]

I don't see how quoting a dictionary helps matters... unless God is somehow bound to obey it?

The reason is, your very own personal definition is incorrect, therefore the Dictionary is needed for you to understand, but you still refuse to.

 

[JIMINZ]

"perfect"? It would indicate that people who claim to be believers are afraid to ask the questions, lest their fellow believers think less of them for their ignorance.

"Perfect," perhaps... but for whom?

That is the answer of someone who is described in the Scripture I submitted in my earlier post, a total and complete inability to understand things which are Spiritual in nature......sorry.

 

[bling]

Now, for this thread, I want to define "miracle" as "The overt suspension of natural laws by the divine or agent of the divine in order to achieve a divine purpose."

That said, are the miracle stories as they are described in the Old and New Testaments meant to be interpreted as depictions of actual events?

And if so, do those depictions bring people closer to an understanding of God, or further away?

Because it seems to me that stories of a God who can miraculously bend/break the natural laws of the universe at will raise a lot of awkward questions about the countless times He chooses not to.

Consider:

• God rains manna from the heavens to feed the Israelites.... today, millions are starving.
• God -- either personally or through His prophets -- heals the sick and infirm and even raises the dead... today, millions suffer and die.
• God -- again either personally or through His prophets -- commands the forces of nature... today, drought, storms, earthquakes, etc... kill millions.

Now, I'm not asking "why do bad things happen?" But rather, "would we even have to ask these questions if we didn't assume that miracles were actual historic acts?"

Thoughts?

You show excellent logic in your question and it is often asked different ways, but the same idea. You also give a good alternative logical possible answer, with it being, just a descriptive “tale” enjoyed by the people to get a message across, but did not really happen.

If we are going to have a tale about the Jews wandering in the wilderness forty years you are going to have to add a way for them to be fed.

But! Also, if I am going to write just any fictional story about my ancestors, they would be powerful, smart, strong, wonderful, victorious and very obedient to God.

Your question is asking: “why does God save the lives of some and not everyone?” but you have to realize some things:

If you are not heaven bound death is something to fear, while death in and of itself is not bad, since it is the way good people go home and bad people quite doing bad stuff.

It is extremely unfortunate, but I along with others need to realize God can stop providing life at any time. If I knew I was going to live for 100 years I might put off my turning to God, since before becoming a Christian the perceived pleasures of sin attracted me and I would have put off repenting. One of the problems with “waiting” is it does not get any easier to repent. If I turn away from wanting to be Loved unconditionally and to have that type of Love for others and seek being loved by others for the way I want them to perceive me to be, I might never turn.

This messed up world is actually the very best place for willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective. God is doing or allowing all He can to help willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective and that all includes: Christ going to the cross, satan roaming the earth, tragedies of all kinds, death, hell, and even sinning.

Back to “Miracles”: if manna fell from heaven today and we could not explain it scientifically we would know the God of the Bible truly existed, but that means we would not have “faith” in God’s existence, but knowledge of God’s existence. The problem is we need “faith” which is a humbling experience, since the lowliest person on earth can believe in a benevolent Creator and not knowledge of His existence since knowledge tends to puff a person up and push faith to the side.

 

[Radagast]

That said, are the miracle stories as they are described in the Old and New Testaments meant to be interpreted as depictions of actual events?

Yes, they are.

 

[TLK Valentine]

The reason is, your very own personal definition is incorrect,

I didn't give my personal definition... I merely wondered what if our understanding of the term (from which the dictionary definition is derived) is incorrect -- or at the very least, incomplete -- and that human language is, in fact, insufficient to express divine truths?

therefore the Dictionary is needed for you to understand, but you still refuse to.

Well, now correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be God's definition, not the dictionary's, that matters?

 

[TLK Valentine]

That is the answer of someone who is described in the Scripture I submitted in my earlier post, a total and complete inability to understand things which are Spiritual in nature......sorry.

And only fools can't see that the Emperor's robes are made of the finest silks... sorry indeed, because it goes nowhere but in circles.

 

[public hermit]

Now, I'm not asking "why do bad things happen?" But rather, "would we even have to ask these questions if we didn't assume that miracles were actual historic acts?"

Thoughts?

I think you've kind of touched on what I want to say. Miracles, particularly those of Jesus, speak to the idea of wholeness. Let's assume for the moment there were no miracles of any kind associated with historic acts. We might still wonder why the sick aren't made well, the storm stopped, the dead raised, etc.

It's interesting that in John's gospel the miracles of Jesus are always referred to as "signs." Signs, by their nature, always point to something besides the sign itself. The "signs" (miracles) of Jesus, in one sense, point to him. But, along the lines of wholeness, they also point to the "kingdom" in which the meek inherit the earth, those who mourn now laugh, and so on. That is, things are made whole. In somewhat technical terms, the signs point to an eschatological reality that can't be had in this one, but is nonetheless promised. That does nothing to answer the question as to why this reality is the way it is, but it might give a better sense of the (possible) function of miracles. At least, those of Jesus.

 

[Silmarien]

There aren't too many performances of miracles even among the prophets, really.

They start with Moses and his successor, Joshua... then there's a gap of a few centuries... then you have Elijah and his successor, Elisha... and after that, it's pretty much miracle-free up until Jesus (and his successors, the Apostles).

Those four men and their stories don't take up a lot of space in the Bible, and if we were to remove them, the miracles would dry up pretty substantially.

There is Jonah too, technically. Beyond that, I can't think of any others offhand either. Maybe Joseph and others who were into dream interpretation?

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue, though. There's no conflict between being rare events and being understood literally.

Interesting... I'm curious about whether ancient people took their stories literally like that (I'm thinking Greek and Roman myths)

It's an interesting question. If you look at the presocratic philosophers, you had figures like Xenophanes who criticized the Greek pantheon as overly anthropomorphic. I would view that as evidence that there was a time that the Greeks really did take their myths seriously, since satire is usually a response to customs that are actually present, not those that aren't. I would assume that there was genuine belief before philosophy became more widespread.

We do know that the Greeks eventually became more skeptical of their gods, and by the time Christianity burst onto the stage, pagan opponents did reimagine all of their myths as symbolic and metaphorical due to all the moral problems involved. Whether they actually believed in the deities anymore... honestly, I'd suspect that they did, though the major proponents of paganism were Neoplatonists, so their religious interpretations were probably colored by everything else they had going on.

My understanding of Christian theology is that the "Problem of Evil" is a continuous one, and will be until Jesus returns and settles things once and for all. But as I've pointed out -- the miracles may get a lot of attention, but they take up a relatively small portion of the Bible.

You seemed to be tying the Old Testament miracles to the Problem of Evil... Raining manna from the heavens vs. millions starving, etc. I don't see how reading the miracles as symbolic itself would solve that problem at all.

As for miracles taking up a small portion of the Bible... yeah, but I'm not sure what you're even arguing with that. Like I said above, there's no conflict between being rare and being literal.

 

[-57]

But displayed to whom? One thing to remember from secular history is that first century Palestine was crawling with faith healers, miracle workers, "messiahs" and assorted wannabes, charlatans, and con artists.

Two things set Jesus apart from the others:

1. We know (well, you believe and I'll stipulate for the purposes of this discussion) that Jesus was the real deal, while the others were fakes. But the people back then didn't know that... they believed in all the "healers," and the healers always claimed divine or magical power...

No, what got the people's attention was 2. Jesus did his works for free, while the other guys demanded cash in advance...

So you see, the "works of God" were nothing new to the people at the time... Jesus simply undercut the competition.

I'm not quite sure i'm buying into the everyone was doing magic shows back in Jesus' day.

 

[-57]

My understanding of Christian theology is that the "Problem of Evil" is a continuous one, and will be until Jesus returns and settles things once and for all. But as I've pointed out -- the miracles may get a lot of attention, but they take up a relatively small portion of the Bible.

Revelation speaks of Evil performing miracles...signs and wonders. What will you think if/when you see it?

 

[TLK Valentine]

You show excellent logic in your question and it is often asked different ways, but the same idea. You also give a good alternative logical possible answer, with it being, just a descriptive “tale” enjoyed by the people to get a message across, but did not really happen.

Not exactly -- "enjoyment" isn't the point; the point is to convey a divine idea using a tool (human language) that simply isn't equipped to express it.

Consider the example I used earlier with Beethoven... to speak the "language" of music, you need a musical instrument... preferably the right one for the piece... You can't "speak" the Ninth Symphony, you can only play it -- preferably with a full orchestra.

You can use a lesser instrument to get the general idea across... you can play the Ninth on a kazoo, but would it really be the same?

Similarly, to speak the "divine" language, one would need a divine instrument... and we who are mere mortals and not gods simply do not have one... even if we accept some small measure of the divine by virtue of being made in God's image, that just gives us the kazoo; we still don't have the orchestra.

If we are going to have a tale about the Jews wandering in the wilderness forty years you are going to have to add a way for them to be fed.

But! Also, if I am going to write just any fictional story about my ancestors, they would be powerful, smart, strong, wonderful, victorious and very obedient to God.

This assumes that any such story is "just a fictional story" -- I make no such assumption. The Bible is not limited to being "complete truth" or "complete fiction"; there's an entire spectrum in between. The same can be true of any ancient (and not-so-ancient) writings; it's just a question of where it falls on the spectrum.

Your question is asking: “why does God save the lives of some and not everyone?”

Not quite -- I actually said I didn't want one of those discussions. The bigger picture is this: The more we learn of history, science, medicine, etc., etc.... the less it all supports a literal and historically accurate Bible... unless we start shoehorning a lot more miracles in there, and assume that God's had His thumb on the cosmic scales all along.

I saw this all the time back when I debated over in the creation/evolution forum... so I thought it interesting to explore the concept of "miracle" as it already exists in the Bible... personally, I prefer a world with fewer miracles... less headaches.

but you have to realize some things:

If you are not heaven bound death is something to fear, while death in and of itself is not bad, since it is the way good people go home and bad people quite doing bad stuff.

One way to look at it -- not quite the Biblical way, since Death is specifically "the last enemy that shall be destroyed," and such a worldview raises some equally awkward questions regarding who's "good" and who's "bad." But let's continue.

It is extremely unfortunate, but I along with others need to realize God can stop providing life at any time.

Many of us already realize this, belief in God or not.
In the words of James Douglas Morrison, "the future's uncertain and the end is always near."

If I knew I was going to live for 100 years I might put off my turning to God, since before becoming a Christian the perceived pleasures of sin attracted me and I would have put off repenting. One of the problems with “waiting” is it does not get any easier to repent. If I turn away from wanting to be Loved unconditionally and to have that type of Love for others and seek being loved by others for the way I want them to perceive me to be, I might never turn.

On the flip side, you might turn too early... and too often.
In the words of Anton Szandor LaVey, “On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence."

This messed up world is actually the very best place for willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective. God is doing or allowing all He can to help willing individuals to fulfill their earthly objective and that all includes: Christ going to the cross, satan roaming the earth, tragedies of all kinds, death, hell, and even sinning.

The notion of God "allowing" sinning is a strange one, since I define "sin" as an act in disobedience to God... but is it really disobedience if He says "it's okay, I'll allow it"?

But sin is a topic for another time; this thread is about miracles.

Back to “Miracles”: if manna fell from heaven today and we could not explain it scientifically we would know the God of the Bible truly existed,

That would be a God-of-the-gaps theology, and it's a theologically shaky position to take. Anything we can't explain scientifically today we might figure out tomorrow... and where does God go then?

In fact, our world is full of things we couldn't explain yesterday that make perfect sense today... what has that done to God?

Answer: Nothing... to God, but it's put His followers in a tizzy. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Franklin, Darwin, Freud... every time someone has opened the door to the unknown, there have always been those desperate to slam it shut "in the name of God." So let's not worship the gaps in our knowledge on the assumption that God's in there... somewhere.

but that means we would not have “faith” in God’s existence, but knowledge of God’s existence. The problem is we need “faith” which is a humbling experience, since the lowliest person on earth can believe in a benevolent Creator and not knowledge of His existence since knowledge tends to puff a person up and push faith to the side.

That can happen, but my observations have been quite the opposite. Again, I'm drawing on my experience over in the Creation/Evolution forums...

On the one hand, There is a Creator who spent six painstaking days on this one little planet, and *POOF*ed the rest of the cosmos into being with little more than an idle thought... all for you to have dominion over... because you are the most important thing in His creation.

On the other, the more we learn, the more we know, the more we see that each answer raises a dozen new questions, and as we try to wrap our heads around creation, we see, in the words of Douglas Noel Adams, "you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says 'You are here.'”

One of those experiences is far more humbling than the other, IMO.

 

[-57]

But! Also, if I am going to write just any fictional story about my ancestors, they would be powerful, smart, strong, wonderful, victorious and very obedient to God.

Problem is....the authors of the bible were often very harsh on the prophets.

 

[TLK Valentine]

I'm not quite sure i'm buying into the everyone was doing magic shows back in Jesus' day.

Was Jesus’ miracle work unique? - Centre for Public Christianity

"Turning to the Jewish world of the time, two names stand out as potential candidates for Jesus-like miracle workers. The first is Honi the Circle-drawer, active early in the 1st-century BC (he died around 65 BC), and the second is Hanina ben Dosa, who probably died sometime before AD 70. Interestingly, both men were from Galilee, Jesus’ home district, leading the great Jewish scholar, Geza Vermes of Oxford University, to make much of the connection between Jesus, Honi and Hanina. All three, he says, were part of a tradition of Galilean Hasidim or Devout ones who were known for their nearness to God and spiritual powers."


And these were just two of the famous ones -- the ancient world was a very superstitious place.