[Dialogue] 6/14/12, Spong: "Think Different-Accept Uncertainty" Part XII: Are the Miracles of Jesus Miracles or Interpretive Signs?

Thu Jun 14 12:23:51 PDT 2012



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	"Think Different—Accept Uncertainty" Part XII: Are the Miracles of Jesus Miracles or Interpretive Signs?
	Last week, we began to look at the miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospels.  Most of them are familiar stories to those of us raised in the Christian faith.  When I was a young child growing up in North Carolina, I was taught that the miracles were both demonstrations of Jesus’ divinity as well as proofs of that divinity.  He could do these supernatural things, I was told, because he and God were identical.  It was a comfortable, but pre-modern and uninformed conclusion that was destined not to stand the test of time. Miracles would prove to be a casualty of the advancement of our knowledge, both about the Bible and about how the world operated.
	The first crack in this religious armor came when I discovered that there were other miracle stories in the Bible connected with people besides Jesus.  If one has to be divine to do miracles, then it seemed to me that they should be limited to the life of Jesus. Yet I discovered that miracles are found in three distinct cycles in the biblical narratives, only one of which is related to Jesus.
	First, there were the miracles associated with Moses, the founder of the Jewish religion.  Moses’ power was such that miracles seem to continue to gather around his successor, a man named Joshua.
	Second, there were miracles associated with Elijah, who was regarded as the founder of the prophetic tradition.  Elijah’s power, like that of Moses, was so great that miracles continued to gather around his successor, a man named Elisha.
	Third, miracles were associated with the Jesus of the gospels and so great was Jesus’ power that these miracles seemed to gather around those who were portrayed as Jesus’ successors, the apostles. Apostolic miracles are narrated in the book of Acts. The pattern was thus quite similar in all three cycles. That was my first surprise.
	Once I had identified this similarity in the miracle stories in the Bible, I then examined each cycle eager to see if I could discover any other similarities. The first thing I noticed was that prior to Jesus the ability to do miracles did not result in the claim of divinity. Instead the assumption was that the miracle workers were simply so close to God that God’s power could work through them as chosen vessels.  No one, however, subscribed divinity to the vessel.
	Turning first to the Moses-Joshua cycle of stories, I found that the miracles they were said to have performed fell into two categories.  One category had the ring of magic about it.  These are miracle stories hardly ever quoted, referred to or preached about in Christian churches, not even by fundamentalists.  There is almost an embarrassment associated with finding them in the Bible.  These magic signs were special powers that God had supposedly given to Moses to equip him to negotiate the release of the Hebrew slave people from Egypt.  One of these was Moses’ ability to hurl his staff to the floor and have it turn into a snake or serpent.  If Moses’ negotiations with the Pharaoh were not going well, Moses was to resort to this miracle.  It was a pretty spectacular trick, but Pharaoh was not impressed.  Instead he brought his court magicians into the negotiations and they replicated Moses’ magic.  They threw their staffs on the floor and these staffs also became snakes.  A miracle that can also be performed by one’s opponents is not an impressive tool for negotiations.  The story was rescued, along with God’s power, when we learn that Moses’ snake proceeded to eat up the snakes of the Egyptian magicians.  It is no wonder that such a tale is better not being mentioned or even by forgetting that it is actually in the Bible.  It is there, however, and you may read it in Exodus 4.
	The second of the miraculous signs that were supposedly given to Moses in order to assist him in these negotiations was that of thrusting his hand into his bosom, Napoleon style, and then drawing it out to reveal a hand filled with leprosy.  When those he was trying to impress were sufficiently horrified he would then thrust his hand back into his bosom and it became clean and healthy again.  If those two tricks were not sufficient to convince the Pharaoh of God’s authority and thus of the Pharaoh’s need to release the Hebrew slaves, Moses was empowered to produce a third magical sign by taking some water from the Nile River, pouring it on the ground and watching it turn into blood before the eyes of the assembled hosts. If all of these miracles failed to secure the release of the chosen people from the oppression of the Pharaoh, then the Bible tells us that Moses and God would turn to natural miracles on a grand scale.
	These heightened miraculous events are described for us in the book of Exodus when we read about the plagues that were to fall on Egypt.  There we learn that the waters of the Nile River were turned to blood and became undrinkable.  When that did not secure the freedom of the chosen people a multitude of frogs infested the whole land covering everything from the Egyptians’ bedrooms to their kitchens.  When that did not work, first gnats and then flies swarmed over the land.  Then all the cattle were struck with something like Mad Cow disease.  Next, all the Egyptians broke out with boils.  This was followed by a storm of hailstones and then the sky was filed with locusts.   Next a strange darkness covered all the earth.  When none of these plagues caused Pharaoh to change his mind, the final plague visited on this nation was the death of the first born male in every Egyptian household.  This slaughter took place on the night of the Passover.
	Moses was surely believed in the Bible to have had miraculous power to alter the circumstances of the physical world.  That power was newly confirmed when later he split the waters of the Red Sea and then was able to call down from heaven bread, called manna, to feed the Israelites in the wilderness.  When Moses died, this power was said to have been transferred to Joshua, who could then, in Moses-like fashion, part the waters of the flooded Jordan River; cause the walls around the city of Jericho to fall to the ground, and even stop the sun in the sky to allow more daylight in which to slaughter his enemies, the Ammonites.  The miracles attributed to Moses and Joshua were all in the category of manipulating the forces of nature.  They were thus “nature” miracles.
	About 400 years later in Jewish history, miracle stories appeared again in the biblical narrative, but this time about both Elijah and Elisha.  Most of their supernatural acts also appeared to be nature miracles.  Elijah was said to have had the ability to call down fire from heaven, as well as the ability to manipulate the weather patterns in order to create draughts or to allow rain.  Both of these prophets also were said to have had the ability to expand the food supply.  It was not manna from heaven, but it was oil and meal that never diminished no matter how much was used.  A new miraculous power, however, begins to appear for the first time in the Bible in this Elijah-Elisha cycle. Elijah raises from the dead the only son of a widow.  Elisha raises an official’s child from the dead.  Elisha heals the leprosy of a Syrian named Naaman.  The miraculous tradition is growing.
	There was one other place in the scriptures before the text reaches the Jesus story, in which the ability to perform miracles is described and anticipated, but not acted out.  In the 38th chapter of Isaiah, someone must have asked the prophet how one would know when the Kingdom of God was drawing near or when “the end of the world” could be anticipated.  Isaiah responded by describing the signs that will accompany the end of the age.  “Water will flow in the desert,” Isaiah said, and then other signs would break out for all to see. Human life will be made whole: “the blind will see, the deaf hear, the lame leap and the mute sing.” So into the Jewish expectations of the messianic age came the idea that the arrival of the Kingdom of God on earth would be announced in the wholeness that would replace the brokenness of human life.  When these sources of miracle stories are lifted out of the Hebrew Scriptures we find that many connections to the miracles attributed to Jesus become visible.
	Turning now to those New Testament miracles of Jesus we discover that the same three categories, which were in the Old Testament cycles, are present there.  First, there are the nature miracles: Jesus walks on water; Jesus stills the storm; Jesus expands the food supply of five loaves and two fish to feed a multitude of thousands, and Jesus lays a curse upon a fig tree causing it to die to its roots.  These are all nature miracles.
	Second, Jesus like Elijah and Elisha can raise the dead.  In Matthew, Mark and Luke, he raises from the dead a child of an official.  In Luke alone, he raises from the dead the only son of a widow.  The raising of Lazarus story is told only in John and culminates his book of signs.
	Finally, in the first three gospels, there is a portrayal of Jesus engaging in numerous healing miracles. He seems to act out the signs of the coming of the Kingdom as enumerated by the prophet Isaiah.  He gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, wholeness to those who are lame or who possess withered limbs and the ability to speak to those who are mute.
	Can we begin to see a pattern here?  Are the familiar stories found in the Hebrew Bible regarding Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha being dusted off, expanded and retold about Jesus in the New Testament?  Are the accounts of eyes being made to see, ears to hear, lameness being overcome and the mute breaking into song historical events or are they interpretive signs designed to convey the conviction that Jesus is the expected messiah, who will inaugurate the Kingdom of God?
	The analysis raises some different questions and offers us a new way to look at miracles. We will continue this discussion when this series resumes.
	~John Shelby Spong
	Read the essay online here.

	
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	Question & Answer
	Frances, via the Internet, writes:
	Question:
	You spoke one winter at the Fountains Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, AZ.  My daughter-in-law, Sandy, and I had the pleasure of attending and meeting you there as well.  Ever since then I have been reading your books, starting with your Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism and you make so much sense to this aging adult.  I also look forward to your weekly articles since I subscribe to your web site and learn so much from them.
	I was raised Catholic, although my mother had been a Presbyterian and couldn’t quite accept the tenets of Catholicism.  Yet she insisted that my sister and I attend catechism classes on Saturdays and Sundays taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame.  Their lurid stories about death, torture and hell traumatized me and I had nightmares about dying and going to hell in which the nuns assured us that there was a clock that didn’t “tick-tock” as most clocks do, but said, “Never, never, never.”   I vowed that if I ever married, it certainly wouldn’t be to a Roman Catholic….but I married an Irish-Catholic, wouldn’t you know?  My husband had a massive heart attack in 1967 and died in our 23rd year of marriage.  Following his death, I became an Episcopalian where all the color and beauty of the Catholic mass, which I had learned to love, was there but without the rigidity and negativity of the Roman rite.
	Now I am 89 years old and know that already I’ve been living on borrowed time and so I have searched your excellent books about a life beyond the grave.  In the meanwhile, I have been infatuated with a very dear physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku.  I heard him being interviewed by CSPAN-2 last October 3rd.  He talked about there being 11 different dimensions in our universe, but we haven’t been able to communicate with any of them yet.  He suggested that perhaps when we die, God takes that tiny spark which was our life and puts us into another dimension where we live on into eternity.  Somehow I was less fearful of death if such a thing were so.  Meanwhile, I can’t believe in a three-tiered world with “heaven” above, the earth beneath and “hell” somewhere underground.  Yet I yearn to be with my eldest son, Terry, who died in 2001 of melanoma which I believe he contracted having been stationed in an office for the US Navy in Da Nang where our forces sprayed Agent Orange every day in the jungles outside of the city.  He had to have been breathing that stuff all of the time that whole year.  I have lost a husband, a sister and my parents but there is nothing compared to having lost my dearest son.  I long to be with him.  I know it’s asking a lot and I know that you do believe we live beyond this earthly existence….but where?  Will I ever see my son again?  Thank you so much for all of your wonderful books and for your weekly articles on-line and for just YOU being YOU!
	Answer:
	Dear Frances,
	Thank you for your letter and your kind comments.  I understand the pain of death and the separation it brings.  I have lost both of my parents, my first wife, my brother and several treasured friends.  Life does seem fragile and thus drives us to seek hope and certainty in our religious symbols.  It is, however, not to be found there and those who pretend that they find it there soon become idolatrous.  I tackled the issues you raise in my recent book Eternal Life: A New Vision, but I cannot answer the where question or any other question that arises about life beyond death.  I can write about life, but beyond that only by pointing the things to which I believe life points.
	I do not know Dr. Michio Kaku, but I have little confidence in anyone who asserts that there are “eleven different dimensions in our universe, but we haven’t been able to communicate with any of them yet.”  The obvious question is that if we have not been able to communicate with these dimensions, how does he know they are there?  How does he know there are eleven?
	No educated person I know still believes in a three-tiered universe either, but much of our liturgy still assumes it.  I do believe that people we love are part of us and we are part of them.  I also believe that all of us are part of something beyond ourselves.  I call this ‘a universal consciousness,” and I define it only as that which is beyond our limits, but I have no empirical data to cite that will demonstrate this conviction.  Life seems to point me there is all that I can say.
	All I know for sure is that I am alive now.  I have been made who I am by the gifts to me of many people.  I believe that the word God stands for those gifts that lift me beyond my limits, allow me to escape my survival-driven existence and invite me into a deeper experience of being human.  As I give my life away, I experience life being expanded. As I share love, I find my ability to love is increased.  When I have the courage to be myself, I find my participation in being itself enhanced.  That is where I have glimpses of the divine and intimations of immortality. I wish you well,
	~John Shelby Spong
														
                                                    
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