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<h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(0, 61, 74); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 34px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Charting
a New Reformation</h1>
<h2 class="null" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Part
XIX - The 5th Thesis,
Miracles (continued)</h2>
<blockquote>
<div><em>“In a post-Newtonian
world supernatural
invasions of the natural
order performed by
either the eternal God
or the “Incarnate Jesus”
are simply not a viable
explanation of what
actually happened.”</em></div>
</blockquote>
<div>We have noted earlier that
originally miracles did not
appear to have been
connected with the memory of
Jesus. The first book to
portray Jesus as a worker of
miracles was the gospel of
Mark, written in the early
eighth decade or some
forty-two years after the
crucifixion.</div>
<div>Matthew, the second gospel
writer, who copied almost
ninety percent of Mark into
his ninth decade gospel,
repeated every miracle that
Mark had included, while
adding only one other.</div>
<div>Luke the third gospel
writer heightens the note of
the miraculous greatly in
his late ninth to early
tenth decade work. Luke’s
story of the resurrection,
for example, is far more
supernatural than anything
written prior to Luke. In
Luke, the resurrected Jesus
appears to be able to
materialize into and to
dematerialize out of thin
air. In Luke, Jesus can also
defy gravity and disappear
into the sky as if propelled
by an unseen rocket force.</div>
<div>In the later development of
these twelve theses, I will
explore these heightened
stories in regard to the
resurrection and the
ascension more fully.
Suffice it now to limit
myself to some general
observations in regard to
the presence of seemingly
supernatural events.</div>
<div>Once we recognize that
miracle stories are a
late-developing part of the
Jesus tradition, we can look
at them with greater
objectivity. When we do, a
number of things become
obvious. First, we note that
the miraculous elements in
these stories grow as the
stories are repeated in a
later work. Second, we
discover that frequently
there are in the gospel
miracle stories about Jesus,
echoes of a narrative from
the Hebrew Scriptures now
being retold about Jesus.
Third, each miracle story
appears to have the
interpretive purpose of
relating Jesus to the
expected messiah. These
observations carry us deeper
into the gospel texts and
give us another way to view
miracles other than to
relate to them as the deeds
being done by God in human
disguise, which is the
Christological lens through
which so many traditional
Christians view them today.</div>
<div>The development of this
kind of Christology, that is
the study of the divine
nature of Jesus, has grown
rapidly over the centuries.
In the Epistle to the
Philippians, Paul spoke of
God emptying the divine self
into Jesus, but no one can
seriously argue that Paul
was talking about what later
came to be called
“incarnation.” Paul was not
saying that the divine
entered into and took over
the human in the life of
Jesus. This is made clear in
other places in the Pauline
corpus when Paul talks about
God “designating” Jesus as
“the Son of God by the
action of the Holy Spirit”
by raising Jesus from the
dead (Romans 1:1-4). For
Paul Jesus did not in and of
himself “rise” from the
dead. God raised him! If God
can designate and “raise”
Jesus, then clearly this is
not a description of
co-equality. Paul was too
deeply Jewish to entertain
Trinitarian thinking.</div>
<div>Mark also appears not to be
a Trinitarian. At the
beginning of his gospel Mark
describes Jesus as a fully
human, adult male who comes
to be baptized by John in
the River Jordan. It is in
that baptismal act, we are
told, that God’s spirit
infuses the human Jesus.
Incarnational and
Trinitarian thinking, this
is not!</div>
<div>In the later gospels of
Matthew and Luke major steps
are taken toward
“incarnational and
Trinitarian” thinking. Both
added a virgin birth story
to the memory of Jesus. God
now enters Jesus at
conception not at
resurrection, as Paul had
implied, or at his baptism,
which Mark seemed to
suggest. As the years go by
the gospel miracles became
less and less God acting
through Jesus and more and
more descriptive of Jesus
acting on behalf of God. The
creator of the world in
human form could certainly
make the winds and waves
obey him. The divine Jesus
could surely banish illness,
which was thought of in the
first century as God’s
punishment of human beings
for the sinfulness of their
lives. The world in which
this “divine Jesus” lived
had not yet heard of germs,
viruses, tumors,
cholesterol, or of human
cells expanding in a
reckless and disorganized
manner. Once those things
were discovered, then
prayers requesting the
miracle of healing, or a
sacrifice offered to appease
the punishing deity, began
to be seen as nonsensical.</div>
<div>By the time the Fourth
Gospel was written (95-100
CE), miracles had been
transformed into “signs.”
There is a difference. A
miracle is defined as an
objective event, which can
be observed and documented.
A sign is an event that
points beyond itself to
something that is mysterious
and unseen, but not doubted.
In the Fourth Gospel, John
portrays Jesus as the author
and originator of seven
powerful signs, two of which
are absolutely unique,
having never been mentioned
or even hinted at in the
three earlier gospels. The
first of these is the
strange story of Jesus
changing water into wine.
The other is the dramatic
story of Jesus calling forth
from his burial place, the
four-days-dead-and-buried
Lazarus. This brief analysis
drives us to ask: “Did any
of these miraculous events
really happen?” The answer
to that question is, I now
believe, a firm no. Does
this mean that the gospel
writers were telling us
about things that never
happened, or does it mean
that we have literalized
inappropriately the gospels
for far too long?</div>
<div>Earlier in this series, we
traced the development of
miracles in the entire
Bible; they are not
omnipresent. Biblical
miracles only seem to occur
in the cycles of stories
that have gathered around
the heroic figures in Jewish
history. In particular,
these figures focus on what
might be called the “twin
towers of Israel’s religious
life,” the law and the
prophets. Moses was the
father of the law while
Elijah was the father of the
prophets. These are the
major biblical figures
around which miracle stories
have gathered in Hebrew
history. We also noted that
these miracles occurred in
the lives of Moses and
Elijah’s immediate
successors. It looks as if
the miracles stories
identified with Moses were
then wrapped around Joshua,
while the miracle stories
originally identified with
Elijah were then wrapped
around Elisha.</div>
<div>When we arrive at the Jesus
story, we discover that
Moses-Joshua stories have
now been wrapped around
Jesus. Like Moses, Jesus has
power over nature. Moses
could split the Red Sea,
Jesus could calm the storm
and walk on water. Moses
could cause manna to fall in
the wilderness to feed the
hungry children of Israel,
while Jesus, in another
wilderness, could take a
limited number of loaves and
fishes and feed a multitude.
Are not these gospel writers
following an ancient Jewish
story-telling tradition, to
assert that the same God who
was experienced as present
in Moses was now clearly
present in Jesus? Did these
biblical authors ever
consider the possibility
that these miracle stories
would ever be taken
literally? Did they think
for a moment that they were
writing history? No, of
course not! They were, in a
typically Jewish manner,
painting an interpretive
portrait.</div>
<div>Elijah and Elisha expanded
the domain of the miraculous
from the world of nature, as
it was for Moses and Joshua,
to the world of human
experience. Both Elijah and
Elisha were said, for
example, to have been able
to raise the dead. It was a
widow’s only son, who was
raised in the Elijah
narrative. So are we
surprised when Luke wraps
that story around Jesus and
it becomes Jesus raising the
only son of a widow in the
village of Nain? Elisha
raises a child from the
dead. That story is also
wrapped around Jesus when
Mark, Matthew and Luke all
relate a story of Jesus
raising a child from the
dead. So both the nature
miracles and the ability to
raise the dead appear to be
Jewish stories about past
heroes now being retold
about Jesus.</div>
<div>That still leaves us,
however, with two categories
of miracle stories
attributed to Jesus that do
not fit into these Hebrew
patterns. The first category
includes most of the healing
miracles, in which Jesus is
reported to be able to give
sight to the blind, hearing
to the deaf, the ability to
sing to the mute and the
ability to walk to the lame.
The second are the “signs”
that occur in the Fourth
Gospel. What is their
source? From whence are they
derived? Could these still
be viewed as literal
accounts of historical
events? Time and space
require that we separate the
two categories, so I will
deal with the healing
miracles this week and the
Johannine signs next week.</div>
<div>If we were people familiar
with the Jewish Scriptures,
we would know that messianic
thinking had long viewed the
promised messiah as the one
who would inaugurate the
reign of the Kingdom of God
in human history as spelled
out by Isaiah in the 8th
century BCE. When the
Kingdom of God dawned,
telling signs, Isaiah said,
would make all people aware
of it. Water, he said, would
flow in the desert, allowing
the crocuses to grow there.
Then human wholeness would
transform human brokenness.
In the messianic age, Isaiah
suggested, the blind would
see, the deaf hear, the mute
sing and the lame walk. If
one believed Jesus was the
messiah inaugurating the
Kingdom of God, then the
signs of that age must
surely be attributed to him.
This, I now believe, is the
primary source of the New
Testament healing miracles.
This is also why miracles
were so late in being
attributed to Jesus. They
had to wait until this
understanding of Christology
developed. The healing
miracles in the gospels were
not ever events that
actually happened, they were
rather signs of the presence
of God bringing the
messianic age into being. We
have misread them as
miracles. It is a new
insight – the burden of the
miracles is lifted off the
memory of Jesus in our age
when supernatural thinking
does not fit well into our
world.</div>
<div>John Shelby Spong</div>
<div>Read the essay online <a style="color: rgb(68, 135, 207); font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=277faadc5b&e=0471473479" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Question
& Answer</h2>
<div><span style="font-size: 18px;">Raymond
Rakower From Gex, France,
writes:</span><br>
</div>
<h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Question:</h4>
<div>It’s always a new pleasure
and enrichment to read your
weekly issues. If you’ll
forgive my arrogance, I
would like to make a
suggestion, a tentative
explanation of the
unshakable conviction of so
many people that there is an
almighty theistic God
outside our universe</div>
<div>It might be the vague
recollection, an echo of the
last weeks or months of our
fetus life when our universe
was limited to our mother’s
placenta but with an
acoustic system already
operational and connected to
our primitive brain. We
heard the voice of our
father coming from outside
of this universe and many a
time with a deep caring male
voice. This recollection
would be later incorporated
in the baby after a couple
of years when its
unconscious mind would
develop. Hence so many
people will never accept to
abandon their belief. I got
this idea whilst reading
(and translating into French
at my favorite publisher’s
request) the book of Aletha
J. Solter, PhD, <em>The
Attachment Play</em>,
based on the behavior
theory. She demonstrates in
this book the fact that
after the birth, the baby
remembers sometimes for
clearly a couple of years
what happened before and
during its birth! She used
this remarkable memory of
the early childhood to heal
some children’s behavior
problems.</div>
<div>My second point in this
email concerns your Q&A,
in your response to the
question of Sue Stover. I
recently read a book, which
analyses many details that
are quite familiar to you:
The Yahweh vs. the Elohim
traditions of the Old
Testament. Its title is <em>Who
Wrote the Bible</em> by
Richard Elliott Friedman. It
may contain some interesting
hypotheses about this topic.</div>
<div> </div>
<h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Answer:</h4>
<div>Dear Ray,</div>
<div>Thank you for your letter
with your provocative
insights. My readers need to
know that I have had the
chance to know you and to
talk with you about these
and many other things in the
years of our friendship.
They also need to know that
you were the first
translator of my books into
French. You have always been
a resource to my life and
both Christine and I look
forward to our opportunity
to see you in Basel,
Switzerland next October.</div>
<div>In regard to the comments
and questions expressed in
your letter, let me say that
I am certain that there is
something called “pre-birth
memory.” Evidence for that
seems well established. I am
also convinced that there is
something real about what
Carl Jung called “the
collective unconscious,”
which looks at some other
interconnections. I have
not, however, read deeply
enough on that subject to
have formed sufficiently
well-researched opinions
that I would be comfortable
sharing with others. In the
field of theology we are oft
times tempted to say more
than we know and even to
become dogmatic in the face
of mystery. The Christian
life, I remind myself daily,
is a journey into a
dimension of truth that no
human mind can ever fully
possess. So I have no great
light that I want to flash
before your fascinating
suggestion that the idea of
a theistic God is derived
from the suggestion that an
unborn child experiences his
or her father first as a
presence from a universe
different from the one the
fetus occupies. I find that
suggestion intriguing, but
not convincing. It seems to
me that there are many
sources of that idea, not
just one. Above all I am
convinced that every idea of
God ultimately arises from a
human experience, but that
does not mean God is no more
than a mythologized human
experience. Over the years
of human history every human
definition of God has
finally died, or been
radically revised in the
light of new knowledge and
expanded human experience.
So in my mind there is a
reality to God that
transcends every definition.
God does not die when any
human definition of God,
like “theism” dies. I make a
clear distinction between
God and every human idea of
God. So I will take your
idea under advisement, just
because it is your idea, and
I will explore it further.
Perhaps we can discuss it
more in October. Until then
we send you our best wishes.</div>
<div>John Shelby Spong</div>
<div> </div>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Announcements</h2>
<h2 class="null" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; display: block;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 205);">Bishop
John Shelby Spong to speak
at and receive the
Religious Liberty Award at
the American Humanist
Society's 75th Anniversary
Conference, May 26th -
29th in Chicago, IL.</span></h2>
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