Should the stories of miracles that Jesus performed be considered historically accurate? Did he walk on water, or was there a conveniently placed sandbar that made his disciples think he was walking on water, or did Mark just make this story up?<\/p>\n
Let me tell you how I approach this question.<\/p>\n
(i) I think that all of the miracles described in the canon are within Jesus’ powers. I think it is physically possible that Jesus did walk on water, multiply bread and fish, etc. (This is a faith-based position regarding Jesus’ miraculous abilities.)\u00a0This is an important point, and thus I make it first. It is one thing to dismiss a story because you don’t think Jesus could do that, and quite another thing to dismiss it for any other reason.<\/p>\n
(ii) The historicity of any given story is ultimately unknowable (What do you want–a video of demons flying out of that poor guy?) from a historical\/scientific–if not a faith-based–perspective, and therefore not a very interesting question to debate. My kids love to argue–this is what happens when a Sicilian whose first love was high school debate reproduces–and I confess that I encourage it. But what I do not permit are debates over matters of fact. You look up facts; you debate values and policies and conclusions. My kids have learned this refrain and will now correct each other: “I’m not going to argue about that; we’ll look it up when we get home. No debating matters of fact!” Thus I am not interested in debates over the historicity of miracles; these debates bore me. (The one exception to this is that I think it matters if the Resurrection was historical. But I’m still not interested in debating it, as I take it as a matter of faith.)<\/p>\n
(iii) I think it is possible but unlikely that the NT miracle stories are all completely historically accurate. The reason I doubt this is that we have really good evidence that sometimes the gospel writers privileged theological concerns over historical ones. For example, in the Synoptics, the Last Supper is a Passover meal but in John, Jesus dies when the Passover lamb is killed. Someone–or several someones–has tweaked the timing to make a theological point. So I think 100% historical accuracy is a tough cause to defend.\u00a0When it comes to any given miracle story, I think it is possible that the story may have been shaped to reflect the writer’s theological concerns, which means that some historical details may have been altered and, possibly, some may have been fabricated.<\/p>\n
(iv) Expanding on point (iii), I think the question that is worthy of our time is to consider the theological concerns which permeate each miracle story. To take just one example: think about Jesus feeding the 5,000 in the wilderness (Mark 6:30-44). Here are several potential readings of that story:<\/p>\n
1. There is a bunch of military imagery in that story. The men want Jesus to lead their military movement against Roman rule, but instead he feeds them.<\/p>\n