By definition, miracles are things that happen that we can't explain
by regular naturalistic means. So one would expect that many
contem****ary educated people in industrialized societies would find
them implausible.
In fact, miracles continue to happen (as Jesus foresaw). They are
noted more often in societies that are less industrialized where the
expectation that everything will have a clear, scientific explanation
is not so rooted.
I do believe many miracles happened with Jesus. My view on the
Gospels is that these are attempts to show who Jesus was, not simple
recitations of events as they actually occurred. That is sup****ted by
the fact that the early church accepted four different Gospels, and
didn't seem to be bothered that there were some details different in
them. I look upon it more like today a great person's life might be
pictured in 2-hour movies (a gospel can be made into a 2-3 hour
movie). Obviously one can't include most of the facts in the person's
life (Luke in fact explains that in his gospel), but you capture the
essence of it by picturing some actual events, concatenating multiple
events into one that gives a picture of what kinds of things happened
in the person's life, make up incidents which carry elements of actual
events but better serve to tell the story, etc. So I don't know that
all the miracle stories in the NT are exact descriptions of actual
miracles, but I think they accurately show what kind of miracles
happened with Jesus.
Bill Samuel, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, billsamuel[at]verizon.net
http://www.quakerinfo.com/
http://www.billsamuel.net/
Co-Coordinator, Friends in Christ, Maryland, USA
"There is One, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition."
|
