Jesus And The Miracle Tradition

Working with selected miracles of Jesus from the canonical Gospel traditions and with background studies in the general understanding of miracles in the Greco-Roman world of the Hellenistic period, this collection of essays shows how we may understand the theological reasons why the early followers of Jesus included these stories in their traditions that constituted the canonical Gospels. Using individual stories from the Gospels, three of the essays demonstrate how literary-critical analysis can show the theological intent of the miracle story. A second set of three essays examines the way Mark and Luke view the miracle tradition within their larger task of writing the story of Jesus. A final set of three articles examines the Hellenistic background of such stories, and the way they were used in secular and Jewish sources, to gain perspective on what the early Christians intended with the miracle stories of Jesus.

Hoping to overcome what John Meier refers to as the “academic sneer factor” when speaking of the miraculous, Owen Cummings examines the history of the miraculous from the Old Testament through attitudes of twenty-first -century theologians.

The earliest of the four Gospels, the book portrays Jesus as an enigmatic figure, struggling with enemies, his inner and external demons, and with his devoted but disconcerted disciples. Unlike other gospels, his parables are obscure, to be explained secretly to his followers. With an introduction by Nick Cave

STORIES FROM THE BIBLE

For more than a century, scholars have debated whether Paul the apostle was a faithful follower of Jesus or a corruptor of Jesus’s message and the true founder of Christianity. Signs of Continuity intervenes in this debate by exploring a largely overlooked element of similarity between the two men: the place of miracles in their ministries. In his close analysis of the miracles performed by Jesus and Paul, Greg Rhodea points to signs of continuity between these two historical figures of Christianity. He argues that both Jesus and Paul understood their miracles as accompanying and actualizing a message of gracious inclusion of the marginalized, resisted proving their ability to work miracles to those who asked for a sign despite the importance of miracle-working to their personal authentication, and interpreted miracles as proof of the presence of the eschatological kingdom. Based on these similarities, Rhodea concludes that Paul the apostle knew of Jesus’s miracles and that he imitated Jesus in his own ministry of miracle-working. In highlighting this previously unexplored area of continuity, Rhodea makes a significant contribution to the debate over the relationship between Jesus and Paul. Biblical scholars and students interested in this debate will find Signs of Continuity enlightening and informative.

Scholarly literature on Jesus has often attempted to relate his miracles to their Jewish context, but that context has not been surveyed in its own right. This volume fills that gap by examining both the ideas on miracle in Second Temple literature (including Josephus, Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) and the evidence for contemporary Jewish miracle workers. The penultimate chapter explores insights from cultural anthropology to round out the picture obtained from the literary evidence, and the study concludes that Jesus is distinctive as a miracle-worker in his Jewish context while nevertheless fitting into it.