An Argument for Miracles

The miracles recorded by the writers of the books of the Bible tend to be a stumbling block for those who might consider Christianity.  It is a common claim that the miraculous events were invented or added later to give credibility to the Christian story. Most objections to miracles come from the philosophy of naturalism. If you have the pre-existing mindset that nature is all there is and nothing supernatural exists, then of course miracles are ruled out before even looking at the evidence. Amazingly, though, the two most important miracles for Christianity can actually be tested and verified through naturalistic methods.  Because of this, and because the miracles in the New Testament are recorded by reliable eye-witnesses, it is reasonable to conclude that the miracles recorded in the Bible actually occurred.

The very first line in the Bible records that all space, matter, time, and energy came into existence out of nothing.  This miracle is crucial to the Christian faith because it is one of the arguments for the existence of God. If God exists and performed the greatest miracle of all by creating the universe out of nothing, then any other miracle that has happened within the universe would be possible and easy for God to do.  The history of science over the last 100 years has basically been the history of confirming that all space, matter, time, and energy came into existence out of nothing. The first miracle, recorded over 2000 years ago in the first line of the book of Genesis, has been confirmed by naturalistic science. The universe was created out of nothing by something that is non-material, non-spatial, and timeless. (If you want to read more about this, go here: http://natureandscripture.blogspot.com/2014/02/big-bang-cosmology-christian-creation.html )

The second miracle crucial to Christianity, the miracle of the resurrection, has been confirmed by naturalistic historical methods, using sources outside the biblical texts.  Almost every ancient historian will agree with five main facts:  Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. The tomb that Jesus was placed in was empty. Followers of Jesus truly believed that Jesus rose bodily from the grave and that they saw him after his death. Paul, a persecutor of Christians, changed dramatically after claiming to have seen the risen Christ. And lastly, the Christian religion exploded out of first century Israel and in a very short time had spread to Europe, Africa, and Asia.[1] History has confirmed the basic facts about the resurrection of Jesus through naturalistic, non-Biblical historical methods.  Even one of the most skeptical historians, Bart Ehrman, confirms that Jesus was buried, that women found the tomb empty three days later[2], and that people claimed to have seen the risen Jesus and believed that Jesus rose from the dead.[3] “Ehrman surmises that had Jesus died and no one believed in his resurrection, no new religion would have emerged following his death.”[4] The evidence for the two most important miracles in the Bible is strong enough to make it reasonable to believe that these miracles actually happened.

While the two miracles crucial to Christianity can be confirmed without using the Bible, there is plenty of evidence to show that the miracles were not added late to the text and that the writers of the biblical texts were reliable eye-witnesses who recorded what they saw without exaggeration.  The book of Acts records and confirms several miracles.  This is important because almost every ancient historian will agree that Acts is accurate when it comes to the specific details of first century society. In fact, Roman historian A.N. Sherwin-White states that to reject the historicity of Acts, even in matters of detail, is absurd. So much so that Roman historians have long taken it for granted.[5] Since Acts is reliable in non-miraculous details, what reason do we have to question the miraculous ones?

In Acts and the other New Testament books, the written accounts of the miraculous are not embellished or written with fanfare; they are recorded as history right along with all the other accounts. The New Testament historical accounts read like eye-witness testimony – including the recordings of the miracles. J. Warner Wallace, in his book Cold Case Christianity explains that eye-witness accounts inevitably differ and inconsistencies are expected from one eye-witness account to the next. It is when witnesses are allowed to compare stories that you then get one harmonized version of what happened.  There would be a problem if the gospel accounts were all identical; it is because the gospel accounts vary that they can be believed.  As a homicide detective for many years, Mr. Wallace makes it clear that the Gospels contain all the important details that are necessary to conclude that they are reliable as eye-witness accounts.[6]

These details also include several undesigned coincidences between New Testament books that can not reasonably be explained if the miracles were invented or even if the miracle accounts were added later to the Bible.  The first example is the first miracle of Jesus; the changing of water into wine, recounted in John 2, verses 6 & 7.  John reports that “there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification” and then makes it clear that they had to be filled with water prior to the miracle.  Why would John mention this and why were the stone jars empty?  The answer is in given in Mark 7, versus 1 through 7.  Mark reports a story about how the Pharisees are upset with the followers of Jesus because they don’t perform the ritual washings before they eat and then goes on to explain when the ritual washings are necessary.  Mark explains why the stone jars are empty – the wedding crowd had washed before they ate. The point here is that even though John is writing about a miracle, he is telling the story as a truthful witness would; not embellishing and not bothering to give unnecessary explanations.[7] If John were inventing this miracle or if it were a late addition, it is unlikely that the fact the stone jars were empty would have been included without explanation or without embellishment.

The “feeding of the 5000” is a miracle recorded in every gospel.  John wrote that Jesus asked Phillip where to go to buy the bread.[8]  This is unusual because Phillip is not one of the most prominent disciples and he comes up on very few occasions; if this miracle were invented, a more important disciple would probably have been chosen to provide the bread.  An unrelated passage in John gives part of the answer as to why it was Phillip who was asked; John reports that Phillip was from Bethsaida.[9]  This still would not explain why Phillip was the one asked until you compare John with Luke’s writings.  Luke records that the feeding of the 5000 occurred near Bethsaida.[10] If John had made up the miracle, then why put in the detail about Phillip that needs one other unrelated passage along with a totally different gospel to make sense? This is one of the many pieces of evidence to support the conclusion that the miracles are not invented or added late.

A third undesigned coincidence that involves a miracle comes from John 18:36 and Luke 22:47-53.  Earlier in John, he has reported that Peter cut the ear off Malchus when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus.  John then retells Pilates questioning of Jesus when Pilate asks if Jesus is the King of the Jews.  Jesus’ answer would not make sense if you only read John’s account.  “My Kingdom is not of this world.  If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.  But my kingdom is not of this world.”  Jesus’ servant did just fight; he drew a sword and cut off someone’s ear!  So why did Pilate buy the answer that required the followers of Jesus to not fight?  Again, John doesn’t report an important detail that would explain why Pilate bought this explanation, but Luke does!  Luke 22 adds the crucial detail that Jesus healed the servant’s ear after it was cut off.  This fact would explain why Pilate believed Jesus.[11]  A miracle reported in Luke was inadvertently confirmed in John!  If the miracles were invented or added later, the writers surely would have explained everything directly; instead the explanation comes just like it would from real witnesses recounting what they remember from their perspective.  The fact that the accounts don’t match exactly and a detail in one account explains a statement in another is evidence that the New Testament writings are actual eye-witness accounts of miracles.

“This is what truth looks like. This is what memoirs from witnesses look like.  This is what it looks like when people who are trying to be truthful and who possess reliable memories of things that really happened have those memories put down in writing.”[12]

The last undesigned coincidence from the Bible that I will address involves the account in John describing the incident on the beach by the Sea of Galilee after the resurrection of Jesus.  John 21:15-17 describes Jesus grilling Peter about if he actually loves him; questioning him in a manner that seems to be mean-spirited.  Why would Jesus pick on Peter?  John doesn’t say why Jesus targeted Peter, but this is explained in Matthew 26 and Mark 14 when Peter boasts that he is better than all the other disciples; saying that he would never forsake Jesus.[13] 

“Suppose that Jesus never rose from the dead and that the story of the breakfast by the Sea of Galilee were invented.  Why, if that were the case, would the Gospel of John contain this bit of conversation that alludes to an earlier event, though John’s Gospel does not include the earlier story? Such an omission serves no literary purpose.  If, on the other hand, the author of John was a disciple and remembered the conversation, his intent in writing was not to produce a literary work or even a connected series of legendary stories.  Rather, as a witness, he put down what was said because that was how he remembered it, casually, without bothering about including everything necessary to explain precisely why Jesus said this or that.”[14]

The miracles recorded in the New Testament read just like eye-witness accounts and are not embellished or added later.  The two most important miracles in the Bible, creation and the resurrection, are both attested to by naturalistic evidence outside the Bible. By looking at the evidence for the miracles recorded in the Bible, it is reasonable to say that miracles actually happened.

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[1] Gary R. Habermas & Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Kregel Publications, 2004

[2] Bart Ehrman, “From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Chrisianity.” Lecture 4: “Oral and Written Traditions about Jesus” (The Teaching Company, 2003)

[3] Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999

[4] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Crossway Books, 2008

[5] Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View, DeWard Publishing, 2017

[6] J. Warner Wallace, Cold Case Christianity, David C. Cook, 2013

[7] Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View, Deward Publishing, 2017

[8] John 6:1-5

[9] John 1: 43-44

[10] Luke 9:10

[11] Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View, Deward Publishing, 2017

[12] ibid, page 129

[13] Matthew 26:31-35, Mark 14:26-30

[14] Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View, Deward Publishing, 2017, pages 59-60