The Fallible Gospels, Part 85: The Central Core of Types of Miracle
By: Graham Lawrence
Tags: Christianity, Bible, Atheism, Culture, History

A process to be aware of is the interaction between parable and miracle. Something that was originally just told as a story intended to illustrate a meaning could later be dramatized, converted into a miraculous event to make its point more powerfully. I imagine this is what happened with the barren fig tree, which Luke gives us only as a parable (13.6–9). Matthew and Mark give this as an event instead. They have a bad-tempered Jesus cursing a fig tree for bearing no fruit when he was hungry. This would have been most unreasonable. Jesus was a native of Palestine and perfectly aware that figs are never ripe before Passover (as Mark admits, at 11.13).

Matthew has not quite appreciated what Mark was doing, as Matthew has the fig tree withering immediately (21.18–21). Mark had put the Cleansing of the Temple in between the cursing (11.14) and withering (11.20) of the tree. Not only was the Temple now useless, as the tree was useless: the whole interconnected scene was related to the fate of Jerusalem and again influenced by Old Testament scriptures:

“They will be brought down when they are punished, says the Lord… There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither.” (Jeremiah 8.12–13)

“Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious… their root is withered, they yield no fruit.” (Hosea 9.15–16)

The fate of the tree symbolizes the divine judgment on the old Israel, and foreshadows the end of the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem. For rejecting Jesus, Mark’s Christianity was saying, Judaism would wither away.

Another example of this relationship between story and miracle is probably given to us by the name Lazarus, who is raised from the dead in John’s Gospel. In Luke, Lazarus is just a character in a parable. It is suggested that he could be sent back to earth, raised from the dead, to encourage repentance before it is too late; but this is turned down. “If they will not listen either to Moses or to the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16.31). So perhaps someone in the early Church — or John himself — thought that more people would in fact be convinced by turning this into a story of a Lazarus who really did rise from the dead.

There would have been those in the early Church who preferred miracle stories over other methods of expressing the significance of Jesus. Trying to extract from our existing documents some earlier collection of deliberately arranged, symbolically important miracles is rather difficult. There are nearly three dozen miracles attributed to Jesus altogether, and we have to remember the differences in style and motivation of the evangelists. John hardly wanted to say anything unless he could make a theological point with it; Mark liked to double up, whether on words or phrases or events, perhaps as a method of emphasis.

However, there does appear to be a consciously arranged core of five types of miracles. These could have been collected together at an early stage and use independently by both Mark and John as a source. Despite the great differences between their Gospels, Mark and John used these miracles in the same order. This list relies upon the fact that we have “lost” the raising of Lazarus from the New Testament Mark, but rediscovered it in the Secret Gospel of Mark [see previous instalments]:

1. Jesus takes away both sickness and sin: “Pick up your mat and walk.” Mark 2.1–12 and John 5.1–15.

2. Jesus feeds five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Mark 6.33–44 and John 6.1–15. Followed immediately in both Gospels by:

3. Jesus walks on the water. Mark 6.45–52 and John 6.16–21.

4. Jesus gives sight to the blind. Mark 8.22–26 and John 9.1–11.

5. Jesus raises a man from the dead. Secret Mark, between Mark 10.34 and 10.35; and John 11.1–44.

For the purposes of theology and preaching, such a collection was ideal. Jesus is firstly a healer, removing illness and overcoming the forces of evil responsible for it. Then parallels are drawn with the Exodus story. Like Moses, Jesus initiates a miraculous feeding of the multitudes out in the wilderness, and there is a miraculous crossing of water. Also, the spiritual “food” of Jesus, the wisdom of his teachings, is more than enough for everybody. Jesus has taken away hunger, and Jesus takes away blindness; he brings enlightenment, opening the eyes of those who could not previously “see” (understood centuries later in the words of “Amazing Grace”). Finally, in the ultimate symbolic act, foreshadowing his own resurrection to come as well as revealing the “life” Jesus brings, he overcomes death itself.

Little did the original collector realize that what was really being started by the Jesus movement would indeed become an Exodus, from Judaism itself.

There are only seven miracles altogether in John’s Gospel. Before the above five John gives us the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Cana (2.1–11), and the curing at a distance of the son of a court official (4.46–54). I wonder whether that latter story was originally the story we have in Q, of the healing of a Roman centurion’s servant: the official in John is probably meant to be understood to be a Gentile too, and remember the word for “son” and the word for “servant” is the same Greek word (pais).

John avoids exorcism stories altogether. He is more conscious than the Synoptic writers of miracles as symbols of meaning rather than reports of history. He uses them very deliberately in this way, calling them “signs”, and it affects his creation of new material as well as his organizing of inherited traditions. The turning of water into wine is only found in John. It is pure allegory.

The wine at the wedding runs out. The water is standing in stone jars for Jewish purification rites, representing the Law of Moses. It is replaced by the miraculous wine of Jesus: just as the Jewish Law has outlived its usefulness and has been replaced by the salvation brought by Jesus. This is not “forcing” interpretations on to the story: Jewish literature regularly used wine as a symbol for the Law, and marriage is a common metaphor in the Old Testament symbolizing God’s relationship to Israel.

Perhaps this miracle also started as a story, or just grew out of the authentic sayings of Jesus about nobody putting new wine into old wineskins (Mark 2.22, Matthew 9.17, Luke 5.37, Thomas 47).

Another miracle story which is not just the report of an event but layered with meaning is the Calming of the Storm (Mark 4.35–41, Matthew 8.18–27, Luke 8.22–25). The disciples accompany Jesus on a boat across the Sea of Galilee. Jesus sleeps, but there is a fierce storm which frightens the disciples. They wake Jesus, who rebukes the wind and the sea, and all becomes calm.

This is not a story about “control” over impersonal meteorological processes. The words Jesus uses to rebuke the elements are the same as the words he uses to silence a demon at Mark 1.25; this is a story about power over demonic forces, believed to dwell in the sea. Ancient peoples always saw the forces of nature as expressions of the power of the gods. The Jews believed divine power had parted the Red Sea for Moses. There are references throughout the Psalms and elsewhere in the Old Testament to the power of storm and sea (e.g. Psalm 69); to asking God, when they felt neglected, to awake and provide assistance (Psalms 35 and 44); and to the ability to sleep in untroubled peace as a sign of complete trust in the protection of God (Psalm 4, Proverbs 3).

The early Church loved that story. It provided “evidence” of the power of Jesus, and a comforting reminder that although sometimes he might seem to be sleeping, he was not indifferent to their troubles.

Perhaps the report of Jesus walking on water (Mark 6.47–50) was just another illustration of this divine power over the hostile forces of the sea. Perhaps he was in the shallows and it was an error of perception. Perhaps it even grew out of misunderstanding a translation: the same Greek preposition epi is translated “by” the sea at John 21.1, but “on” the sea at John 6.19.

Next, in Part 86: The real meaning of the Feeding of Thousands with Loaves and Fishes