Dr.

Mark Strauss
Historical Jesus
nt315-02
Rationalists vs. Supernaturalists
Lesson Transcript

Welcome back to our study of the historical Jesus. For the first 1500 years of
church history, the gospels were viewed almost universally as historically
reliable accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. If you wanted to
know who Jesus was, you read the biographies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John.

This perspective, however, changed dramatically in the 18th and 19th

centuries, during the period of European history known as The Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment saw the rise of the scientific method, where truth came to
be viewed as the empirical observation of cause and effect relationships.

The philosophies of naturalism and rationalism dominated the intellectual

scene. Naturalism assumed a non-supernatural worldview. Rationalism
claimed that reason, what can be logically understood by the mind, was the
sole test of truth. Anything that could not be explained in a rational manner,
according to the laws of nature, was rejected.

In this context, The Bible came to be viewed not as the divine revelation from
God, but as fallible human reflections, no different from any other literature in
the world. Supernatural elements in the Bible in particular came to be viewed
with skepticism and disbelief.

The religion of deism was the order of the day. Deists believed in a sovereign
God who was the creator of all things, but God did not intervene in the natural
world or in human affairs. Instead, he allowed the world to operate solely
under the laws of nature.

The prime analogy of deism was a watchmaker. Just as a watchmaker makes

a watch with components that operate independently, then winds it up and lets
it run on its own, so God created this universe with certain unchanging laws of
nature. He now allows it to run according to those laws, never intervening in
supernatural ways.
In this intellectual climate, attempts were made to explain Jesus from a purely
rationalistic perspective. This led to what has been called the 19th century
quest of the historical Jesus. That name came from a book published in 1906
by Albert Schweitzer called The Quest of the Historical Jesus. The title in
German was "Von Reimarus zu Wrede," From Reimarus to Wrede.

That's because Schweitzer identified the beginning of this rationalistic quest

for Jesus with a scholar named Hermann Reimarus, who lived from 1694 to
1768. Reimarus, a professor of oriental languages in Hamburg, Germany,
wrote a series of articles defending a rationalistic approach to the Bible. His
claims though, were so controversial that he didn't publish them. Instead, he
circulated them anonymously to friends.

But after his death, they were obtained by Gotthold Lessing, who published
them with the title, Fragments. In one of these, called On The Intention Of
Jesus And His Disciples, Reimarus challenges the church's traditional
understanding of Jesus and his mission.

He claimed that Jesus's primary message, which was the kingdom of God is
at hand, could have been understood only one way in first century Judaism,
as the claim to be establishing a political kingdom on earth. According to
Reimarus, Jesus had no ambitions or aspirations to establish a new religion.
Rather, he considered himself to be a human messiah who would free his
people from Roman oppression, and establish the kingdom of God in
Jerusalem.

Jesus' hopes were dashed however, when the kingdom failed to materialize.
He was arrested, tried, and crucified. His disciples, however, were intent on
continuing his mission, so they stole Jesus's body and began proclaiming that
he had risen from the dead.

So according to Reimarus, the Christian faith began not through God's

vindication of Jesus at the resurrection, but through the lies and deceit of the
disciples who faked his resurrection.

While Reimarus' claim that Christianity began through a massive act of fraud
has been almost universally rejected by scholars today, his work set off a
flurry of research trying to explain the historical Jesus on purely rationalistic
grounds. The many books written over the next century-and-a-half did not
usually attribute such deceptive motives to the disciples, but many sought to
explain Jesus in a non-supernatural manner.
One of the most famous of these was a book by Heinrich Paulus, who lived
from 1761 to 1851. In 1822, Paulus wrote a book whose title could be
translated as the Life of Jesus as The Basis of a Purely Historical Account of
Early Christianity. By a purely historical account, Paulus meant of course a
rationalistic one.

For example, Paulus attributed Jesus's healings to psychosomatic cures, or to

Jesus's use of secret medicine known only to him. Other miracles could be
explained from unrecognized causes. For example, the feeding of the 5,000
was not the result of the supernatural multiplication of loaves and fishes, it
was rather a miracle of sharing.

When the crowd became hungry, Jesus began to share his provisions and
those of his disciples. The wealthy people who were present saw this example
and began to share the food they had secretly brought.

Other miracles were the result of mistaken observation. Following the feeding
miracle, Jesus only appeared to be walking on the water, when in fact he was
walking near the shore with a mist covering his feet. Even Jesus's raising of
those who were dead could be explained rationally.

The raising of Lazarus, Paulus suggested, was actually Jesus's rescue of his
friend from a premature burial after he had fallen into a comatose state. A
similar theory was proposed for Jesus' own resurrection. Jesus passed out on
the cross from exhaustion and exposure, but only appeared to be dead. After
his body was placed in the tomb, the coolness of the tomb and the aromatic
spices revived him.

Now, few scholars today would propose such outlandish explanations for
Jesus's miracles. Yet rationalism is alive and well in historical Jesus studies,
and many scholars are reluctant to accept any account of the supernatural.
Philosophical naturalism continues to assert that the world is a closed system
of cause and effect without outside intervention.

The problem with this claim is that it assumes its own conclusion, a closed
system in which miracles cannot occur. But this confuses the scientific method
with a naturalistic worldview. As a philosophy or worldview, naturalism or
materialism asserts that all reality can be explained through natural laws. The
scientific method, by contrast, examines specific cause and effects
relationships using experimentation, observation, and repeatability.
While science assumes that the world of matter and energy behaves in a
consistent manner, it does not address the philosophical question of whether
any reality lies outside of this material world, or whether normal patterns of
nature are ever interrupted by an unexplained causal agent like a supernatural
force or being.

While miracles are outside the realm of strict scientific investigation, they're
not outside the realm of historical inquiry. The question of miracles must first
be addressed philosophically, asking the question, are they possible? Then
they must be examined historically asking what is the evidence that a miracle
has actually occurred?

So let's start with the philosophical question. Can miracles occur? One of the
most important advocates of naturalism in Western civilization was the 18th
century enlightenment philosopher, David Hume. Hume's primary argument
for naturalism was that human experience confirms the absolute consistency
of the laws of nature. Since miracles are by definition violations of these laws,
it would take an impossibly high standard of proof to confirm any particular
miracle. Belief in miracles is therefore irrational.

As mentioned before, one serious problem with this argument is that it

assumes its own conclusion, that the laws of nature are absolute and
inviolable. But these so-called laws are really observations and hypotheses,
human perceptions of how energy and matter work. As science has
advanced, many of these hypotheses have had to be modified.

Consider physics, for example. Isaac Newton's laws of physics have had to be
qualified by Einstein's special theory of relativity. Physicists don't view the
universe today the same way they viewed it a hundred years ago. Not only
are Hume's laws of nature not necessarily absolute, but nothing in Hume's
argument rules out the intervention of an outside force to alter the expected
pattern of nature.

Hume, however, gave four additional arguments to support his claim. "First,"
he said, "No miracle has ever been attested by a sufficient number of
educated and rational witnesses to be proven true. Second," he said, "There
is a human tendency to believe the spectacular, things that cause wonder and
surprise. Third, most reports of miracles occur among ignorant and barbarous
people. And fourth, claims of miracles occur in all religious traditions, thus
nullifying one another."
None of these arguments is decisive. It's not just ignorant people who report
miracles. There's a great deal of historical evidence from credible witnesses
attesting to miracles throughout history. Craig Keener has compiled a large
amount of evidence, both ancient and modern, in his two-volume work called
Miracles, The Credibility of The New Testament Accounts, published in 2011.

For example, in First Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul refers to 500 witnesses
who saw Jesus alive after his crucifixion. Certainly not all of these were
irrational or delusional. Nor is it true that in a pre-scientific age, people were
so gullible that they would believe anything. We have many statements from
ancient writers and historians expressing the same kind of skepticism toward
the miraculous that we hear today.

On the other hand, even in the rationalistic Western world, most people still
believe in God and the possibility of the supernatural. While Hume is certainly
right that human beings are attracted by the spectacular, and crave things that
cause wonder and amazement, this says nothing about whether miracles are
possible.

We could present an equally strong counter-argument that people are

generally quite skeptical of supernatural claims. All sides agree that caution
must be exercised when judging a claim of a miracle.

Finally, it is certainly true, as Hume claimed, that miracles occur in various

religious traditions. But again, no one is suggesting that all claims of the
miraculous are true, or that fakes and charlatans do not exist. But the
existence of fakes tells us nothing about whether miracles ever occur.

So if we cannot rule out miracles out of hand, how should we approach

reports of them? The answer is that although the study of miracles is outside
the realm of strict scientific investigation, miracles are not outside the realm of
historical research. Which depends on the critical examination of written and
oral reports, and the study of archeological evidence.

The historian's role is not to assume what could or could not have happened,
but to find out what actually happened. Which is more objective, to assume
miracles cannot occur, or to keep an open but cautious perspective? Based
on our human experience, we might say miracles are unusual, uncommon,
and outside the realm of everyday experience. But we should not rule out in
advance that they are possible.
A miracle should be believed if there is enough historical evidence to accept it,
with a high degree of probability. New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown
writes, "Historicity should be determined not by what we think possible or
likely, but by the antiquity and reliability of the evidence."

So we turn finally to the question, did Jesus perform miracles? You might be
surprised that there is a nearly unanimous agreement today, among both
liberals and conservative scholars alike, that Jesus was viewed by his
contemporaries as a healer and an exorcist.

The gospel tradition is permeated with the miraculous. Rationalistic quest for
the historical Jesus sometimes claim that miracle stories were developed by
the church as they gradually deify Jesus over time.

Yet, peeling away the supernatural to find a non-supernatural core of gospel

tradition is like peeling an onion. When the last peel is removed, nothing is
left. Miracles appear in every strata of the gospel tradition identified by
scholars.

They appear in all four gospels, but also in the sources that have been
proposed to lie behind the gospels. They appear in Mark, widely viewed as
the earliest gospel. They appear in the so-called Q, or the Synoptic Saying
Source, which is the source or sources which Matthew and Luke share in
common.

They appear in the source called M, which is Matthew's unique material. And
in L, Luke's unique material. They also appear in the tradition sometimes
identified behind John's gospel, such as the sign source proposed for the
miracles in John, chapters two through 11.

References to Jesus's miracles also appear in a variety of gospels genres,

including miracle stories themselves. But also pronouncement stories,
controversy stories, sayings, parables, commissioning accounts, the passion
narratives and summaries of Jesus's activities.

Jewish sources outside the New Testament also refer to Jesus's miracles.
The Jewish historian, Josephus, states that Jesus was a "Doer of startling
deeds." A probable reference to his miracles.

The Babylonian Talmud claims Jesus was executed because he practiced

magic and led Israel astray. While this passage in the Talmud is a strong
attack on Jesus and Christianity, the reference to magic confirms that Jesus
was viewed by his contemporaries as a miracle worker.

The early church leader, Origin, similarly quotes his second century pagan
opponent Celsius, as claiming that Jesus worked certain magical powers that
he had learned in Egypt. Again, this is an admission by an enemy that Jesus
was viewed as a miracle worker. While this data does not prove that Jesus
actually performed miracles, it confirms that he was widely acclaimed as a
miracle worker. Even among his opponents.

As we've noted, this cannot be dismissed as merely the ignorant superstition

of antiquity. The people of Jesus' day could be as skeptical as people today.
The Gospels treat Jesus's miracles not as commonplace, or his expected
norm, but as surprising and astonishing to those who witness them. Jesus's
powerful teaching in his miracles produced a profound impact among his
disciples, convincing them that he was indeed the Messiah and the Son of
God.

In conclusion, if we are to enter into dialogue, those who are skeptical of the
supernatural must be willing to set aside their skepticism, and at least
acknowledge the possibility of the miraculous. On the other hand, those who
affirm the miraculous must be willing to examine the evidence carefully and
weigh whether or not any particular miracle has sufficient evidence to confirm
its authenticity.

In many cases, we must be willing to acknowledge that there is simply not

enough evidence to draw a firm conclusion. To judge any particular episode,
we need a set of agreed-upon criteria. In our next session we'll discuss the so-
called criteria of authenticity that historical Jesus scholars have developed to
test the words and actions of Jesus.