The gospels describe numerous occasions on which Jesus of Nazareth healed the sick and a few on which he raised the dead -- not only, but most famously, Lazarus. Conventional historicist theories, assuming the gospels to have had some basis in fact, suppose that even if Jesus performed no actual miracles, he somehow during his lifetime acquired a considerable reputation as a faith healer. Had that been the case, it is not implausible that his followers would have come to believe that he didn't stay dead after his execution, and then gone on to conclude that since he didn't stay dead, he must have been a god or something rather like a god. And human nature being what it is, they would then have commenced trying to convince the rest of the world of these things.
So then why, for at least the first hundred years after his purported lifetime, does no Christian writer except the gospel authors mention all those healings? Granted, they didn't all write about things to which the healings would have been relevant, but some did. Doherty cites the epistle of James in particular. In response, Ted observes:
In fact, the epistle of James is full of teachings we find in the gospels. Doherty claims it is inconceivable that the author wouldn't mention Jesus' own similar acts and teachings with regard to healings. It is inconceivable that the author wouldn't have had Jesus in mind, but is a lack of attribution "inconceivable"? Such a lack is consistent throughout all of James.
OK, his silence is consistent. How is that supposed to explain it? According to Ted, James so often parallels the gospels that either he borrowed from them, or they borrowed from him, or they all borrowed from a common source. Whichever was the case, he says,
If one concludes that James is a Christian document then the relative silence about Jesus (other than 2 explicit mentions of the "Lord Jesus Christ") can only be explained by the idea that author considered his teachings to have already been known as reflecting those of Christ, and therefore saw no need to state the obvious.
This is, once again, the why-tell-them-what-they-already-knew argument. But then, if they already knew that Jesus had said it, why did they have to be reminded of what it was that he had said? Are we to suppose that the early Christians found it easier to forget what Jesus had said than to forget who it was who said it?
If the message was important enough to reinforce by repetition, why was the source of the message not that important? Could the early Christians have thought that Jesus' teachings were more important than Jesus himself? If the man himself made so little impression on his followers, then what ever gave them the idea that he was God's own son? Surely they didn't deify him just because his sermons were so memorable.
Ted then goes on to explain Paul's silence about
the healings, suggesting that they were irrelevant to the contexts in which
he mentions "signs and wonders." Since Doherty does not mention Paul on this
issue, perhaps he agrees with Ted that Paul's failure to mention Jesus' healings
is not so surprising. It does not follow, however, that James's silence can be
similarly dismissed on grounds of irrelevance. I would also note that we should
perhaps be at least a little bit surprised that Paul never tried to create a
context in which to work in some mention of Jesus' healings. The notion that he
never once would have thought them worth at least a passing reference is, while
not inconceivable, not quite obviously true, either.
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This page last updated on June 15, 2015.