IS LUKE MAKING A CONVINCING CASE FOR JESUS' MIRACLES?
Luke in a sense is the most important gospel for it is the only one that claims homework was done by the author.
It is not true that the Gospel of Luke is the one that
attributes the most miracles to Jesus.
In the following stories from Luke we see no evidence that the author thought
that they were miraculous.
Zechariah may have seen the angel in the Temple with the eyes of his imagination
– a legitimate way to have visions according to St Teresa of Avila. He may have
suspected that his wife was pregnant and so received the news that she would
have a baby from his subconscious mind. His being struck dumb may have been
caused by suggestion or because he would not speak.
It was possible for a woman like Elizabeth who was thought to be too old to have
children and barren to have got pregnant naturally. The unexpected can happen.
When Luke omitted to tell us her age he is not against a natural understanding.
Angel just means messenger so maybe the angel Gabriel who told Mary that God
wanted her to be the mother of his Son was just a man. Luke does not say how
Mary saw the angel so maybe he did not know. Could it have been a dream? The
principle of taking the simplest interpretation says yes if Gabriel was a
non-human entity. There is no evidence in the Bible that angels are not just
human beings who receive orders from God. The Epistle of Jude gives us evidence
that they are. The Old Testament says that Jacob fought with an angel all night.
Luke does not say that there was anything obviously miraculous in what Anna and
Simeon knew about he baby Jesus (2).
At Jesus’ baptism, the spirit came down upon him in visible form, in the shape
of a dove (3). The dove may have been a real dove which Luke thought was
possessed by the Holy Spirit. He says a voice from Heaven was heard but he does
not say if he has an audible voice in mind.
The Devil in Luke could just have been a bad man who seemed to Jesus to have had
the power to give Jesus a host of kingdoms. No need for a supernatural Devil in
this story.
At Nazareth, Jesus walked away through the crowd who were bent on killing him by
throwing him over a cliff (4). But Luke does not say why he got away so there is
no need to imagine that Jesus froze the crowd in time like magic and departed.
Luke says that healings happened in Jesus’ presence but does not ask us to
believe that miraculous power was responsible. He does not say that the unclean
spirits Jesus cast out of the allegedly possessed were real personal beings.
They may be artificial personalities. Then how did the “spirits” know he was the
Messiah? The people were desperate for a Messiah so insane people might have
been impressed by Jesus so that they told him he was the Messiah. Jesus mean a
lot of insane and gullible and silly people so he had to have been the subject
of the rumour that he was the Messiah.
Did Jesus make the leprosy leave the man in Luke 5:12-16? Luke says he did but
not that it was a miracle. The leprosy could have left leaving the symptoms to
clear up. Perhaps the man got no worse and that was taken to mean it was gone.
Luke does not say that the paralytic walking again was a miracle (5) or that the
healing of the Centurion’s servant was one (7).
The catch of fish in Luke 5 need not have been supernatural for we are told that
they had stopped working but not for how long until Jesus told them to try
again. Jesus could have noticed fish in the water for he was sitting in the boat
preaching.
Does Luke say that Jesus put demons out of a man into swine which then drowned
themselves? The demons may be psychological forces. Jesus put the anger that
made the man insane perhaps into the swine. He did this by enraging the swine
which then charged into the lake. Luke does not say that their over-reaction was
all Jesus’ fault. If somebody felt possessed by a spirit that was making them
very angry all the time, magicians and exorcists made animals angry which they
thought meant that they were putting the person’s anger into the animals and
then they killed the animals to kill the anger. They thought they were putting
the evil spirit into the animal.
Luke says that the breath of life went back into Jairus’s daughter in Jesus’
presence. It could go back into her if she were not really dead but on the edge
of it. She started breathing properly again but Luke does not say she was
properly dead and then resurrected. Jesus was sure she was not dead right when
he said that she was only asleep and not dead.
Luke says that the apostles were half-asleep when they saw the vision of Jesus
and the two prophets on the Mountain of the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36). Luke
does not say that if this was a real vision or an allegedly divinely inspired
half-dream that we all fall into when half-asleep.
Luke attributes the cure of the epileptic boy to God but that is not the same as
saying that it is a miracle (9).
In 11, Jesus casts out a Devil that made a man dumb (11). Perhaps the man
wouldn’t speak to anybody due to the purely mental influence of a demon. The
Jews argue that the Devil is helping Jesus which he says is ridiculous. This
does not prove that Jesus considered the unclean spirits he put out of people
that behaved like lunatics to be real evil persons for he may not have this type
of problem in mind. He may be thinking of demons that simply make bad
suggestions to you.
There is no evidence that Luke considered the straightening of the cured woman
in 13 to have been a miracle for she might have only imagined that she had to go
about stooped. He says it was a marvel and so it was, whatever caused it.
Curing the disease is not curing the symptoms. Luke (10) says ten lepers were
cured while they made their way to the priests. The one who came back must have
been relieved of the symptoms but notice that Luke does not say when he came
back. Luke implies that it was a while for his Jesus was a very busy man and
would have been hard to see. Perhaps nature did the whole thing? Leprosy in
those days meant almost any contagious skin ailment.
In Luke 16, Luke and his Jesus let it slip that miracles and resurrections of
people from the dead to tell us about the dangers of dying in sin are not needed
because the law and the prophets are enough. Anybody who won’t believe in the
law and the prophets, according to him, will only sin more if they see miracles
for they will still not believe and their stubbornness will be increased. This
is a hint that the Devil will inspire any miracle tales attributed to Jesus. He
will manipulate lives and memories with his superior knowledge to get the lies
believed.
Jesus told the blind man of Jericho, that his faith restored his sight (18).
Jesus may have suspected that the blindness was caused by the man’s disordered
mind. No need for a miracle interpretation here.
There is no evidence that Luke viewed the two men who were loitering about
Jesus’ empty tomb as angels or stated that the risen Jesus was able to go from
one place to another without traversing the space in between.
The ambiguous “he was taken up to Heaven” at the end of Luke is no indication
that Luke thought that Jesus literally rose up to Heaven like a hot-air balloon.
Mystical traditions in Judaism believed that a person who experienced Heaven had
ascended to it bodily even though the body never rose off the ground.
The miracles mentioned in Luke are, the vision of angels that the shepherds saw
for it told them something they could not have otherwise known, the raising of
the widow’s son from the dead for Luke says he was dead long enough to be really
dead and says he was dead (7), and the resurrection. But these are only his
interpretation.
NON-MIRACLE ACTS
Now to Acts, Luke’s sequel to the gospel. We want to check if it really is as
full of accounts of magical happenings as is popularly assumed.
Acts does not say that Jesus floated away about the clouds but that he went up
to Heaven in a cloud. He might have walked into a mountain mist and disappeared.
The men who accosted the disciples when Jesus had gone are not said to have been
supernatural angels. Many manuscripts have “he parted from them” rather than he
ascended into Heaven (Earliest Christianity, G.A.Wells, Internet Infidels)..
Were the tongues of fire that appeared over the heads of the infant Church at
Pentecost really supernatural? Luke does not say that they all saw them or
indeed that anybody saw them. Because Jesus said that people would be baptised
by the Holy Spirit and with fire then the fire of grace was burning in those
people so believers did not need to see tongues of fire to believe they were
there. Perhaps Luke felt that he had a revelation saying that God saw the
tongues of fire. Perhaps somebody present had a hallucination. Luke would have
regarded this hallucination as a work of God though not a miracle.
Luke never said a miracle was involved when the apostles spoke in many languages
on Pentecost as a result of the Holy Spirit coming on them like tongues of fire.
They had been told by Jesus to preach the gospel with great urgency to all so
they would have done some study in language. They didn’t have a lot to say
anyway.
The day the Holy Spirit came on them is said to have been the day the Church was
founded and when the effects of the salvific death of Christ and the
resurrection were administered. From then on the Church had the Holy Spirit. So
here we have and event even more important than the death and resurrection of
Jesus for they have no importance without effects. The Bible itself says that
the natural man cannot take in the things of God and only redeemed people can be
reliable in relation to finding out the wisdom of God. So it was because of the
visit of the Spirit that we can believe in the apostles writing about Christ. So
if Pentecost didn’t happen then nobody can oblige us to believe in Christianity.
Neither did Luke contend that the cripple by the Beautiful Gate was healed by
divine power as in miracle (3). He simply records that Ananias and Sapphira
dropped dead in front of Peter but he doesn’t say if God’s defiance of nature
struck them dead. When Peter was allowed to use God’s power to kill them why
wouldn’t he be allowed to kill them by more mundane methods – like poisoning?
Sapphira came in three hours after Ananias and when Peter told her what happened
Ananias she died too. Of shock perhaps?
In Acts 5 we read that all the sick who were brought to the apostles were cured.
They probably just dealt with those who were going to get better anyway.
Luke says that Stephen saw Jesus in the clouds (7). Stephen was in a highly
emotional state for his cruel death was imminent and may have seen Jesus in his
imagination. All Christians agree that we can have inspired visions in our
imagination. It if it a present from God then every thought of God or Jesus may
be regarded as a gift.
The story about Simon Magus and the charisms does not say that there could be no
natural explanation for them (8). Food is a natural thing but yet Christians are
able to say it is a gift of God.
Acts 8 does not say that Philip literally heard the Holy Spirit talking to him.
Christians tell us to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts which
does not mean that we really hear a voice. Nor does it mean that Philip just
vanished from the desert route to instantly appear at Azotus. The Spirit
snatched Philip which may mean that he took over him and he didn’t know what he
was doing until he found himself at Azotus or maybe all it is saying is that he
was urged by the Spirit so the Spirit was the reason not Philip that Philip went
to that place..
Paul’s vision may have been caused by overexposure to the sun (9) and his
blindness could have been due to the fall from the horse. It is not said that
Ananias immediately restored his sight but that “something like scales fell off
his eyes and he got his sight”. We are only told that the sight came back later
not if it came back quickly or slowly later.
Luke omits to tell us if the vision of Cornelius and Peter’s vision of the
animals was or wasn’t a dream (Acts 10). The information gained could have been
stored in the subconscious mind and then replayed.
We are not told how Peter’s chains came to be unlocked (12) or that the angel
was not a mere human being carrying a light. Mary thought that Peter was the
angel though she knew it was just a man which is evidence that an angel means a
human person acting for God as well as a spirit that works for God.
Herod may have collapsed while he was worshipped and the death by being eaten by
worms may have come later (12). Some imagine that this story tells us that worms
broke out of him all at once – miraculously. Wrong! Perhaps he was already sick!
Luke does not say how Paul struck Bar Jesus blind (13) so don’t read a miracle
into this.
In 14, it seems that the crippled man who was cured was said to have been cured
by faith. That is naturally possible.
In 16, we read that a fortune-teller ran after Paul and his friends for days
while her “spirit” told everybody to listen to them for they had the true
gospel. Paul got fed up and cast the spirit out. Luke did not believe that this
evil spirit was a demon but a creation of the mind for a demon would not bear
witness to God.
Eutychus, who had a fatal fall, had died but Paul brought him around (20). No
need for a miraculous explanation here. Dead does not always mean dead for good.
In Acts 22, Paul says that his sight was instantly restored when Ananias laid
his hands on him. This does not prove a miracle happened nor does Luke say Paul
was certainly not mistaken.
Nowhere in Acts 28 do we read that Paul did not suffer from the deadly snakebite
because of divine magic. The snake may have just been hanging on to his skin and
it may have been dark which made it look worse than it was. All who were there
misjudged the seriousness of the wound when they were so baffled. They probably
didn’t ask. Luke does not say a miracle happened.
The only miracle in Acts is, Peter raising Dorcas from the dead (9) for he makes
it clear that she was dead in the straightforward sense of the word. That is all
that Luke undeniably asks us to believe to be a miracle.
CONCLUSION
Christianity has not changed since it started. Even now with the gospels written
it is still telling lies about Jesus and his powers and even using them to do it
when the truth is that very few miracles are attributed to Jesus in the Bible.
When he did so few when he was alive why has he done so many since? Suspicious!
Suspicious!
BOOKS CONSULTED
On Being a Christian, Hans Kung, Collins/Fount Paperbacks, Glasgow, 1978
Miracles or Magic? Andre Kole and Al Janssen, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene,
Oregon, 1987
BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible
