Modern Scholarship and the 'Nature' Miracles: A Defence of Their Historicity and Appreciation of Jesus' Divinity

Abstract

The article explores recent scholarly dismissals of Jeus' 'nature' miracles in the gospels as unhistorical, concentrating on the historical, literary and theological reasons posited for such a position. The article tests this hypothesis against the Jewish and Graeco-Roman background of three of the least historically verifiable nature miracles. It suggests that the arguments for the 'inauthenticity' of this unique of strand of miracle tradition in the gospels - differentiated from the more commonly accepted portrait of Jesus as a 'healer' and 'exorcist' by virtue of the nature miracles' anomaly with our virtually uniform experience of the world - are weaker than expected. The article demonstrates this by using the tools of historical criticism in examining the ancient literature and the methodologies of modern Jesus gospel criticism. The article concludes by examining what theological conclusions flow from an acceptance of the historicity of the nature miracles in regards to the identity of the historical Jesus.