In the book of Acts, written by Luke and therefore also reflecting a synoptic point of view, this power is directly associated with the Spirit of God: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (1:8). Luke also makes the connection in his Gospel: “Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee” (4:14). Thus, from the standpoint of the Gospels, the mighty deeds of Jesus, exorcisms and healings alike, were the product of the power that flowed through him as a holy man. His powers were charismatic, the result of his having become a channel for the power of the other realm, what Jesus and his contemporaries also called Spirit.
The Miracles as Part of the Story of Jesus
In addition to exorcisms and healings, the synoptic Gospels report a number of other “spectacular” deeds: two resuscitations of apparently dead people (Mark 5:21–24, 35–43; Luke 7:11–17); two sea miracles (stilling a storm, Mark 4:35–41, and walking on the sea, 6:45–52); two feeding miracles (the feeding of the five thousand, Mark 6:30–44, and the feeding of the four thousand, 8:1–10); a “miraculous” catch of fish (Luke 5:1–11); and the “cursing” and “withering” of a fig tree (Mark 11:12–14, 20–25).21 Are these narratives to be taken historically? Did Jesus also do these kinds of things? Two factors make it very difficult to know.
First, we simply do not know if there are limits to the powers of a charismatic mediator. For example, are resuscitations of genuinely dead people possible? Or, alternatively, does levitation really happen, and might walking on water be a special case of levitation? That is, the historical verdict about whether or not such events really happened will depend in part upon whether we think even a charismatic can do things like this.22
Second, symbolic elements abound in these narratives. The points of correspondence between these stories and the literary-religious tradition of the early church are so frequent and pronounced that perhaps the narratives as a whole (and not just details within them) are to be understood primarily or only in terms of how they point beyond themselves rather than historically at all.23 As we have noted, doing so does not require a negative historical judgment; a narrative with symbolic elements can have a historical nucleus. But we will find it most illuminating to consider the stories of these “other powers” as part of the church’s story about Jesus and not primarily as part of the history of Jesus himself.
Classic among these are the feeding stories and the stories of Jesus stilling the storm and walking on the water. In an important sense, neither of the sea stories concerns the public ministry of Jesus; rather, only his inner group of followers is present. In both stories, they are in a boat, at night, distressed and frightened; in both, Jesus comes to them, the winds cease, and the sea is calmed.
Central to these stories is the “sea,” an image that reverberates with rich resonances of meaning in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew word for “sea,” derived from the name of the evil god in the Babylonian creation story, carried connotations of evil and was a mysterious and threatening force opposed to God. Accordingly, when the ancient Hebrews wanted to stress God’s power and authority, they spoke of the divine mastery over the sea. The authors of Psalms exclaimed, “The sea is his, for he made it” (95:5) and “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them” (89:9). According to the book of Job, it was God who “shut in the sea with doors” and said to it, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped” (38:8, 11).
The plight of the disciples and their cry for help echo another passage from Psalms that describes people in a storm at sea:
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their calamity;
they reeled and staggered like drunkards,
and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he brought them out from their distress;
he made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed. (107:25–29)
These connections to language and imagery that were part of the early church’s literary-religious tradition suggest that the story is to be understood within that larger framework.
Putting all of these elements together, the narrative makes several points. The picture of Jesus stilling the storm makes the claim that he shares in the power and authority of God; what was said of God in the Old Testament is now said of Jesus. Moreover, like the Lord of the psalm narrative, he responds to his followers’ cry of distress when the forces of evil and chaos threaten to overwhelm them. Finally, a boat was one of the images for the early church, perhaps by the time Mark’s narrative was written. If Mark was making use of this image, then the narrative portrays Jesus as the Lord of the church who saves his people when they turn to him for help in distress. The cry of the disciples is the church’s cry, “Lord save us! We are perishing!” (Matt. 8:25), and the words of Jesus to the disciples are addressed to the church: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Mark 6:50). In short, the purpose of the narrative may be symbolic rather than historical. Moreover, it is no less true for being symbolic; indeed, its truth is verified in the experience of Christians ever since, quite apart from the historical verdict about whether the story describes an actual incident one night on the Sea of Galilee.
Symbolic elements similarly point to a meaning beyond historical reporting in the other “spectacular” narratives. The most sensational of the resuscitation stories, the raising of Lazarus, in John’s Gospel (11:1–44), is viewed by scholars as not primarily historical in nature.24 Of the two synoptic resuscitations, one seems not to have been an actual one, but a “revival” of a person mistakenly thought to be dead, a mistake relatively common prior to modern methods of diagnosis. To the wailing people gathered around the bed of Jairus’s daughter, Jesus said, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping” (Mark 5:39). Whatever one makes of the historicity behind these stories, the accounts have a symbolic edge; namely, the “raising of the dead” was associated with the coming of the “new age” and the Messiah. Thus the accounts may be expressing symbolically the conviction that the new age and the Messiah had come.
Finally, there is another power, rather strange, which Jesus spoke of, even though no story is told of his actually using this power: immunity to poisonous serpents. “See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you” (Luke 10:19).25
Interestingly, the same power was reported of another Jewish holy man, Hanina ben Dosa. While he was praying, “A poisonous snake bit him, but he did not interrupt his prayer.” Later, the onlookers found the snake dead at the opening of its hole and exclaimed, “Woe to the man bitten by a snake, but woe to the snake which bites Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa.”26 According to the book of Acts, the apostle Paul enjoyed a similar immunity (28:1–6). Clearly, the “power” links Jesus once again to the charismatic stream of Judaism. But are the words about power over snakes to be understood literally or symbolically, perhaps pointing beyond themselves to power over Satan; or, given the story of the tempter in the Garden of Eden taking the form of a serpent, to power over sin?
Thus, about all of these stories of “other powers” a clear historical judgment is impossible. Moreover, one cannot overcome the historical uncertainty through an act of faith. An account cannot be made historically true by believing it to be so. For example, I may choose to believe that George Washington actually threw a silver dollar across the Potomac, but my belief has nothing to do with whether he actually did; he may or may not have.27 The same is true with the historical question about whether Jesus actually did these things. Believing that he did so has nothing to do with whether he actually did. One cannot solve the historical question by faith or belief. In short, the mighty deeds of Jesus other than his ex
orcisms and healings must remain in a “historical suspense account.”28
Though one must be uncertain about these stories as part of the history of Jesus, their meanings as part of the church’s story of Jesus are clear. Using imagery rich with associations in that time, the stories affirm that the living Christ of the early church’s experience was (and for Christians still is) one who, sharing in the power of God, delivered them from peril and evil, nourished them in the wilderness, and brought life out of death.
Conclusion
In their historical context, the miracles of Jesus do not “prove” that he was divine. In the tradition in which he stood, including figures from its ancient past and persons contemporary with him, the healings and exorcisms reported of him were not unique. Yet though the historical study of the miracles results in the loss of their uniqueness, it produces a gain in their credibility. Contrary to the modern notion that such events are impossible, we must grant that the historical evidence that Jesus stood in the stream of Jewish charismatic healers is very strong.
He was, with regard to cultural and historical impact, the most extraordinary figure in that tradition. Not only did he come out of such a stream, but others followed in his wake. According to the Gospels, he commissioned his twelve disciples to be charismatic healers (Mark 6:7–13; Matt. 10:5–8; Luke 10:8–9). His two most important first-century followers, Peter and Paul, were also charismatic holy men. Further removed in time, St. Francis of Assisi (1176–1226), often considered the most “Christlike” of subsequent Christians, was a mystic, visionary, and healer. Though foreign to our experience and way of thinking in the modern world, the world of spirits and God was, for Jesus and his predecessors and followers in the Jewish-Christian tradition, very real—not simply as an element of belief, but of experience.
* * *
Originally published in Jesus: A New Vision (1987).
Chapter 7
Is Jesus God?
A VERY FEW DAYS AGO, I received by e-mail a letter about Jesus from a person who is reading one of my books. His thoughts and questions struck me as being of interest to many people. I quote the letter at length and then share my response.
A Letter About Jesus
Your book has persuaded me that much of the language of the Bible and theology is metaphorical and should not be taken literally. Granted that, at what point do you think one reaches a gray area as to whether Jesus was even divine?
I believe I’m getting a better sense of your views as I read, but please correct me if I’m misinterpreting. You essentially say that many of the Gospel stories should be taken metaphorically. This, you argue, doesn’t imply that they can’t have a rich meaning or even be divinely inspired (?). In fact, we may derive more meaning from them by taking a metaphorical/historical approach.
But it does mean that Jesus didn’t really do x, y, or z. Clearly you must believe Jesus was divine. Otherwise, why would you be a “Christian”? I think you said something along the lines of Jesus being the perfect embodiment of what God is like in human form. That’s different from saying that he was God, or God incarnate.
So, do you believe he was God? And if so, what has convinced you? I mean, if the miracle stories are metaphorical (you say he must have been a great healer, but I think you believe there have been other great healers/mystics), what are we left with as evidence that he was more than a man?
He clearly was a revolutionary and a wisdom teacher, but that doesn’t make him more than a man. You are not convinced that he rose in bodily form, which is fine. But is it not just a small step to go from saying that he was “experienced” in some way after his death to saying he didn’t appear at all?
Are we placing the idea of his divinity solely on these “experiences” of him, if we aren’t taking the miracle stories or the bodily resurrection literally? As a side note, what if it’s possible for other people’s spirits to appear after death—ordinary people who pass on to a spirit world and aren’t divine, but perhaps in very rare occasions can be seen again? Doesn’t it leave open the possibility that Jesus was just one of these and not God incarnate?
What has convinced you that he is worthy of being worshipped? Is it the stories of the unshakable belief and devotion by the apostles after his death? And are many of these even credible? (I haven’t read enough to know.) Sorry for the length of my epistle.
My Response
To say the obvious, the core of your letter concerns the divinity of Jesus. About that there’s more than one thing to say.
Was Jesus God? No. Not even the New Testament says that. It speaks of him as the Word of God, the Son of God, the Messiah, and so forth, but never simply identifies or equates him with God. As John’s Gospel puts it, he is the Word become flesh—that is, he reveals what can be seen of God in a finite human life. To say, “I believe Jesus was God” (as some Christians do, or think they are supposed to) goes beyond what the New Testament affirms and is thus more than biblical. He is the Word incarnate—not the disembodied Word.
Did some of his followers experience Jesus as a divine reality after his death, and have some Christians had such experiences in the centuries since, including into the present? Yes. These experiences led to the conviction that Jesus was “one with God” or “at the right hand of God” and ultimately to the doctrine of the Trinity: that God is one (monotheism) and yet known/experienced in three primary ways (as God, the Son, and the Spirit). This is the context in which it makes sense to praise and pray to Jesus. But this doesn’t mean that Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus during his historical life, was “God.”
Jesus of Nazareth was completely human. He did not have a divine component that made him different in kind from the rest of us. That’s what it means to say he was “true man,” “fully human.” He didn’t have a divine supercharger.
Does that make him ordinary? No. I think he is one of the two most remarkable human beings who ever lived. I don’t really care who the other one was—my point is that what we see in Jesus is a human possibility. That’s what makes him so remarkable. If he was also divine, then he’s not all that remarkable. If he had the knowledge and power of God, he could have done so much more.
Christian language about the exalted status of Jesus—as the Word of God, the Son of God, the Messiah, and so forth—is testimony, witness: this is who Jesus became and who he is in Christian experience, life, and thought. This is who he is for those of us who are Christians.
Further Thoughts on a Letter About Jesus
My previous blog—“A Letter About Jesus”—drew a much larger response than I expected. In this blog, I continue that conversation with a clarification and some additional comments.
Clarification—even as I think this was pretty clear in my previous blog. One of my major claims was that the New Testament does not simply identify and equate Jesus and God. It never says, “Jesus is God” or “God is Jesus.”
Of course, it does affirm, in phrases from John’s Gospel, that Jesus is the “Word of God” and “one with God.” But that does not mean that Jesus was God. Rather, in John’s language, he was the “Word become flesh.” He revealed what can be seen of God in a human life—and that means within the limitations of human life.
To affirm that Jesus is the Word become flesh, the Word incarnate, means what another New Testament verse does: he is “the image (ikon) of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). He shows us what God is like—reveals God’s character and passion.
But none of this means that the New Testament teaches that Jesus was God—as if all of God was in Jesus during his historical life. To use the language of the Trinity, God the Father did not cease to be while Jesus was alive. Jesus was “God’s Son,” not God the Father. Was the Son like the Father? Yes. Was the Son the Father during the life of Jesus? No. Are they in an important and complex sense one? Yes. But to equate God and Jesus during his historical lifetime is bad history and bad theology. It is the product of precritical conventional and uncritical dogmatic Christian thinking. Sounds harsh.
But think about it.
An additional comment. The conflict among Christians about whether or not Jesus was God is grounded in two different understandings of the Gospels—and the New Testament and the Bible as a whole. One view—generally embraced by “conservative” Christians—sees the Bible and the Gospels as “divine information.” That is shorthand for the view that the Bible and the Gospels are the direct revelation of God and thus have a divine guarantee to be true. For them, divine inspiration means divine inerrancy.
A second view sees the Gospels as the product of a historical process, written in a particular time and setting. Time: the earliest was probably written around 70, the last perhaps as late as the early second century. Setting: they are the product of early Christian communities, written from within and to those communities. As such, they combine early Christian memory of Jesus and testimony about Jesus: their memories of what he was like, of what he taught and did, and their testimony to what he had become in their experience and lives, his significance for them.
To illustrate the difference generated by these two ways of seeing the Gospels, reflect upon the series of “I am” statements attributed to Jesus in John (and only John). In them, Jesus refers to himself as “the Light of the World,” “the Bread of Life,” “the Door,” “the Good Shepherd,” “the Resurrection and the Life,” “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and “the Vine.” For the first view, this is “divine information”—the direct revelation of God about who Jesus is. And because John says Jesus said this about himself, that means that he did.
The second way of seeing the Gospels understands this language as early Christian testimony to Jesus and not as memory of what Jesus said about himself. A major reason for this verdict is that the first three Gospels (the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke) do not report that Jesus said anything like this about himself. Within this way of seeing the Gospels, the “I am” statements in John are best understood if we turn them into third-person statements about Jesus: Jesus is “the Light of the World,” “the Bread of Life,” “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and so forth. This is the testimony of the Christian community within which and for which John was written.
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