What about Miracles?
What About Miracles?
One
more note before we start looking at the New Testament. The NT
documents were obviously written by "biased" authors; that is, authors
who claimed that Jesus was God as well as man, he died, his death was
God's sacrifice (the ultimate Passover Lamb) for our sins, and he rose
again from the dead as proof that the sacrifice was sufficient. The
authors also claimed that Jesus did many miracles: turned water into
wine, healed the lame, the blind, the deaf, fed the 5000, and raised
the dead. What are we to make of these claims?
It's
not fair to admit these claims as true since we are looking at the
evidence in an objective framework without assuming the existence of
God, miracles, or anything else supernatural. On the other hand, I
don't think it's fair to dismiss these claims out of hand either, since
if we do we're answering our question on the resurrection before we
look at the evidence. Also, remember that these authors were
eyewitnesses or directly knew eyewitnesses to Jesus' life and death.
I
propose we put such claims to the side and simply ignore them, at least
for the time being. When we read one, we'll skip over it without
judgment to its truth or falsity. This seems, at least to me, the most
fair way to proceed. Do you agree? |