Slides: Credibility of Miracles
Slide 1
Two volume work
Genre
Parallel Works
- Plutarch
- 1 K 17-2 K 13
Slide 2
Genre
Parallel works
- Plutarch
- 1 K 17-2 K 13
Reading Luke- Acts together; authorship
Slide 3
Parallel Lives; Luke- Acts
Jesus anointed (Is 61, Lk 4) Church anointed (Joel 2; Acts 2)
Jesus signs Peter’s, Paul’s signs
3 trials of Jesus, 2 before 3 trials of Paul, 2 before governors,
governor, 1 before a Herod 1 before a Herod
“Father, forgive…” “Lord, forgive…”
“Into Your hands I commit “Lord, receive my spirit.”
My spirit”
Slide 4
Length
Often writers created symmetry: books of roughly equal length
Lk and Acts each roughly same length as Matt; Mark 1 and 2; Jn 2, 3
Scrolls of standardized length
- sometimes ran out of space suddenly at end of scroll (Jos.- oops)
- Matt., Lk, and Acts were each close to the maximum length for scrolls, between 32 and 35 feet
- Acts about 32 feet
Slide 5
Publication
Public readings at dinner parties
Often revised, released in various editions
Slide 6
Purposes: legal
Slide 7
Purposes: legal
- To record consistent legal precedents in favor of the early Christians
Slide 8
Purposes: legal
- Every Roman court declares them not guilty
Slide 9
Purposes: legal
- Prob. same reason as Josephus’s precedents for Judaism: to argue that Christianity should be legal
Slide 9
Purposes: legal
- Legal ammunition (Lk 21)
Slide 10
Purposes: legal
- Paves way for later Christian lawyers and philosophers like Tertullian and Justin
Slide 11
Purposes: apologetic
Fronts: Roman law courts; Greek philosophers; rural Asian farmers; Jewish objections
Nothing can stop it (“hinder”)
Relationship to Judaism:
- Ancient religions respected for age
- OT their book and they were authentic voice of Judaism
- Thus fulfillment of OT motifs
History
Slide 12
Message
Prayer
Slide 13
Signs and Wonders
Slide 14
The Spirit (0ver 70x)
Slide 15
Evangelism (“witness” nearly 30x)
Slide 16
The marginalized
Slide 17
Cross cultural communication
Slide 18
E.g., PRAYER
Lk 1:10 Acts 1:14
Lk 3:21 Acts 2:42
Lk 5:16 Acts 3:1
Lk 6:12, 28 Acts 6:4, 6
Lk 9:18, 28-29 Acts 8:22, 24
Lk 11:1-2 Acts 9:11
Lk 18:1, 10-11 Acts 10:9, 30-31
Lk 19:46 Acts 11:5
Lk 21:36 Acts 12:5, 12
Lk 22:40-46 Acts 16:13, 16, 25
Acts 21:5; 22:17
Slide 19
Focus of Acts: world evangelization
Spirit-empowered evangelism across cultural boundaries (Acts ? :8)
Slide 20
Miracle Reports by Craig Keener
Their Plausibility in the Gospels and Acts
My scholarly work mainly writing commentaries, but in that work the question of reliability
requires one to do some research on miracles
Slide 21
Jesus’ Miracles
How reliable are the sources?
- Ancient biographies
- Careful with sources
Slide 22
Considering Jesus’ miracles
Miracle stories constitute about 1/3 of Mark’s Gospel, about 20% of Acts
Slide 23
A circular problem
- One reason that Western scholars questioned the Gospels was that they include miracle reports
- What’s wrong with miracle reports?
- Earlier Western scholars said that eyewitnesses never claim dramatic miracles such as those in the Gospels
- Were they correct?
Slide 24
Picture of David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874)
Slide 25
But Strauss’ friend cured!
Picture of German Lutheran pastor Johann Christoph Blumhardt
Slide 26
Dr. Rex Gardner, Healing Miracles
E.g., Dr. Rex Gardner;
- 9- year- old girl, deaf without her hearing aid but praying for healing
- instantly healed
- audiologist initially denied the possibility
- but the next day, the tests proved that her hearing was normal
Slide 27
Eyewitnesses (some whom I know);
Healings of deaf non-Christians in Jesus’ name in Mozambique leading to massive church growth. Heidi, Rolland Baker
Now documented with medical tests
Slide 28
South Medical Journal, Sept 2010
Read it on your own. @ 24:52 on the video
Slide 29
Lisa Larios- even her bones healed! (from Richard Casdorph, M.D., PhD, The Miracles)
Slide 30
Bruce Van Natta
Crushed beneath semi-truck
Most of small intestine destroyed
After several surgeries, 116 cm left of small intestine (just 25 cm of ileum, normally 350 cm)
Slide 31
Dropped 180 pounds to 125- starving
Someone led to fly from NY to WI and pray for Bruce
Commanded small intestine to grow, in Jesus’ name
Like electric jolt
Slide 32
Radiologist: small intestine now about half normal length, but functional
c. 274-300 cm (from 116- more than doubled)
Small intestine can widen but cannot naturally grow longer
Equivalent to amputated appendage growing
Slide 33
Healing of deep gash wounds
Dr. Chauncey Crandall (over a few days)
Dr. Tonye Briggs (overnight)
Slide 34
Carl Cocherell, broken ankle, March 7, 2006
Read the medical report @ 29:18 on the video
Slide 35
Joy Wahnefried, classic case of vertical heterophoria
Read pamphlet @ 30:23 on the video
Slide 36
In Cuba: Mirtha Venero Boza, M.D. and Baptist evangelist: knows burns
Hand of baby severely burned by hot iron
Swollen and skin peeling off
Less than ½ hour of prayer
No medical intervention
Restored completely, as if it had never been burned
Slide 37
Medical Miracles
The history of Catholic medical documentation
Slide 38
Eyewitness testimony
A form of evidence in sociology, anthropology, journalism, and of course historiography
Slide 39
Examples
From my interviews or published sources I believe reliable
Slide 40
Not claiming that everyone prayed for gets healed
Slide 41
Wonsuk and Jule Ma (OCMS): large goiter instantly gone
Slide 42
Danny McCain witnessed baby brother’s skin healed instantly
Slide 43
My brother in Christ (later PhD in physics) and I witnessed
c. 1983, a Fuller seminarian lifted a disabled woman I knew from her wheelchair with a command of faith
I was horrified
But from then on she walked
Slide 44
Found c. 350 reports of healed blindness
E.g., Rex Gardner, Healing Miracles
Medical trainee in North Wales; eye scarring
Schoolteacher, blind after accident; after healing, did not even need glasses
Slide 45
Healing blindness
Oct.30, 2004: Flint McGlaughlin
Director of Cambridge Business Institute
2004 prayed for blind man in northern India
Slide 46
This is where he told his story. He began to weep and I asked why? He said, “I have always heard the Children, but I have never seen their faces.”
Slide 47
Dr. Katho, from Bunia, Congo
Evangelical Brethen, president of Shalom University in Bunia
When doing evangelism
People brought them a blind elderly woman, not helped by doctors or shamans
They prayed two minutes
She shouted, “I can see!”
Remained sighted for the remainder of her life.
Slide 48
Cameroonian Baptist Paul Mokake, one of my students
My student Yolanda McCain witnessed blind eyes opened when Paul prayed
Slide 49
Raisings from the dead
Helpful because
Usually people are not considered merely psychosomatically dead
Slide 50
Historically
E.g., one experience so interpreted by Wesley in his journal (Dec. 25, 1742)
Slide 51
Prayed for a Mr. Meynick
Who appeared dead
Slide 52
Dr. Chauncey Crandell, cardiologist
Jeff Markin, West Palm Beach, Oct. 20, 2006
Dead 40 minutes, pronounced dead
Crandell led to pray, use paddle
Markin restored and no brain damage!
Slide 53
Dr. Sean George (Australia)
55 minutes trying to revive him
Acute kidney failure, etc
No brain damage
(though 3 months before he returned to work)
Slide 54
Many claims from India, e.g.
Government official’s son died. Prayed to “Jesus, the Christian God”
Raised
Resultant growth among Nishi tribal people
Slide 55
Global Pentecostalism
Two Western sociologists
Interviewed locals (including Hindu village elder)
A woman returned to life after being pronounced dead (no breathing or pulse)
An Indian pastor prayed for a girl dead with “worms coming out of her nose”
Returned to consciousness, shared her postmortem experience
Local newspapers covered story
Slide 56
Pastor in Mumbai shared with me
Believers found a Hindu boy, Vikram, lying at the bottom of a pool
Jaya, a nurse, and Suneeta, an intercessor, took him to doctors, who pronounced him dead
Slide 57
(photo: Vikram feeling better after raising)
As they were returning 1 ½ hours later he revived
He said he heard the name “Jesus” and then was rescued
His Hindu parents noted that he had never heard this name before
Slide 58
Photo: Vikram and his family joined the Christians in their worship service
Slide 59
Sister whom I interviewed in Philippines
Diagnosed with liver cancer in 1983, but unable to afford treatment
In 1984 died in hospital
Dead for 1 hour, 45 minutes
Minister prayed, but the woman was already under sheet
Came to life; thought she had just been asleep
Cancer completely gone
Doctor and doctor’s husband converted, became missionaries
Slide 60
Professor J. Ayodeji Adewuya
At scholars meeting in U.S., 2009, publicly noted
Newborn son was pronounced dead at birth on January 1, 1981
Slide 61
Raised after 30 minutes of prayer
Son has now finished master of science degree at the University of London
Slide 62
My friend Leo Bawa
One evening in Mayo in northern Nigeria, his host’s neighbor handed him their dead child
Prayed for a few hours
The boy was “fully restored”
“I came out of the room and handed over the boy to his parents alive!”
Slide 63
Others in Capro informed me: c. 5 pm, Dec. 1985: Timothy Olonade from Kano toward Kaduna
Slide 64
2 people killed in accident
Police found no pulse, heartbeat
The blood was baked on him
C. 3 am. Found moving in mortuary
Slide 65
Doctors assumed severe brain damage
After 3 weeks released from hospital, though treated at home
Maxillofacial surgeon/professor return to life, rapid recovery beyond medical explanation
Slide 66
I taught for Capro three summers in Nigeria and know Timothy well
Now a leader in Nigerian missions movement.