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 Some associate Jesus with divinity because he performed miracles. Many
Unitarian Christians and all Muslims point out that Jesus did indeed perform
miracles, but by the will of God and not through any divine powers of his own.
To repeat the quote of Acts 2:22:
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to
you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through him in your midst,
as you yourselves also know” (italics mine)
In conformity with both the Bible and Holy Quran,
Muslims contend that the miracles of Jesus were performed by the power of God.
As the Holy Quran states,
Then will Allah say: “O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My
favor to you and to your mother. Behold! I strengthened you with the holy
spirit, so that you spoke to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I
taught you the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel. And behold! You made
out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My leave, and you breathed
into it, and it became a bird by My leave, and you healed those born blind, and
the lepers, by My leave. And behold! You brought forth the dead by My leave.
(Quran 5:110)
The Islamic perspective is that miracles can be
God-given signs of prophethood, but don’t imply divinity. Hadith (narrations
of the words, deeds, appearance, and tacit approvals of Muhammad) relate
numerous miracles of Muhammad with greater historical authenticity than found
in biblical manuscripts. While the science of hadith authentication is
regarded as a wonder of historical recordkeeping, the Bible doesn’t satisfy
many of the most basic standards of historical accuracy. For example,
the authors of most of the books of the Bible (gospels included) are unknown,
the time period in which they were written is ill-defined, and the source of
much of the information is ambiguous. These issues will be discussed later at
greater length, but just as a small teaser, let’s examine the story of Judas’
betrayal of Jesus to the chief priests. Who was the author, and why should we
believe him? Was he present at the betrayal? If not, then where did he get
his information? And if so, and he didn’t alert Jesus, then isn’t he a partner
to the crime? And what kind of a gospel author would that be?
Sounds silly? Maybe. But then again, isn’t it sillier
to trust salvation to a compilation of gospels and letters of unknown origin
and authorship?
The Jesus Seminar is perhaps one of the most objective
and sincere attempts of an ecumenical council of Christian scholars to
determine the authenticity of the recorded acts and sayings of Jesus. Yet
their methodology involves casting votes! Two thousand years after the
ministry of Jesus, nearly two hundred scholars are formulating a collective
Christian opinion regarding the reliability of the quotes and historical
reports of Jesus by casting colored beads. For example, as regards the
reported words of Jesus, the definitions of the bead colors are as follows:
Red—Jesus
said it or something very close to it. Pink—Jesus probably said something like
it, although his words have suffered in transmission. Gray—these are not his
words, but the ideas are close to his own. Black—Jesus did not say it; the
words represent the Christian community or a later point of view.
Other Christian committees have attempted to
authenticate Bible texts by similar methodologies. The editors of the United
Bible Societies’ The Greek New Testament: Second Edition are
alphabetically minded:
By means of
the letters A, B, C, and D, enclosed within “braces” {} at the beginning of
each set of textual variants the Committee has sought to indicate the relative
degree of certainty, arrived at the basis of internal considerations as well as
of external evidence, for the reading adopted as the text. The letter A
signifies that the text is virtually certain, while B indicates that there is
some degree of doubt. The letter C means that there is a considerable degree
of doubt whether the text of the apparatus contains the superior reading, while
D shows that there is a very high degree of doubt concerning the reading
selected for the text.
Bruce M. Metzger describes using similar methodology in
his A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. “In fact,” he
writes, “among the {D} decisions sometimes none of the variant readings
commended itself as original, and therefore the only recourse was to print the
least unsatisfactory reading.”
Now doesn’t that give us a warm, secure feeling
in trusting the Bible with the salvation of mankind?
But I digress. The point is that these ranking systems
are probably about the best possible, given the limitations of the biblical
record, but what a sad comment that is! Compared to the exquisitely refined
system of hadith authentication, these colored-bead and A-B-C-D
classification systems are a bit wanting, to say the least.
The historical record keeping is relevant, for when a
person hears a story—even a credible story at that—the first question is
usually “Where did you hear that?” Any reasonable set of historical standards
includes the identification and verification of sources. The Holy Quran and
many hadith traditions satisfy the highest degrees of authentication. But
the majority of Bible verses don’t.
How does this relate to the issue at hand? Simple. The
miracles that occurred through Muhammad are no less numerous or impressive than
those of Jesus, and are witnessed by an unimpeachable historical record that
puts all others of similar time period to shame. So just as the miracles of
Moses, Elisha, and Muhammad don’t imply divinity, neither do those of Jesus.
Let’s look at a few examples:
1. Jesus fed thousands with a few fish and loaves of bread. But
Elisha fed a hundred people with twenty barley loaves and a few ears of corn (2
Kings 4:44); granted a widow such an abundant flow of oil from a jar that she
was able to pay off her debts, save her sons from slavery, and live on the
profits (2 Kings 4:1-7); and gave increase to a handful of flour and spot of
oil such that he, a widow and her son had enough to eat for many days, after
which “The bin of flour was not used up, nor
did the jar of oil run dry …” (1 Kings 17:10-16). So what does that make
Elisha? The historical record of Muhammad feeding the masses with a handful of
dates on one occasion, a pot of milk on another, and enough meat for a small
party on still another are equally miraculous. Likewise are the stories of his
watering the masses (1,500 people on one occasion) from a single bowl of water.
Yet no Muslim claims divinity for Muhammad.
2. Jesus healed the lepers. Likewise, Elisha healed Naaman
(2 Kings 5:7-14). For that matter, the disciples were bidden to such service
in Matthew 10:8. What does that make them?
3. Jesus cured a blind man. Elisha not only struck his enemies
blind, but restored vision to the blind through prayer (2 Kings 6:17-20). Muhammad
reportedly cured blindness through prayer as well.
4. Jesus raised the dead. Once again, Elisha beat him to it,
having raised two children from the dead (1 Kings 17:22 and 2 Kings 4:34). Furthermore,
the disciples were bidden to raise the dead (Matthew 10:8). So once again,
what does that make them?
5. Jesus walked on water. Had he been around in the time of
Moses, he wouldn’t have had to.
6. Jesus cast out devils. So did his disciples (Matthew
10:8). So did the sons of the Pharisees (Matthew 12:27 and Luke 11:19). So, for that matter, do the wayward followers whom Jesus will reportedly disown
(see Matthew 7:22)—a disconcerting thought considering how many priests and
ministers perform such theatrics, even if real.
So if we seek evidence of Jesus being divine, we are
forced to look beyond miracles.
Copyright © 2007
Laurence B. Brown; used by permission.
The above excerpt
is taken from Dr. Brown’s forthcoming book, MisGod’ed, which is expected to be
published along with its sequel, God’ed. Both books can be viewed on Dr.
Brown’s website, www.LevelTruth.com.
Dr. Brown can be contacted at BrownL38@yahoo.com
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