Good question--did the NT author's invent the miracle stories in the gospels?

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Initial Date: October 2, 2001 | Last Addition: Dec 5, 2002

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This is one of the many versions of the question about the possible fabrication of the NT miracles stories...

I'm an Agnostic, but I'm not sure how long I'm going to be one due to the accounts of Jesus' miracles in the NT, the resurrection, and the other supernatural phenomena that occurred on his behalf.

I'm not becoming more skeptical about these things, on the contrary, these accounts seem like very honest ones. From my knowledge of the early church, I honestly don't think they could've, or would've, inserted such supernatural phenomena in the gospels and actually gotten away with it. Besides, it's to my understanding that the early church(the churches and church fathers that had the gospels and the other NT documents first) was a very honest one- so it just seems improbable that they would've actually fabricated Jesus' miracles, resurrection, etc. It seems as though if any 'fabrications' were done, it would've been done before the early church had a hold of the gospels...

So my question is, *is there any possibility that the Apostles could've conjured up these miracle stories?* If there isn't, then, after 10 months of being an Agnostic and struggling with my own humanity, I can do nothing but pronounce myself a Christian...

Any insight you could give me would be greatly appreciated. And nice site by the way.... it's very informative!

Before we jump into analyzing this question, let's take a quick look at the 36 recorded miracles ascribed to Jesus in the gospels:

Miracle	Type	Mark	Matt	Luke	John
In all four gospels
1. Feeding of 5,000	nature	6.35f	14.15f	9.12f	6.5f
In three gospels
2. Walking on water	nature	6.48f	14.25f		6.19f
3. Peter's mother-in-law	healing	1.30f	8.14f	4.38f
4. Man with leprosy	healing	1.40f	8.24f	5.12f
5. Paralyzed man	healing	2.3f	9.2f	5.18f
6. Man with shriveled hand	healing	3.1f	12.10f	6.6f
7. Calming the storm	nature	4.37f	8.23f	8.22f
8. Gadarene Demoniac(s)	exorcism	5.1f	8.28f	8.27f
9. Raising Jairus' daughter	revivification	5.22f	9.18f	8.41f
10. Hemorrhaging woman	healing	5.25f	9.20f	8.43f
11. Demon-possessed boy	exorcism	9.17f	17.14f	9.38f
12. Two blind men	healing	10.46f	20.29f	18.35f
In two gospels (Mark, Matt)
13. Canaanite woman's daughter	exorcism@distance	7.24f	15.21f
14. Feeding of 4,000	nature	8.1f	15.32f
15. Fig tree withered	nature	11.12f	21.18f
In two gospels (Mark, Luke)
16. Possessed man in synagogue	exorcism	1.23f		4.33f
In two gospels (Matt, Luke=Q?)
17. Roman Centurion's servant	healing@distance		8.5f	7.1f
18. Blind, Mute, and Possessed man	exorcism		12.22	11.14
Only in one gospel (Mark)
19. Deaf mute	healing	7.31f
20. Blind man at Bethsaida	healing	8.22f
Only in one gospel (Matt)
21. Two blind men	healing		9.27f
22. Mute and possessed man	exorcism		9.32f
23. Coin in fish's mouth	precognition/nature?		17.24f
Only in one gospel (Luke)
24. First catch of fish	precognition/nature?			5.1f
25. Raising Widow's son at Nain	revivification			7.11f
26. Exorcism of Mary Magdalene	exorcism			8.2
27. Crippled woman	healing			13.11f
28. Man with dropsy	healing			14.1f
29. Ten men with leprosy	healing@distance			17.11f
30. High Priest's servant	healing			22.50f
Only in one gospel (John)
31. Wine miracle at Cana	nature				2.1f
32. Official's son at Capernaum	healing@distance				4.46f
33. Sick man at Pool of Bethesda	healing				5.1f
34. Healing of the Blind Man	healing				9.1f
35. Raising Lazarus	revivification				11.1f
36. Second catch of fish	precognition/nature?				21.1f

That gives us:

· 17 healing events [representatives in all 4 gospels]

· 7 exorcisms [representatives in all gospels except John]

· 3 precognition (possibly nature, all with fish) miracles [representatives in all gospels except Mark]

· 3 revivification miracles [representatives in all 4 gospels]

· 6 nature miracles [representatives in all 4 gospels]

1. creation of matter (food multiplication, 2x)

2. defiance of gravity (walking on water)

3. control of thermal energy (calming a storm)

4. control of metabolic processes (withering of fig tree)

5. rearrangement of molecular structure/creation of matter (turning water into wine)

Now, the question is NOT ABOUT "could miracles stories have crept into the accounts accidentally during the generally assumed oral transmission period?", but rather is about deliberate and/or intentional introduction of elements by the Apostles (and presumably the gospel authors).

[We will have to also discuss the possibility of their being subconsciously influenced--without their realizing it--by "mythic" elements in their worldview, such as ANE kingship models etc, but we will do this after the main question of conscious intention.]

In the case of Matthew and John, of course, the two are the same--they are both alleged to have been original disciples of Jesus--but Luke and Mark are generally considered to be at one remove from them [with Luke being an 'investigator' and Mark something like a ghost-writer for Peter]. But for our purposes here, we will focus on the gospel authors (or the immediate predecessors of them, responsible for any recognizable 'chucks' of material or sources for them).

Of course, if one works within the current version of the Two-Source Theory, we need only concern ourselves with Mark and Q, since Matthew and Luke are dependent on these two sources (acc. to the theory). Mark contains 18 of the 36 recorded miracles (with only two being unique to him). We would then turn to John to see if there were indications of deliberate 'creation' of miraculous elements in the six miracle stories unique to his gospel.

Now, when we frame the question in terms of authorial intent (i.e., did the Evangelists deliberately create miraculous elements for inclusion into the final product), we are immediately confronted with the issue of motive, and this will create the first set of questions we need to address: