If you had been there and seen these wonders for yourself, you would have gone down on your knees and prayed to the god you now deny.
[Euripides, The Bacchae, 712 (5th century BC)]

Was Christianity new? Was Christianity unique? Let's talk about miracles.

Miracles persuade. People email me about miracles Jesus did; "Explain that, why don't ya?" After all, who but God could do something as rare and supernatural as turning water into wine or raising the dead?

The emailers are right. For us and for the ancients, supernatural doings do imply supernatural power. But what you're about to learn is that in the ancient world supernatural doings—miracles—weren't rare. Miracles were just how the world worked. You can't explain Jesus' miracles until you understand that.

One more thing. Miracles are easy to think about generally, but very hard to think about rationally. Because miracles are super-natural, beyond the rules of nature, they are beyond the rules of reason and logic. For example, there can be no such thing as "evidence of a miracle." So, instead of jumping right into examples of ancient miracles, let's start by reviewing how modern people think about Jesus' miracles:

Modern folks generally explain New Testament miracles in one of three ways:
    1) Supernaturalism = Gods magic,
    2) Rationalism = the gospel writers were suckers,
    3) Myth = they made them up.

By the way

Supernaturalism was the standard explanation of Jesus' miracles all the way up to the 1700s. Then, what with science going strong and all, in the period called the Enlightenment, folks realized that probably everything in nature has a natural cause -- and if it can't have happened naturally, it can't have happened.

But because everyone thought the gospels were histories, the fact they included impossible miracles meant the gospel writers were liars. That bothered people. Which led to....

Another huge deal
1835 is the year much of believing Christianity left rational analysis of Christianity behind; they weren't willing to accept Strauss' inevitable conclusion that the gospels are not historical. These folks went on talking and writing about supernaturalism and rationalism. They still do today.

Believers who could accept the non-historicity of the gospels went on analyzing the implications of Strauss, and the implications of those implications, and so on. All the way down to form criticism, Q, an allegorical explanation of Jesus' life, and the Jesus Seminar.

OK, you got all that?
    1) Supernaturalism = Gods magic,
    2) Rationalism = the gospel writers were suckers,
    3) Myth = they made them up.

That's how modern people explain early Christian miracles. The ancients saw miracles differently...

For the ancients, miracles were just how the world worked
If you've read much of POCM you'll probably not be surprised to learn the ancients didn't think about miracles the way we do. In fact, their take was way different.

For us miracles are exceptional; they need explanation. For the ancients, miracles were just how the world worked. The ancients didn't have Newton's laws and Maxwell's equations to explain the world. They had spirits and powers.

Gods had lots of power, people had a little. People could get extra power —magicians and soothsayers had a bit extra. So did prophets: the Pythian priestess at the oracle at Delphi was just one of hundreds of examples. If a person got enough power he could become divine; in Greece the technical term was "hero."

Some Gods brought divine power to their followers. Dionysus is the regulation example, but He was just one one of many. The divine ecstasy of Cybele led Her priests to take a sword and slice off their own testicles and penis. I will pause now while the men recover from reading that last sentence. Other middle eastern Gods led their priests to do the same thing—including Jesus. What, you didn't know this?

Jesus' early followers didn't just borrow self-castration; the Christian Holy Spirit "indwelling" in early Christian believers, giving them power to prophesy and do miracles, that's just another example of how Gods brought believers divine power worked in the ancient world.

One thing about miracles was the same for us and for the ancients; miracles still happened by Gods' magic. For us it's God's magic; for the ancients it was Gods' magic—only the apostrophe changed.

By the way

Making up miracles
The ancients made up miracles to give their stories meaning.

At Alexandria a commoner, whose eyes were well known to have wasted away ...fell at Vespasian's feet demanding with sobs a cure for his blindness, and imploring that the Emperor would deign to moisten his eyes and eyeballs with the spittle from his mouth.
... Vespasian .... did as the men desired him. Immediately the hand recovered its functions and daylight shone once more in the blind man's eyes. Those who were present still attest both miracles today, when there is nothing to gain by lying.
[Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, 4.81 (c 110 AD),—which you can find in: Levene, D.S.. Tacitus, The Histories (1997), pg. 228- 9]

How about the connection between Pagan and Christian miracles? Let's start with some background facts.
Pagan miracles
1. There were a lot of them. Tens of thousands.
2. Pagans understood miracles one way: God's magic.
3. The pagans made up miracles—added them to their stories as a way of adding meaning.

Christian miracles
1. There were a lot of them
2. The Christians understood their miracles one way. God's magic.
3. The Christians also believed Pagan miracles were real. They believed the Pagan miracles were done by demons.
4. The Christians made up miracles—added them to their stories as a way of adding meaning.

The Christian Father Origen understood the meaning of Christian miracles with explicitly Pagan ideas.

Stick with me and in a few minutes you'll read Origen, a second century Christian Father, commenting on the star that heralded Jesus' birth. Origen understands the meaning of the star with explicitly Pagan ideas. Early Christians understood that their miracles had meaning in exactly the same ways that Pagans understood their miracles had meaning.

 I'm still working on this page 

Remember how I said thinking about miracles generally was easy, but that thinking about miracles rationally was hard? This is the hard part.

Of course there is no reasoned way to analyze this theory. Supernatural goings on do not follow rules made up by measuring and testing the natural world. "God is omnipotent"—magic can do anything.

Does this mean it is impossible Jesus miracles were God's magic? No. It just means there is no reasoned, reasonable analysis to get you there. You believe the miracles were God's magic? Fine. But you can't then claim the authority and dignity and believability of science and reason. You're standing on the side of the room with the naked Hottentot and the stone-age cannibal Aztec.

----------------------

There's an orthodoxy to this. You're not supposed to say "They made 'em up;" on account of it points out that the stories aren't true. Of course, so does "myth," but orthodoxy has a way around that. "Myth" is good. "Myth" is "how people express meaning," etc.

The handy thing about "myth", said orthodox-ularily, is that it changes the focus to the social meaning of the miracles and away from whether they really happened. Don't want to talk about that—cause they made them up.

Exactly why does myth have meaning? Why aren't myths just ridiculous stories made up by credulous primitives? Are the moral and spiritual principles myths supposedly represent so weak they can't be said all on their own? I don't know. Ask your professor.

Pegasus and Cupid were ancient myths too. You ever hear anyone blather over brie and Chardonnay about their inner meaning? No, you haven't. "Myth" is maybe one part "how people express meaning." The other three parts are a way to deal with sorry made up Christian miracles without giving up on Christianity. There, I said it, and I feel better.

The point of all this is that it changes the facts we have to work with. Nowadays people don't cure blindness by spitting on the blind guy. So when modern folks, try to explain Jesus doing that, we come up with theories like supernaturalism or rationalism.

Turns out that in ancient times people did cure blindness by spitting on the blind guy. Or thought they did. In ancient times divine men did raise the dead by speaking magic words and letting on they were only sleeping. Just like Jesus. Our fact-set has changed. Now Jesus' miracles are nott new and they are not unique, Now Jesus is one of dozens of ancient divine men who did miracles. And now He did the same miracles the other guys did. Jesus' story fits seamlessly into ancient culture. Jesus' story comes from ancient culture.

	For example, the rationalist analysis applies to the emperor Vespasian curing the blind man, right? And to Apollonius of Tyana raising the dead girl back to life, right? After all, these are well documented historical events. "Those who were present still attest both miracles today, when there is nothing to gain by lying." [Tacitus] And Pythagoras calming the storm, and the midday clear-sky darkness when Xerxes set off to invade Greece, and Alexander T. Great parting the sea, and the Egyptians curing disease by driving out demons—those historical accounts are all true too, right? The rationalist method either analyses the evidence (historical account) correctly (must be true), or it doesn't. But applying the same analysis to the Pagan evidence gives us an answer (Pagan miracles must be true) that we can't believe. The method gives the wrong answer. It doesn't work.
	The Supernaturalist Faith in God's Magic theory looks different too. With only Jesus' miracles on the table, forthright people could have faith in His miracles and keep a straight face. But now we know that over and over miracles just like His were the common currency of ancient legend. So recognizing all the other ancient miracles as legends, while still having faith in Jesus' miracles, begins to look less like forthright faith and more like flat-Earth superstition—stubborn belief held in the face of clear and convincing contrary evidence. We can still be friends, but people are going to snicker at you.
	I never thought the ancients were suckers made much sense to start with—women don't bleed because they're hysterical. But now it makes less sense, because we know ancient people believed in miracles that couldn't be simple non-scientific explanations of natural events. Stone statues getting down and chasing the enemy. Stars in the sky blinking out when important people died. Godmen flying. Cows birthing baby sheep. The ancients began with the belief that divine powers and signs were everyday events, and they wrote their histories as if they were.
	Even Miracles as myth needs tweaking, at least .to the extent it is based on a vague sense that magical stories in general are mythical or, as Herr Strauss put it in 1835, on logical problems with a historical explanation. Now we know Jesus was one of dozens of ancient divine men who did miracles. Jesus' story comes from deep in the Pagan center of ancient culture

Miracles were everywhere.   Trying to explain how common miracles were in ancient culture is like trying to explain how stinking big the ocean is: naming wet places doesn't get the idea across. You run out of patience before you run out of ocean.

It's like that with pagan miracles—there were too stinking many to count. Miracles were everywhere. Here's what I mean. This blue ancient-quote box >> has a list of miracles taken from one page of my copy of an ancient book called The Jewish War, written by a fellow named Josephus, who lived through it.

Josephus is telling how the war should have been foreseen, because >>

"the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their [the Jews] future desolation."[Josephus, Jewish War, ,6.5.288] He goes on:

"Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year." [6.5.289]

And in the Temple, "at the ninth hour of the night of the night a great light shone round the altar....This light seemed to be a good sign to the naive, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes as to portend the events that followed." [6.5.291- 293]

And, "also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple." [6.5.292]

"Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner temple. . .was seen to be opened of its own accord. This also the vulgar thought a happy prodigy...but the men of learning understood it."[6.5.293 - 295]

And, "...chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds. [6.5.298 - 299]

And "Jesus, son of Ananus...came to that feast whereon.. everyone makes tabernacles to God in the temple...and began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house." [6.5.300- 301]

On account of which, here at POCM I can't list every pagan miracle I know about; we'll run out of patience before we run out of miracles. So I'll tell you about just a few—a few that, if you've read your Bible, are going to sound mighty familiar. Here we go.

If you're interested in primary evidence, you'll like professor Cotters book—two-hundred-something pages of pagan miracles direct from the pens of the ancients themselves:
Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: Sourcebook for the study of New Testament Miracle Stories, by Dr. Wendy Cotter.

By the way, Duh

I call upon you, demon, whoever you are, and I charge you from this hour, from this day, from this moment—torment and strike down the horses of the Green and White [factions]. Strike down the charioteers Clarus and Felix and Primulus and Romanus, and cause them to crash, and leave no life in them. I call upon you by the one who loosed you for periods of time, the god of sea and air.
[curse tablet from Hadrumentum, north Africa, . (200s AD),—which you can find in: Lee, A.D.. Pagans & Christians in Late Antiquity (2000), pg. 1.11, pages 30 - 31]

Among the many lovers who took him [the Prophet Alexander] on was some quack, one of those who offer magic, miracle working incantations, charms to snare a lover, tricks to defeat an enemy, places to dig for buried treasure, and ways to inherit a fortune…. The two of them went around masquerading as magicians, pulling off swindles, and fleecing the "fatheads", as he public is called in the magicians' argot.
[Lucian, Alexander the False Prophet, 5 (2d Century AD),—which you can find in: Casson, Lionel. Selected Satires of Lucian (1962), pg. 271 - 2]

Libo was a fatuous young man with a taste for absurdities. One of his closest friends, a junior senator named Firmius Catus, interested him in astrologers' predictions, magicians' rites, and readers of dreams.
[Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, 4.1 (c 110 AD),—which you can find in: Grant, Michael. Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome (1996), pg. 90]

67. Scythia has an abundance of soothsayers, who foretell the future by means of a number of willow wands. A large bundle of these wands is brought and laid on the ground. The soothsayer unties the bundle, and places each wand by itself, at the same time uttering his prophecy: then, while he is still speaking, he gathers the rods together again, and makes them up once more into a bundle. This mode of divination is of home growth in Scythia. The Enarees, or womanlike men, have another method, which they say Aphrodite taught them. It is done with the inner bark of the linden-tree. They take a [pg 250 ] piece of this bark, and, splitting it into three strips, keep twining the strips about their fingers, and untwining them, while they prophesy.

68. Whenever the Scythian king falls sick, he sends for the three soothsayers of most renown at the time, who come and make trial of their art in the mode above described. Generally they say that the king is ill, because such or such a person, mentioning his name, has sworn falsely by the royal hearth. This is the usual oath among the Scythians, when they wish to swear with very great solemnity. Then the man accused of having forsworn himself is arrested and brought before the king. The soothsayers tell him that by their art it is clear he has sworn a false oath by the royal hearth, and so caused the illness of the king-he denies the charge, protests that he has sworn no false oath, and loudly complains of the wrong done to him. Upon this the king sends for six new soothsayers, who try the matter by soothsaying. If they too find the man guilty of the offence, straitway he is beheaded by those who first accused him, and his goods are parted among them: if, on the contrary, they acquit him, other soothsayers, and again others, are sent for, to try the case. Should the greater number decide in favour of the man's innocence, then they who first accused him forfeit their lives.
[Herodotus, The Persian War, 4.67- 8 (c 440 BC),—which you can find in: Godolpin, Francis. The Greek Historians (1942), pg. 249- 50]

4.172. The Nasamonians, a numerous people, are the western neighbours of the Auschisae. . ... The following are their customs in the swearing of oaths and the practice of augury. The man, as he swears, lays his hand upon the tomb of some one considered to have been preeminently just and good, and so doing swears by his name. For divination they betake themselves to the sepulchres of their own ancestors, and, after praying, lie down to sleep upon their graves; by the dreams which then come to them they guide their conduct. When they pledge their faith to one another, each gives the other to drink out of his hand; if there be no liquid to be had, they take up dust from the ground, and put their tongues to it.
[Herodotus, The Persian War, 4.172 (c 440 BC),—which you can find in: Godolpin, Francis. The Greek Historians (1942), pg. 285]

. ...The Ausean maidens keep year by year a feast in honour of Athena [the virgin goddess], whereat their custom is to draw up in two bodies, and fight with stones and clubs. They say that these are rites which have come down to them from their fathers, and that they honour with them their native goddess, who is the same as the Athena of the Grecians. If any of the maidens die of the wounds they receive, the Auseans declare that such are false virgins.
[Herodotus, The Persian War, 4.180 (c 440 BC),—which you can find in: Godolpin, Francis. The Greek Historians (1942), pg. 287]

How come were miracles so common? Because the ancients didn't have science, that's how come. Inventing civilization? That the ancients got. Everyday all around you stuff like why the wind blows and what the sun is? That they didn't get.

Which is a big deal. Like the ancient man giving his mother- in- law a sacred penis, this is one of the ways ancient civilization was incomprehensibly different from ours. We know about science; we explain everything we see with a few invisible rules—Newton's laws, radio waves, germs. Those rules create our picture of what the world is and how the world works.

Take away our rules and Dorothy, you're not in Kansas any more.

The ancients had different rules. The sun traveled across the sky because God moved it, physically moved it. What made people sick was demon possession. And they didn't mean sissy spiritual demon possession, they meant actual, physical demons living in your body, making you sick.

So it's not hard to see how stories that make sense according to the ancients' rules are impossible according to our rules. And when they're impossible to us, we call them supernatural. Miracles. But for the ancients what we call miracles—that was just how the world worked.

So when we say an ancient God "performed a miracle"—say, raise