The Jewish Context of Jesus' Miracles

by Eric Eve

Publisher:

Sheffield Academic Press

, 2002

Overview

Scholarly literature on Jesus has often attempted to relate his miracles to their Jewish context, but that context has not been surveyed in its own right. This volume fills that gap by examining both the ideas on miracle in Second Temple literature (including Josephus, Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) and the evidence for contemporary Jewish miracle workers. The penultimate chapter explores insights from cultural anthropology to round out the picture obtained from the literary evidence, and the study concludes that Jesus is distinctive as a miracle-worker in his Jewish context while nevertheless fitting into it.

Contents

Top Highlights

“Werner Kahl’s comparison of around 150 pagan, Jewish and Christian miracle stories makes several noteworthy points” (Page 15)

“He therefore proposes to divide ‘miracle-workers’ into Bearers, Petitioners and Mediators of Numinous Power:” (Page 15)

“to see them as acts of God one must be willing to believe.” (Page 27)

“Philo they appear more as proofs of divine activity” (Page 381)

“There are few stories from around the time of Jesus that exactly parallel the miracles of Jesus, and we should note the restraint of the Gospel stories. In the period from 200 bce to 200 ce the number of miracles recorded which are remotely comparable to those of Jesus is astonishingly small. In Judaism the only roughly contemporary and comparable figures are Ḥoni the Rain Marker and Ḥanina ben Dosa. There was, however, a Jewish concern to ban sorcery, which suggests that magic was perceived as a threat.” (Page 8)

Product Details

• Title: The Jewish Context of Jesus’ Miracles
• Author: Eric Eve
• Series: Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series
• Volume: 231
• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Print Publication Date: 2002
• Logos Release Date: 2008
• Era: era:Contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Miracles
• ISBNs: 9781841273150, 1841273155
• Resource ID: LLS:JEWCONTJSMI
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:07:46Z

About Eric Eve

Eric Eve is fellow and tutor in theology at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. He has published a number of articles and other short pieces on various aspects of the Gospels and Jesus—usually related either to miracles or to the Synoptic Problem and is also the author of The Jewish Context of Jesus’ Miracles and The Healer from Nazareth.