Ehrman's Errors: Historical Evidence for Miracles?

For the subject matter of this article, I simply went to ehrmanblog.com, typed “resurrection” in the search box, and randomly chose a post.  Now, I am not a paying subscriber to his blog, as I do not want to be convicted of aiding and abetting the “enemy”.  However, in the short snippet available to the general public, he makes a very startling and problematic statement.  Aside from the usual mantra of the Gospels written decades after the events, and therefore not reliable eyewitness accounts, he questions “whether you can have any historical ‘evidence’ for a miracle”.  Let’s explore the scholarship.

Anybody remotely familiar with the Gospels will know that Jesus is said to have performed many miracles, or in the words of a classmate of mine, “done some pretty awesome stuff”.  He walked on the water, multiplied the loaves and fishes (twice!!), raised several people from the dead, and controlled the weather.  While we do not have necessarily hard evidence of these miracles (iPhones weren’t invented yet), we do have “a large body of unanimous, diverse, and widespread ancient testimony on the matter not only from those who revered Jesus but also from those who scorned Him”. (1)

I’m working on an article discussing the historical accuracy and value of the Gospels, but for the present purposes, suffice it to say that according to scholar John Richards, the manuscript evidence and transmission of the Bible through the ages is much better than every other ancient work.  Additionally, Luke clearly went about his writings in the ordered fashion of a historian, complete with eyewitness information.  Two of the authors were eyewitnesses themselves, and the other two were close collaborators. (2)  Richards provides other proofs of the Gospels’ reliability, but that is beyond the scope of this article.  It is, however, the consensus of many historians from both sides of the issue that the Gospels are historically accurate.

Extrabiblical evidence also provides a foundation for rational belief in the Gospel miracles. Let us examine some early pagan authors.  The darkness in the world at the time of the crucifixion is recorded by Thallus, as quoted in Julius Africanus. (3)  Mara Bar-Serapion referred to Jesus as a “wise king”, who “lived on in the teachings he enacted”. (4)  I will mention in another article the testimony of Josephus in his Antiquities, and see how much of it is trustworthy and original.

Ehrman is not the first to deny the miraculous.  Obviously, as science began to grow more prevalent, there would be those who would become less faith-based in their thinking and already see science as the final answer.  Baruch Spinoza had a logically troubling argument against the miraculous.  If God’s understanding and will were unchanging and eternal, a miracle would “[defy] the laws of nature”, which would “indicate some essential change in the nature of God”. (5)  It seems that Spinoza misses a crucial point: What if God’s will in a particular circumstance included a miracle?  What if miracles were actually a direct intervention of God?  Unfortunately Spinoza is currently unavailable to answer those questions.

David Hume presents a slightly different argument.  “For Hume, the evidence of the unchangeability of the natural order was absolute, so that even if, for the sake of argument, absolute proof could be given for the occurrence of a certain miracle, this would at best equal the opposing evidence and mean that a miracle could not be asserted with any certainty.” (6)  If that’s the case, I would like to hear Hume describe Elijah’s miracle in 3 Kings 18:18-40.  I doubt whether there would be a plausible or logical explanation for the fire coming from Heaven and consuming not only the soaking wet sacrifice, but also the stones of the altar.  Even if one does not believe in God, it would seem most likely that an extremely abnormal, almost supernatural, event occurred here.

William Paley did a splendid job exposing and refuting Hume’s foolishness.  He did this with a comprehensive overview and defense of his version of the classical “‘teleological argument’, better known as the ‘argument from design’”. (7).  This argument is also found in Aquinas.  Laid out in a logical syllogism it is as follows:

A. The Universe has order, purpose, and regularity.
B. The complexity of the Universe shows evidence of design.
C. Such design implies a designer.
D. Therefore, this designer must be God. (8) 
Now, if the universe functions according to this design, the designer ought to be able to intervene as He sees fit, even if it means seemingly abrogating the laws of nature.  It is entirely reasonable to believe that this is possible.  Naturally, we ought not assume every strange event is a miracle, but when every other explanation fails, it is not entirely out of the question.

Before we conclude, it is important to quantify what exactly, for the Catholic Church, is a miracle.  Catholic Answers apologist Karlo Broussard provides fives aspects a true miracle must have:

1. Exclusively attributable to divine power.
2. Beyond the power of created nature.
3. Beyond the order of created nature.
4. Extraordinary.
5. Sensible. (9)
The Catholic Church is very careful before declaring something to be an official miracle.  Needless to say, the 1977 sighting of Jesus in a cooking tortilla in New Mexico has gone unapproved.  While this event would certainly not be impossible, there are too many questions surrounding it to be fully believable.   

This is meant to be just a short preview into the world of the miraculous.  Nearly any claims against it are spurious and can be refuted with good, sound, and valid logical arguments.  I would encourage Dr. Ehrman to examine his beliefs a little more critically, and see if they stand up to the test of reason.

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1. Luke Wayne, “Is There Historical Evidence of Jesus’ Miracles?” at CARM (17 August 2016), at carm.org.
2. John Richards, “How Historically Reliable Are the Gospels?”, at Evangelical Magazine (September 2015), at evangelicalmagazine.com.
3. J. Warner Wallace, “Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?”, at Cold-case Christianity (30 October 2017), at coldcasechristianity.com.
4. Wallace, “Is There Any Evidence”, at coldcasechristianity.com.
5. Mark Pickering and Peter Saunders, “Can We Believe the Bible’s Miracles?”, at BeThinking (2005), at bethinking.org. 
6. Pickering and Saunders, “Can We Believe”, at bethinking.org.
7. T. Ryan Gregory, “The Argument From Design: A Guided Tour of William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802)”, at Evolution: Education and Outreach (2009), at evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com.
8. Max Edgson, “Aquinas’ Fifth Way and the Teleological Arguments for the Existence of God”, at Max Edgson (1 March 2017), at medium.com.
9. Karlo Broussard, “What Constitutes A Miracle?”, at Catholic Answers (19 April 2016), at catholic.com.