MIRACLES, WHAT DO THEY PROVE?

John Stone

 

 

Miracles play a very important role in Christianity.  The New Testament contains accounts of many miracles accredited to Jesus and later to his followers. Strangely, Judaism warns against “false prophets” who perform miracles, but has it miracles too, a few examples are: a man living inside a big fish for 72 hour; Moses parting the sea (Exodus 14:26 (Jonah 1:17); Elijah diving the waters; Elijah riding to heaven in a chariot of fire with horses of fire (2 Kings 2:8-12). [An aside, Jewish miracles as opposed to Christian, more often involve the Jewish "Invisible Man in the Sky" engaged in mass killing of children, women and men to save faithful Jews.]

 

The Christian gospels have a long record of miracles performed by Jesus, starting with a simple parlor trick, turning water into wine (something Dionysus, another mythological god, did). Jesus was known for his control over the power of death, as he brought people back to life. In the four gospels, no fewer than 232 miracles are reported. Of the 661 verses in Mark, 209 deal with miraculous doings.  One third of Mark’s gospel deals with miraculous events.  John only reports of seven miraculous doings, but uses the word “sign” 17 times. To put things into a proper perspective, Jesus' miracles were of a helpful and healing nature, contrasted to the oft angry Hebrew god. To make things more confusing, Christians claim Jesus was this same god ― Invisible Man in the Sky ― incarnate. In other words Abrahamic derivative religions' gods all have different faces and dispositions ― Jesus, Hashem, Allah. The Jewish and Muslim god will kill people in an instant; Jesus never killed anyone, but did ask his disciples to do so (Luke 19:27).

 

The Christian gospels cite the miraculous acts of Jesus as proof of his alleged divinity.  Each miracle performed by Jesus was designed to reveal that Jesus held the power of god to perform such works, illustrating not only supernatural powers and divine authorization, but also his own divinity.   Luke wrote in Acts,

 

“You men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you (Luke 2:22). 

 

In the gospel of John;

 

Then said Jesus unto him, except you see signs and wonders you will not believe in me?” (John 4:48). 

 

Mark said,

 

“And these signs shall follow them that believe” (Mark 16:17). 

 

The more fabulous the miracle, the more credibility it lent to the one whom performed it.  John again wrote,

 

“Many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did” (John 2:23),

 

“When Christ comes will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?” (John 7:31).  

 

Mark had Jesus saying,

 

“And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils…” (Mark 16:17).

 

As a result of this emphasis on the supernatural, Christianity, especially as told by Catholics, has become enslaved to miracle stories. Whereas Jews are enslaved to their god's "miraculous mass murders" to save themselves from so-called evil children, women and men.

 

The gospel of John ends by saying,

 

“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should written every one, I suppose, even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25).

 

Even today, any miracle story gets front page coverage.  Have you ever wondered why all these stories supposedly relate to Jesus or Mary? The story of Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine is well known.  The Church chose to celebrate this event every January 6th.  What the church doesn’t want you to know is that for many years before Jesus,  the 6th of January had been a pagan feast in memory of “Dionysus,” a pagan god, who had turned water into wine.  Thus, Jesus’ first miracle was but an old trick of a pagan god.  Nothing new! Conversely, every Saturday evening Jews set a place setting, with chair, at the Sabbath table for Elijah whose return is said to precede the Hebrew messiah,

 

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the two sacraments recognized in all Christian denominations, are thoroughly imbued (to inspire with principles and emotions) with miracle elements. The Catholic miracle of baptism is believed to clean the newborn from “original sin” and its Communion is regarded as the establishment of a direct physical bonding between the believers and Jesus. Many scholars define this with Human Sacrifice.

 

Hundreds of years before Jesus, the Persian religion of Mithraism, named after its founder, Mithras, also believed in baptism by water and celebrated a “last supper” with his 12 disciples.  They believed by drinking the blood of the bull and eating its flesh there would be a direct bonding between the believers and Mithras.  There are even paintings of this event in a church in Rome.  As you can see, these concepts were nothing new.

 

Again, to put things into perspective, for 30 centuries Jews have believe in miracles that were recorded in the Hebrew Bible.  Elijah and Elisha were powerful enough to arrest and change the course of nature itself, because they too brought people back from death and the grave (1 Kings 17:21 and 11 Kings 4:35 & 13:20). Elijah performed at least 9 miracles and Elisha performed 11 miracles. Elijah split the Jordan River, removed poison from soup and Elijah never died, but ascended to heaven in fire (11 Kings 2:1).  Elisha, fed a multiple of people with just 20 loaves of bread (11 Kings 4:42) and Elisha also cured a "leper" (11 Kings 5:13). So Elijah and Elisha performed miracle after miracle.

 

A few more examples of miracles found in Hebrew Scripture are as follows:

 

Joshua, through God, having superpowers, separated the Jordan River to walk across it (Joshua 3:1-17 & 11 Kings 2:8-9)

 

Moses, through God, separated the Red Sea. 

 

Moses made miraculous happenings, such as the Ten Plagues that he and Aaron showed the Egyptian Pharaoh, and when Moses asked God to send Manna from heaven to feed the Israelites.

 

Moses even sweetened the waters of Marah because it was too bitter to drink (Exodus 15:23-25), and then drew water from a rock to save the Israelites from dehydration.

 

Moses also saved the Israelites from fiery serpents (Numbers 21:9). 

 

Miracles are nothing new in Judaism. 

 

The miracles of Daniel’s furnace (Daniel 3:20) and Daniel in the Lion’s Den are stories about how miracles saved Daniel.  It was God’s miracle that also saved Jonah from death in the whale.

 

More miracles are the pregnancies of Sarah, Rachel, Rebekkah, Samson’s mother Manoah, Hannah and the Shunammite woman, who were all barren women. Don't forget the Pharaoh's sorcerers who also turned their staffs into snakes just like Aaron did.  

 

MIRACLES? NO BIG DEAL. Other peoples and their gods performed them all the time.

Accepting as living realities the heathen gods and their miracles, Father Origen argues that the Hebrews must have had genuine miracles because the heathens had many from their gods, which were, however, only devils; that the Hebrews viewed. “with contempt all those who were considered as gods by the heathen” as not being gods, but demons, ‘For all the gods of the nations are demons’ (Ps, xcvi, 5). ...

In the next place, miracles were performed in all countries, or at least in many of them, as Celsus himself admits, instancing the case, of Aesculapius, who conferred benefits on many, and who foretold future events to entire cities,”—citing instances. If there had been no miracles among the Hebrews “they would immediately have gone over to the worship of those demons which gave oracles and performed cures.” (Contra Celsum, III, ch. ii-iii; ANF. iv, 466.) The heathen oracles were indeed inspired and true, but were due to a loathsome form of demoniac inspiration, which he thus—(with my own polite omissions)—describes:

 {131} “Let it be granted that the responses delivered by the Pythian and other oracles were not the utterances of false men who pretended to a divine inspiration; but let us see if, after all, that they may be traced to wicked demons,—to spirits which are at enmity with the human race. ... It is said of the Pythian priestess, that when she sat down at the mouth of the Castalian cave, the prophetic spirit of Apollo entered her private parts; and when she was filled with it, she gave utterance to responses which are regarded with awe as divine truths. Judge by this whether that spirit does not show its profane and impure nature.” (Contra Cetsum, VII, iii; ANF. iv, 611-612). ... “It is not, then, because Christians cast insults upon demons that they incur their revenge, but because they drive them away out of the images, and from the bodies and souls of men.” (Ib. c. xliii, p. 655 )

The bottom line; miracles show that ALL Abrahamic Derivative Religions (ADR) are a hoax ― just fabricated fiction.

"Donkeys Can Talk, People Can Fly and a Man Named Jesus Lives Up in the Sky!" -Reverend Deacon Fred, Landover Baptist Church

 

DISCLAIMER:

Citation of Hebrew scripture and sources in articles or analyses is not in any way an acceptance, approval or validation of the Jewish religion, its works or scriptures. The Hebrew bible, like the Christian New Testament, is fictitious; From a 6-day creation of the universe; a cunning, walking, talking snake; big fish tales; world flood and an "Invisible Man in the Sky" ― it is all fiction, a bold sham perpetrated on mankind.

 

 

 

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