Are Miracles Out of Bounds for History?
One of the most common claims that I hear from skeptics is that history cannot speak to the existence of miracles. This is especially aimed at the resurrection of Jesus but is used toward miracles in general.
I have addressed this in a peer reviewed journal but I want to talk about it here. You can find this claim of the problems of history and miracles in this episode of the Unbelievable? podcast:
The basic idea is that history can only speak to those things that we call “natural.” I should note that N.T. Wright has explained in many places that this natural-supernatural divide is a recent innovation.
Part of this goes to the German attempts in the nineteenth century to find the historical Jesus. Albert Schweitzer, in his Quest of the Historical Jesus, describes how many scholars tried to peel away the miracles to find the historical kernel of Jesus.
But I want to examine this claim that history is unable to speak to miracles. Let’s put aside our skepticism for a moment to do a thought experiment.
A large group of people are at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Suddenly, the statue of Lincoln stands up and begins to speak. This is not the subtle tears of a statue of Mary but some obvious movement that should be impossible for a statue.
News crews come and film the miracle. Various scientists examine the statue, while it is still moving and are unable to explain it. The statue has not been replaced by a stone looking robot. Then after a few days, Lincoln sits back down and goes back to being silent stone.
What would history books say about those few days? Would they be silent except for a footnote to say that something happened but they are not allowed to talk about it because history and miracles can’t mix?
Obviously the history books couldn’t provide the theological significance (if any) of this miracle. But they would record that it happened and would share as many details as they had.
I’m not saying I expect to hear from Lincoln anytime soon. But what this thought experiment shows is that it is not inherently impossible for history to attest to miracles. They may be limited in their interpretation of what it means, but they can describe the events themselves.
“But they would record that it happened and would share as many details as they had.
I’m not saying I expect to hear from Lincoln anytime soon. But what this thought experiment shows is that it is not inherently impossible for history to attest to miracles. They may be limited in their interpretation of what it means, but they can describe the events themselves.”
Yes, this is correct, if the events happened, they could be recorded. Since they weren’t recorded in history, but in a compliation of books that are no more than myths, there is no reason to think that history records magic. We have no evidence for the exodus claims, none of Egypt’s enemies noticed that Egypt lost their entire army, a good part of their population and their food supply, for the claims of fabulous palaces/temples, for the cruxifiction and supposed resurrection, or of the supposed powerful earthquake, sky darkening and the dead wandering around Roman-occupied Jerusalem on a Passover. You’d think Caiaphas might have noticed or at least been told about such events.
As always the bible stories are claims, not evidence and we have no evidence to show that they ever happened. Magic is never the answer to any question.