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ABSTRACTS
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
E.C.S. EVE HARRIS MANCHESTER COLLEGE
OXFORD D. PHIL THESIS - TRINITY 1999
ABSTRACT
Recent scholarly literature, especially on the historical Jesus, has shown a renewed interest in Jesus' miracles. Although this has resulted in attempts to relate Jesus' miracles to their Jewish context, that context has not itself been surveyed in its own right. The thesis aims to supply that lack, by examining both the ideas on miracle in Jewish literature and the evidence for contemporary Jewish miracle-working figures. Chapters Two and Three examine miracle in the writings of Josephus and Philo. Chapter Four surveys miracle in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Chapter Five contains a brief discussion of miracle in the Qumran literature followed by a more detailed examination of three Qumran texts. The upshot of this first part is that there is very little interest shown in miracles of healing and exorcism, and that there are significant differences between the way the Red Sea and Manna miracles are narrated in Jewish literature and the sea-miracle and feeding stories of the Gospels. Nevertheless, there are points of contact between this literature and the Gospel miracles, not least in the material from Qumran. Chapter Six attacks the influential thesis that there was a significant class of charismatic holy men exemplified by Honi and Hanina. Chapter Seven discusses Josephus' account of sign-prophets, and finds that although these figures are significantly unlike Jesus, their ability to attract popular support is an important indicator of contemporary expectations. Chapter Eight assesses the evidence for Jewish exorcists and argues that this is less than is often supposed. Chapter Nine then brings in some insights from social anthropology to round out a picture otherwise heavily dependent on the writings of an urban elite. Chapter Ten thus concludes that, whereas Jesus as miracle worker makes good sense in his Jewish context, he is nevertheless distinctive within it.
A copy of this thesis has been deposited in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. An expanded version, containing a discussion of additional texts (such as the Wisdom of Solomon, Ben Sira, Pseudo-Philo, 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Artapanus and additional Qumran material) has recently been published by Sheffield Academic Press (in 2002).