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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
CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION
If one uses the word 'miracle' in relation to biblical and other ancient Jewish texts, one should define it not as a violation of the laws of nature but as a strikingly surprising event, beyond what is regarded as humanly possible, in which God is believed to act, either directly or through an intermediary. Relatively recent literature on the historical Jesus is increasingly willing to accept that Jesus was a miracle-worker in that he performed healings and exorcisms that would have been regarded as miraculous by his contemporaries, and that this miracle-working formed an important part of his activity. Furthermore, the so-called 'nature miracles', which modern people find hard to accept, nevertheless form an important part of the Gospel presentation of Jesus. The desire to understand Jesus in his Jewish context has thus resulted in attempts to relate the historical Jesus to other Jewish miracle-working figures of his time, and the Gospel miracle-stories to other miracle-stories in Jewish literature. The danger in viewing the Jewish material in this way, however, is that it becomes distorted by being seen through the lens of the Gospels rather than it its own right. Although there have been studies dealing with miracle in some sections of Jewish literature (e.g. the writings of Josephus), there has been no recent attempt to survey the material as a whole. The present study aims to supply that lack. The first half takes a broadly literary approach by discussing the concepts, distribution, and functions of miracle in a range of Second Temple Jewish texts. The second takes a more historical approach by examining the evidence for Jewish miracle-working figures roughly contemporary with Jesus.
