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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 FOUR - MIRACLE IN THE APOCRYPHA & PSEUDEPIGRAPHA
The writings surveyed in this chapter are disparate and come from a variety of dates and social settings. They cannot be lumped together to produce a synthetic account of Jewish ideas on miracle around the time of Christ, neither is it possible to examine them in the same depth as Josephus and Philo. One may nevertheless survey the literature to determine what ideas were common or rare. Overall, it shows very little preoccupation with the miraculous, although some texts (such as the Lives of the Prophets) are keenly interested in miracle. As in Philo and Josephus, there is relatively little interest in miracles of healing and far more interest in spectacular miracles of national deliverance. Many miracles are worked directly by God, but Moses and the prophets continue to be the human figures most commonly associated with miracle-working. The Gospel feeding and sea miracles are often compared with the Red Sea and Manna miracles, but in fact the latter tend to be narrated in ways that make them quite distinct from the former. Although several texts express a hope for the eschatological defeat of the demonic powers, this is never related to exorcism, which is scarcely ever mentioned. There is also very little evidence of any eschatological hopes associated with healing, apart perhaps from Sib. Or. 8:205-27 and Jubilees 23:31.
