Historical Intent and the Pervasiveness of the Miraculous

There are two sets of facts that, I think render a naturalistic account of Christian origins difficult. They are what you should expect if there were real miracles but not what you should expect if there were none. One is that it seems clear to me that the Gospels were written with the intent to be represent reality, and that they were written by people who, if not eyewitnesses themselves, were in a position to interview eyewitnesses. In the case of the later parts of Acts, I think it very clear that Luke WAS an eyewitness to at least some of the events he discusses.  I think the archaeological evidence, along with other types of evidence, shows that the New Testament has at the very least a significant historical core. I realize that this doesn't buy you inerrancy, but it does undercut any theory that the whole thing was made up. People didn't write novels at that time, and a comparison between the Gospels and other literature at the time shows that, whatever else the Gospels and Acts were, they were attempts to represent reality. Call this the Attempt to Represent Reality Thesis.

Of course it is open to the skeptic to say, at this point that OK, there was a significant historical core, but all the miracle reports were legendary. However, these documents seem to be pervasively supernaturalist, so that it doesn't seem even possible to isolate that naturalistically explicable historical core from the elements which, in one way or another, imply a supernatural character to the founding of Christianity. The passages used to back up the "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" argument are cases in point. Not just the healings, the claim to forgive sins, but also the claim to supersede the Law with "I say unto you," and Jesus' more explicit assertions like Mark 14: 61-62 make it difficult to isolate a naturalistically acceptable element. This is the thesis of the Pervasiveness of the Miraculous.

But the pervasiveness isn't just in the Gospels. In one debate on Acts, I had been pointing to the archaeological confirmation of later Acts. The event-to-writing gap is less, and, as I indicated, we have good reason to suppose that some of it is eyewitness testimony. So, someone who believes in a naturalistic account would expect a downturn in the element of the miraculous. Skeptic GearHedEd indeed floated just such a hypothesis, which is perfectly reasonable on naturalistic assumptions:

I submit that everything before Acts 9 is stage-setting, and that everything after the infamous "Road to Damascus" incident is probably historical, at least as much as anything is considered "historical" in any other early "historical" writings.

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm..."

Miracles

Before Acts: 9? Many

After Acts 9:? Almost nothing, save vague statements of the "Holy Spirit descending on them" in Acts 11, and Peter's "miraculous" escape from prison in Acts 12 (who was there to record the circumstances of Peter's escape? And didn't he at first think he was "seeing a vision (Acts 12:9)? He should have trusted his first impression).

Only, as Tim McGrew pointed out subsequently, miracles don't drop off at this point. 

It is completely unclear to me why GearHedEd thinks it would be a point in his favor if the latter part of Acts contained no reported miracles. The suggestion that the gospels and the earlier parts of Acts are entirely fabricated does not warrant serious discussion.

But for the record, here is a partial list of miracles recounted in Acts from chapter 10 onward:

* Peter is liberated from prison by an angel (Acts 12:5-11)

* Paul temporarily blinds the sorcerer Elymas (Acts 13:9-12)

* Paul and Barnabas work miracles on their missionary journey (Acts 14:3)

* Paul cures the lame man of Lystra (Acts 14:7-9)

* Paul exorcises girl possessed of a divining spirit (Acts 16:16-18)

* Chains fall from Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:25-30)

* Paul raises Eutychus from the dead (Acts 20:9-12)

* Paul shakes off a viper from his arm and suffers no hurt (Acts 28:3-6)

* Paul heals Publius’s father of dysentery (Acts 28:7-8)

* Paul heals all the sick brought to him on Malta (Acts 28:9)

In addition, Tim could have also pointed out that the presence of signs and wonders was used as one of the major reasons which justified the Gentile ministry of Paul and Barnabas to the Council of Jerusalem. 

In other words, you should expect it to be the case that the more you find support for historicity, the less likely you are to find miracle claims, if naturalism is true. But this is not the case, so that disconfirms the naturalistic hypothesis.