Miracles

[Brother Adam]

Funny thing, is we now know to reject the documentary hypothesis as a interpretive principle to the Hebrew scriptures, it doesn't hold up under close scrutiny. And the Old Testament scriptures aren't the history of the Isrealite people? Try telling that to a Jewish person. This isn't a stumbling block for me at all. I have one of the best OT profs that I know of in the country and will be taking extra courses with him next year on the Hebrew language and on the Prophets. Again, you cannot just randomly pick what scriptural interpretive principals you are going to decide to apply various passages to.

[LouisvilleFan]

After one of my first RCIA classes, I found myself asking exactly the same questions about biblical miracles. The class was about reading the Bible and interpreting Scripture, part of which is discerning when something should be taken literally and when it shouldn't. Well, I hardly knew the teachers and one of them is a former nun, so while I didn't want to automatically judge her relationship with God, at the same time I was also keeping my eye out for any unorthodox teaching. So when she noted that stories like Jonah in the whale clearly shouldn't be taken literally because it's scientifically ridiculous, I was ready to yell, "Heretic!" right there in the middle of class! (just kidding...) But hearing that did get me to wondering. After all, the Catholic Church never states as a matter of doctrine if the whole world was literally flooded or Jonah was swallowed in a whale and spit out three days later. Does it really matter, or are we influenced by fundamentalists who interpret every word of the Bible literally (except "this is my body")?

Some miracles are matters of doctrine, especially all the miracles that are specifically mentioned in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. I also find it difficult to call any of the NT miracles into question. Most of them were performed by Christ among the people. Acts 5:14-15 and 19:11-12 talk about healings from Peter's shadow and Paul's handkerchiefs (how Catholic is that? ). It's just silly to think that the NT writers intended any of the miracles to be interpreted figuratively.

However, in the OT the line is a little greyer. We don't profess our belief in these miracles in the creeds. Personally, I believe Adam and Eve really existed because they are in Jesus' genealogy and that Jonah really was swallowed by a whale because Jesus compared this miracle to his own death and resurrection. It's hard to imagine Pharaoh would ever allow the Israelites to leave if the plagues are only figurative. And what point is there in the story of Sodom and Gomarrah's destruction if they weren't really destroyed? However, that's just my view. If someone else sees it differently, that's fine, as long as they do believe in the doctrinal miracles, like Jesus' physical death and resurrection.

The flood is one that I'm willing to accept only occured in the small part of the world that was known to Noah's civilization. A flooding of all the known world is by all means miraculous and doesn't seem to take anything away from the overall story of salvation.

[jpamericanka]

that is interesting, thank you.

Edited March 28, 2006 by jpamericanka

[Brother Adam]

[url="http://www.flyfreeministries.org/Resources-Interpret.htm"]On the Interpretation of Scripture[/url]

A personal favorite of mine, so much so it is one of the few documents I've decided to quote in whole on my website.