Divine Authority in Jesus Revealed

MCAFEE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
HOW A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE TEXT OF
MARK 4:35-41 ILLUMINATES AN UNDERSTANDING OF
DIVINE AUTHORITY IN THE PERSON OF JESUS
By
MOISES A. ROBLETO
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty
of the James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology
at Mercer University
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Atlanta, GA
2021
By
MOISES A. ROBLETO
Approved:
_____________________________________________________
_ Date _____________
Dr. Jeffrey Willetts, Ph.D.
Faculty Supervisor for Thesis
_____________________________________________________
__ Date ____________
Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor for Thesis
_____________________________________________________
__Date _____________
Karen G. Massey, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Masters Degree Programs, School of Theology

_____________________________________________________
__Date _____________
C. Gregory DeLoach, D.Min.
Dean, School of Theology
ABSTRACT
MOISES A. ROBLETO
Under the direction of JEFFREY WILLETS, Ph.D.
Explicitly or implicitly and whether we like it or not, there are
problems which arise when modern Christians read the Bible as
a Christian text, as part of their religious practice. The focus of
this study will be on the philosophical problems caused by the
historical distance between the Biblical world and ours. Those
problems arise when a modern lens is applied to an ancient
religious text. In this thesis, I will give particular focus to the
ways that conceptual confusions arise in understanding the text
by providing a philosophical analysis of the concept of miracles
in Mark 4:35-41 and how this Biblical account in the life of
Jesus and his disciples illuminates the concept of divine
authority. I will show how modern assumptions can distort
readings and meanings of the text. I will also show how the
reading of the text may be freed from these confused
assumptions by making a philosophical assessment of the
concept of miracles to support the claim of Jesus’ divinity.
There are many philosophical questions to be asked about what
we find in the text of Mark 4:35-41 regarding a miracle

performed by Jesus and how we can ascribe sense to it as
twenty-first century readers of the Bible. The stated purpose for
undertaking this inquiry was to study the concept of “Divine
Authority” this was accomplished by means of a thorough study
of leading postmodern scholars own published writings, and
lectures, giving special consideration to the work in Philosophy
of Christianity by Gareth Moore. How are we to understand the
story of Jesus calming a storm? Such writings tended and
clarified what we find in the story of a Storm Stilled. The story
is not told in causal terms, it is not a matter of cause and effect,
in fact, the story is told as one simple command and nature
obeys. And so in this essay I respond to the disciples question,
not “How did he do it” but, the real question, “What sort of a
man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?“
© 2021
MOISES A. ROBLETO
All Rights Reserved
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As with any project I have completed, many have been
responsible for my success. I
would first like to thank the faculty of the School of Theology
at Mercer University. I would like to certainly lend my
appreciation to my thesis advisor, Dr. Jeffrey Willetts for his
time and assisting or directing my path writing this essay. Also
Dr. Lloyd Allen, a man whom I
respect and admire deeply. Sincere appreciation to Dr.
deClaisse-Walford, this essay would

have never been completed without her input and
professionalism and help since the beginning
of my academic endeavor.
While on the other hand, not directly related to my success in
academic life and business endeavors I would also like to thank
all that did not believe in me, especially my high school teacher
that told me I would never amount to anything. (Thank you so
much for being the impetus in all the good things I do)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction
1
1:1 Methodology

1:2 limitations
1:3 Importance of the study
1:4 Outline
1:5 Definitions
Chapter 2: The modernity chapter and skeptical understandings
07
Chapter 3: Philosophical efforts to preserve traditional reading
of the Biblical Text 25
Chapter 4: Gareth Moore philosophical assessment of the text in
Mark 4:35-41 44
Chapter 5: Confirming the activity of God in the passage of
Mark 4:35-41 55

v
CHAPTER ONE
Explicitly or implicitly and whether we like it or not, there are
problems which arise when modern Christians read the Bible as
a Christian text, as part of their religious practice. The focus of
this study will be on the philosophical problems caused by the
historical distance between the Biblical world and ours. Those
problems arise when a modern lens is applied to an ancient
religious text. In this thesis, I will give particular focus to the
ways that conceptual confusions arise in understanding the text
by providing a philosophical analysis of the concept of miracles
in Mark 4:35-41, and how this Biblical account in the life of
Jesus and his disciples illuminates the concept of divine
authority. I will show how modern assumptions can distort
readings and meanings of the text. I will also show how the
reading of the text may be freed from these confused
assumptions by making a philosophical assessment of the
concept of miracles to support the claim of Jesus’ divinity.
There are many philosophical questions to be asked about what
we find in the text of Mark 4:35-41 regarding a miracle
performed by Jesus and how we can ascribe sense to it as
twenty-first century readers of the Bible.
Modernity and the Bible
One of the most important questions that the world has
continuously grappled with is: Who is Jesus? Answering the
question forms the task of what is referred to as Christology,
which describes the study of the person of Christ. Moreover, the
subject of Christology describes a branch of theology that
explicitly deals with Christ’s person both human and divine.
There is no seminary student who is not under some obligation

to study who Jesus is. The Christian
Scriptures are foundational to that understanding and the
Gospels are central to this knowledge.
However, assessing the sense of the Gospels for Christian
understanding is full of difficulties including the gap between
modern and ancient forms of understanding.
The Gospel of Mark is the earliest of the four gospels within the
New Testament and as such, perhaps, the most authentic of the
four Gospels.[footnoteRef:2] This fact and that it survives at
all is important to me. I find the book of Mark appealing
because it shows the humanity of Jesus, but also represents
Jesus as one with authority, not the authority of a human being,
but of the divine. According to accounts within the Gospels
themselves, Jesus taught in a way that no one ever heard before,
but, when He spoke, His disciples somehow knew He had an
authority that was unlike any other prophet sent before him. In
my studies of the Old Testament, time and again I have seen
that God is not to be construed as the name of a person or a
thing. And yet in the Gospels, there is a clear indication that the
person of Jesus is one in whom we may recognize the divine.
The focal point of this research will be passage of Mark 4:35-
41: [2: Peter M Head, “Christology and The Synoptic Problem,
an Argument for Markan Priority,” Society for New Testament
Studies Monograph Series, (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2005).
]
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us
go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took
him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other
boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke
over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the
stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to
him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”He got up, rebuked
the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind
died down and it was completely calm.He said to his disciples,

“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were
terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and
the waves obey him!”[footnoteRef:3] [3: All scripture citations
are from New International version (NIV) unless otherwise
noted.
]
When we analyze this passage, we see the difficulty of
understanding the text and the kind of challenges and
resolutions modern readers are inclined to make. We see that
the ideas underneath the disagreements are philosophical. And
the question is whether those underlying assumptions by modern
scholars are not themselves part of the confusion in
understanding the biblical text. My goal, through a particular
philosophical analysis, is to analyze and clarify how to read the
biblical text in order to avoid the problems certain modern
readings inevitably create. In other words, what does it mean
that Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, is doing impossible things,
things not possible for a mere human? What does it mean that
Jesus can command nature, and nature obeys?
The Research Questions of this Project: Focused to Provide an
Illumination of Divine Authority in the Person of Jesus of
Nazareth
Chapter 1: How can a philosophical assessment of the text of
Mark 4:35-41 illuminate an
understanding of Divine Authority in the person of Jesus? As
discussed in the introduction, my focus will be a philosophical
understanding of the conceptual problems generated by modern
readings of the biblical text. Specifically, what kind/s of
problem does the historical and cultural distance between
ancient and modern/postmodern readers present to an
understanding of the notion of divine authority in Mark 4:35-
41?
Chapter 2: What kind of understanding informs modern

skeptical readings of the biblical text, with specific attention to
the work of Bart Erhman and his reading of the Gospels and
their historical reliability? This section will highlight
traditional modern concerns about the reliability of the Gospels’
accounts of miracles. It will show in what ways a highly
respected biblical historian raises skeptical questions about the
reliability of the Gospels as a basis for believing in miracles.
Chapter 3: What kind of understanding informs modern
recovery readings of the biblical text, with special attention to
the work of William Lane Craig and his philosophical efforts to
preserve traditional readings of the biblical text? This section
will highlight how a highly respected Christian philosopher
attempts to recover the validity of the Gospel accounts of
miracles.
Chapter 4: How does Gareth Moore’s
grammatical/philosophical assessment of Mark 4:35-41 dissolve
the modern tension in reading the biblical text represented
negatively in Ehrman and positively in Craig, with particular
attention to the question of miracles and divine authority? In
this section I will look at how Gareth Moore’s philosophical
assessment of the miracle story in Mark 4:35-41 offers an
alternative reading of the biblical text, presenting a challenge to
the assumptions embedded in both Erhman and Craig.
Chapter 5: How does Moore’s grammatical, philosophical
approach suggest a better way to read the biblical texts, moving
toward a more coherent understanding of the biblical concept of
divine authority in the person of Jesus? In this section, I will
show how Moore’s alternative reading suggests an alternative
program of reading the bible, with attention to the work of
Søoren Kierkegaard as an example of a grammatical reading of
divine authority. I will demonstrate how a grammatical,
philosophical reading connects the reading of the stories of
miracles in the Gospels with the divine authority of Jesus.
Most of the comments I have made are about Christianity,
and mostly what I have learned in seminary. In this essay I
looked at problems that may torment the modern-day seminary

student of the Bible. There are many issues involved in reading
the Bible, one is to read it as a work of ancient literature. My
concern was with problems arising for Christian students from
reading the Bible as a specifically Christian book. Half of the
Bible, the part we students call “Tanakh” or the Old Testament
is also what Jewish students use. That is a part that I did not
cover in this essay, since there may be different problems that
arise for Jewish students reading the Jewish Bible today from
those that arise for Christian students reading the Christian
Bible or New Testament. I do not speak for other students, but
since I come from a Christian culture, as, I guess, do all my
classmates. My comments are only a small contribution to the
philosophy of Christianity not the philosophy of religion since
other religions have different scriptures.
Methodology
In order to accomplish this work, this research will
examine two competing approaches to the question of the
reliability of miracle stories in the Gospels, particularly in Mark
4:35-4. I will examine the philosophical assumptions driving the
two points of view in the discussion of the meaning of the
miracle story and how it functions, and what questions are
appropriate to that discussion. The research will then apply
further conceptual analysis to the two opposing views to clarify
the sense in which the miracle story informs the notion of
divine authority in the person of Jesus. The inquiry will be
grammatical and philosophical in character and will depend on
insights developed by philosophers in the grammatical,
contemplative tradition in the latter half of the twentieth
century.
Limitations
First, the philosophical approach to the question will be
grammatical rather than analytic or hermeneutical. This
approach was pioneered by the twentieth century philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein, and has been further developed in the
philosophy of religion by such figures as D.Z. Phillips, Peter

Winch, Norman Malcolm, Rush Rhees, Gareth Moore, and
Stephen Mulhall. Secondly, for the last two centuries the
subject of the reliability of the Gospel of Mark has found no
rest. The size of this paper does not permit to include a
comprehensive examination of all opinions on this topic. This
inquiry will focus its reflection on Mark 4:35-41 only. There
are many accounts in the Gospels of miracles performed by
Jesus. I am focusing on Mark 4:35-41 primarily because Mark
is the earliest of the Gospels, and therefore more reliable
historically, and because this particular account in Mark is a
good example of the relationship between the person of Jesus
and the miraculous.
Importance of the Study
It is a custom of this seminary to require a thesis or essay which
will prepare students for future academic endeavors. The
present essay is more than a “student thesis” and more than an
apologetic justification of the seminary life. It is true that
writings about Jesus and his miracles are abundant and quite
plentiful, and in any case, the apologia for the seminary life
tends to be overworked. It is true that explanations are owed,
and therefore must be given. My seminary experience was so
radically different from the rest of my classmates in the sense
that I came as a believer and little by little, became very
skeptical about God, the Bible, and the historical Jesus and his
divinity claims that frankly, I was misleading others in the same
path. Seminaries seem to be so much a thing of the past, and so
alien to our technologically driven world. The life of the
seminary student seems on many counts to be pointless. And
these objections themselves dictate replies. It is natural to argue
that the seminary student is not so different after all and to
assert that he or she has a very definite role to play in our
society, that he or she is part of this world, and that he or she is
not useless at all. In a world of racism, noise, confusion, dirty
politics, and conflict, it is necessary that there be places like the
seminary where one can search for the truth, ponder the
scriptures, and find inexplicable curiosity to find Christ in this

particular context and in this particular moment inhistory.
CHAPTER TWO
Modern Sensibilities and skeptical understanding of the Gospels
Bart Ehrman writes, “There are few things more dangerous than
inbred religious certainty.”[footnoteRef:4] Every religion
follows a unique pattern for recording and propagating the
primary teachings, which can be interpreted as per the
requirements of the respective era. Some religions have their
whole teachings in a secured recorded manner, while others still
struggle with finding [4: Bart D Ehrman, Jesus Before the
Gospels. (New York: HarperOne 2016) 128.]
the lost parts or confirming the authenticity of current
teachings. This issue is more common in older religions that
were founded when there were no proper tools for writing and
recording. Even if there were sufficient tools, the key people
did not think of recording it. For most monotheistic religions,
the recording phase started much later than the initial date of
teachings. Although maximum efforts were done to reach out to
the authentic sources and record only those teachings, practices,
values, and laws that are backed by sufficient evidence, to this
day, many arguments exist questioning the authenticity of these
teachings. These controversies around teachings exist in all
Semitic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

In Christianity, the main arguments surrounding the authenticity
and reliability of teachings exist because of differences between
primary sources of information: The synoptic Gospels of Luke,
Mark, Matthew. Another primary source is the Gospel of John,
which contains the highest Christology. The phenomena of
synoptic Gospels exists because the Gospels of Luke, Mark, and
Matthew share the same stories, teachings, and in most cases,
with the same words in same order. On the contrary, the Gospel
of John has very distinctive content, stories, words, and
theology. This chapter will explore different opinions on the
reliability of Gospels with a special focus on authenticity and
unreliability of gospels under the light of the work of Bart
Ehrman. When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first
began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages
he began to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional
alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In his
published work, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and
changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and
shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we study in
seminary. He frames his account with personal reflections on
how his study of the Gospels in their original Greek
manuscripts made him abandon his faith.
Ehrman’s Skepticism
The Gospels of the New Testament are the most inspiring,
powerful, moving, and beautiful books for seminary students.
Their stories about Jesus of Nazareth’s deeds and words are a
major source of knowledge for those who seek guidance from
God through Jesus. They have defined moral, ethical, and social
laws for generation after generation. The Gospels have been the
most important source of information and teachings in the
Christian tradition for almost the last two thousand years,
including information regarding creation, morality, a loving
God, mankind in need of a savior, and Jesus coming to the
world in a particular time in history. The scope of these books
is so extensive that they remain equally crucial for civilizations
and for individual lives. Despite their evident significance

throughout history, there is not sufficient evidence that the
books are historically accurate. “There were some books, such
as the Gospels, that had been written anonymously, only later to
be ascribed to certain authors who probably did not write them.”
[footnoteRef:5] Erhman argues that we do not possess any
original copies of the Gospels, all we have are copies that
contain mistakes and changes made to the original manuscripts.
There is no denying that they include valuable information that
is historically very significant about the life and death of Jesus,
but the content of the books is also non-historical as well. This
opinion about non-historical content is shared by critical
scholars across the globe. And finally Erhman insists that as a
historian all miracles performed by Jesus cannot be accounted
as historical events due to their incomprehensible supernatural
nature. [5: Reddish, Mitchell (2011) An Introduction to the
Gospels. Abingdon Press. P.13
]
The Gospels remained a significant part of the lives of masses
throughout history, but their understanding and comprehension
of these religious books varied from time to time and from
civilization to civilization. According to Ehrman, the overall
comprehension of the Gospels can be divided into three eras:
Gospels as supernatural histories; Gospels as natural histories;
and Gospels as non-historical myths.[footnoteRef:6] The first
era of understanding, the Gospels as supernatural histories, was
the duration of time from the 1st century to 17th century, from
the beginning of the Christian faith until the bloody wars which
decimated the population in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. This was a stage where scholars studying the Bible
believed and stated that the teachings and stories mentioned in
the Gospels were, in fact, supernatural histories. This era was
the comprehension of the gospel before humanity reached the
Enlightenment period. Before the advent of the 18th century,
the general belief of scholars termed this era as supernatural

history because only it provided them with a possible
explanation of the stories and miracles mentioned in the
gospels. They believed that the books are based on supernatural
events, and that is why they include stories about remarkable
and miraculous happenings, such as Jesus calming a storm,
commanding nature as God does. The gospels are full of miracle
stories from the birth of Jesus until his resurrection. From start
to end, the Gospels are filled with miracles and magical events
for which the human mind has no explanation, so postmodern
scholars believed them to be supernatural stories. Scholars
called them supernatural but believed them in full spirit. They
were convinced that these events happened with the help of
God, with the exception of the miracle with the storm where
Jesus does not ask for help and calms the wind and waves on his
own. [6: Ibid]
Furthermore, the second phase of understanding named “The
Gospels as
natural histories” was the era of enlightenment. During this
time, scholars looked and perceived things very differently, and
they broke free from the previous restrictions imposed by the
Church, and they created a rational way of seeing and analyzing
things. During this phase, the emphasis remained on the
possibility of all human reasons for comprehending the world
and the nature and origins of life in it. During this time,
scholars found scientific and rational reasons for the miracles
that happened during the lifetime of Jesus. For example, the
crucifixion and resurrection were explained by Paulus as the
body of Jesus going into a coma because of severe stress. Later,
he came out of the coma, which has been perceived as given a
new life after death.[footnoteRef:7] [7: Woods, 2019
]
The third phase, named 'The Gospels as non-historical myths,'
started in 1835-36 when David Friedrich Strauss published his
book 'The Life of Jesus Critically Examined.' This publication

initiated the third stage of gospels' comprehension. He argued
that both previous comprehensions were not right and that
gospels were neither supernatural histories nor natural histories;
in fact, they are not histories at all. He presented the argument
that the gospels were actually myths; the stories mentioned in
them never happened. They were created by human minds and
presented to the rest of the world as reality. Here the
understanding of myth is crucial. Friedrich explained myth is
something that never happened, but usually the main character
in a myth is a god, or supernatural humans. In other words, the
miracles mentioned in the gospels never happened, but the
message they want to communicate about Jesus is true. The
stories were created to tell the world truth about Jesus.
Erhman argues the stories mentioned in the gospels are
historically inaccurate, but they attempt to convey and
communicate a true comprehension of Jesus. It is certain that
some information mentioned about Jesus in gospels is correct,
but their order and additional information are not. For example,
the incident of Jesus leaving his home, going to the city of
Jerusalem and having a Passover meal (the last supper) is, in
fact, true. It is true that this meal and meeting enraged the
Roman authorities, and they ordered the arrest of Jesus; the
details about where the meal was prepared, who prepared it,
where Jesus met his followers when he was arrested, and when
he was crucified are all different. The major differences exist in
the versions explained in the Gospel of John and in the Gospel
of Mark. The two primary sources have distinctive differences,
and their versions of the story contradict each other. John's
version is theologically correct but historically inaccurate,
while on the other hand, Mark presents a theologically incorrect
but historically accepted version. This does not mean that the
miracle of Jesus calming the storm occurred. Either one of these
versions is correct, and the other is not, or it is possible that
neither of the two versions is correct. Perhaps something else
happened, maybe it stopped raining or the whole story was a
fabrication. But the two Gospel authors perceived them in

different ways and then explained in their own unique
manner.[footnoteRef:8] [8: Bart Ehrman, “Ehrman & Licona:
Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? Part 1” The Bart Ehrman
Blog: The History & Literature of Early Christianity, March 18,
2018.
]
Furthermore, the stories mentioned in the Gospels might have
higher religious and theological significance, but they are
historically inaccurate. The life of Jesus was influenced and
impacted by the culture and values of that time. His birth, life,
and death, including the miracle of the storm, are all influenced
by the traditions of his time, but some accounts in the Gospels
present stories that do not relate to the traditions of that time,
which indicates that these stories are historically inaccurate.
This is the same point presented by David Friedrich Strauss and
Ehrman as they argued that gospels are full of such stories that
cannot be correct under historical lenses. There are a wide ra nge
of inaccurate historical stories, including the one about Jesus'
last meal and crucifixion, the Gospels presents different
accounts sometimes irreconcilable. This is not limited to this
one incident. Many stories mentioned in these gospels
contradict each other or contradict with the historical values of
that time.
Another crucial point that raises the question on the reliability
and authenticity of gospels is that there is little to no
information about the authors of gospels. Even though
throughout history, the Gospels have been deemed as the most
significant source of information about the life of Jesus, and
they have been called by their authors "Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John," there is no information about the authors. The four
most crucial books of the largest religion in the world are
anonymous. The names of authors were never announced in
early manuscripts. The four Gospels with the most important
information about the life of Jesus of Nazareth circulated

anonymously for decades after they were
written.[footnoteRef:9] A general perception existed in history
that these four authors were followers of Jesus who eye-
witnessed his struggles and his life and then wrote these
versions of Jesus' life, but this is not true. The followers of
Jesus were illiterate villagers belonging to the lower class and
Aramaic speaking individuals.[footnoteRef:10] These books
were written by well trained and highly educated individuals
who had a very good grip on the Greek language. They were
probably elite Christians living in big cities and had never
witnessed the struggle of Jesus or even met
him.[footnoteRef:11] Their account of Jesus's life is dependent
on the stories they heard. Their source of information was not
written, but oral stories about Jesus's birth, deeds, words, death,
and then resurrection. There is enough evidence to support the
claim that scribes altered or changed the New Testament on
purpose to fit their agenda, they added and deleted information
not found in older manuscripts, in short, there are lots of
reasons to discredit the authenticity of gospels. Moreover, the
gospels were written some 40-65 years later between 70-95CE.
The difference of four to six decades is a long time, and in that
time, the stories changed generations and no true account was
available. Also, the intention behind these writings is unclear,
which raises questions on the authenticity of these accounts. In
brief, the integrity of authors is as crucial as the integrity of the
content. [footnoteRef:12] [9: Bart D. Ehrman, The New
Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian
Writings, (Oxford University Press, 2011).] [10: Acts 4:5-13]
[11: (Erhman, 2016)
] [12: Robert B. Stewart, Bart D. Ehrman and Daniel B.
Wallace in Dialogue, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press,
2011).
]
The gospels are the biggest source of information about Jesus's
life, death, and resurrection, but their authenticity remains

questionable. The comprehension of the gospels passed through
three different phases, including Ehrman’s proposed 'Gospels as
supernatural histories,' 'gospels as natural histories' and 'gospels
as non-historical myths.' The last of these states that gospels are
non-historical myths because the stories mentioned in the
gospels never happened, but the message they want to
communicate about Jesus is true.
The stories were created to tell the world truth about Jesus. This
is supported by the analysis of stories in the light of history.
These stories might be theologically right, but they are
historically unauthentic. Furthermore, they were not written by
those who had first-hand knowledge of these events. The stories
were written by Greek Christians living in far away in big
cities, and they did not have first-hand knowledge of any of
these events.[footnoteRef:13] The authors of Mark, Mathew,
Luke, and John are anonymous, and their identities are never
revealed, which makes the integrity of writing ambiguous. [13:
Ehrman, New Testament (2011), 81
]
Ehrman wonders whether the New Testament's gospel has
historically accurate stories. He states that there is no historical
evidence of most of the teachings in the New
Testament.[footnoteRef:14] Ehrman doesn't blame Christians
for believing in the New Testament as he believes [14: D. B.
Wallace, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual
Criticism, (InterVarsity Press, 2019).
]
that sometimes it is not easy to demonstrate what exactly
happened due to lack of evidence or lack of
information.[footnoteRef:15] Furthermore, it is not easy to keep
records of everything that happens daily, and that is nobody's
fault. But this fact makes Bart Ehrman doubt the preaching and
miracles performed in the New Testament, especially the
passage in Mark 4:35-41, claiming that miracles cannot be

demonstrated historically. Matthew 8:23-27 presents a similar
but different account: [15: R. W. Yarbrough, “The Epistle of
John” in The Historical Reliability of the New Testament:
Countering the Challenges to Evangelical Christian Beliefs ed.
Robert B. Stewart and Craig L. Blomberg, (Nashville: B&H
Academic Publishing), 2016, 599.
]
Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him.
Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves
swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went
and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”
He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he
got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was
completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind
of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
Ehrman does not condemn the New Testament's Gospel despite
not having historical proof of the events that happened in the
New Testament.[footnoteRef:16] He compares the writers of the
New Testament to historians who do not share all the detai led
information about some of the historical events, but still get
their audience to believe in their accounts. Just like the New
Testament writers, historians cannot show all the aesthetic
sensitivities of what exactly happened. This means that the
Christian writers could just assume some of the things they
wrote in the New Testament. [16: D.P. Nystrom, “The
Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society, 61 (2018): 381-384
]
Based on the arguments about historians failing to record every
detail about the historical events, it is not fair to judge the
Christian writers based on their failure to present historical
facts about the Gospel in the New Testament.[footnoteRef:17]
Still, Erhman argues that secular historians do not have the

same religious beliefs as Christians. This means that the
historians in their historical proceedings cannot demonstrate
that Christian God existed in history as they do not show him
anywhere in their writings. Still, Christian historians share one
common trait that is the unified demonstrated facts that the New
Testament was written anonymously, all originals documents
have been lost or destroyed, and miracles of Jesus fall outside
of historical spectrum, as a non-believer and historian Ehrman
asserts is not appropriate to discuss what probably happened in
the past, especially supernatural events. [17: C.L. Blomberg in
The Historical Reliability of the New Testament: Countering the
Challenges to Evangelical Christian Beliefs ed. Robert B.
Stewart and Craig L. Blomberg, (Nashville: B&H Academic
Publishing), 2016.
]
Jewish Skepticism of Reliability of the New Testament
This section presents a case against the New Testament, as
highlighted by one of the leading Jewish scholars of our time
identified as Tovia Singer. It is nearly impossible not to
mention a leading Jewish scholar in this work to state the
importance of Jesus Jewishness. Modern scholars like Erhman
and Singer have rejected the idea of Jesus being the Messiah.
For
over two thousand years now, Christians have believed that
Jesus is the Messiah of the Jewish people and all the nations.
Both Tovia Singer and Barth Ehrman develop positions against
the New Testament and miracles allegedly performed by Jesus.
The most common position is that Jesus failed to fulfill
prophecy to the Jewish people, and this made them base their
values and beliefs on a national revelation or Torah. They
claimed that Jesus never fulfilled most of the promises he made
to Jewish people and as such, they could not believe that he was
their savior. Today, most Jewish branches uphold the idea that

Jesus is not their Messiah.
Singer propones that the miracle recorded in Mark 4:35-41
probably never occurred. In recent decades, discussion of this
miracle presents a variety of problems and has moved in a
number of directions. According to Singer the miracle stories in
the New Testament are not important and do not show Jesus is a
Divine figure. He turns to the beginning of Deuteronomy where
the Torah addresses miracles: In Deuteronomy 13:1-2, the Bible
raises the question of how to respond to a “prophet” who offers
to show a miracle to support his message. How are we to
respond if, in fact, the promised miracle comes to pass just as
he predicted? Should we then follow this “prophet” even if he
encourages us to worship other gods which our fathers did not
know? “You must not listen to the words of that prophet or
dreamer,” the Almighty emphatically declares. “I did not send
him,” says the Lord. For Rabbi Singer miracles performed by
Jesus are just a test from God. This poses certain challenges
that modern readers of the text must face, such as the scientific
inquiry and criticism from Rabbi Singer, who believes that the
messianic age has not and cannot be here yet because prophecy
has not yet been fulfilled.[footnoteRef:18] For example: The
promise to establish the third temple is found in Ezekiel's book,
chapter thirty-seven[footnoteRef:19] Jesus also pledged to
spread God's word and bring people together in peace and
harmony worldwide. However, most Jews believe that Jesus
failed to fulfill all these promises. The Holy temple was
destroyed in the year 70 A.D and never rebuilt. [footnoteRef:20]
[18: ] [19: Yarbrough, 2016.
] [20: Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol 1: The
early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. (HarperOne,
2010), p,22]
No one has ever fulfilled the second coming of Messiah, and in
the Jewish tradition this means that there is no concept of the
second coming of someone who doesn't fulfill his or her
promises.[footnoteRef:21] Jews hold that Jesus did not meet his

Messianic prophecies and promises. This is not true of
Christians, as most of them still believe in the second coming of
Jesus Christ. And the fact that it has not happened yet does not
necessarily mean that it will not happen. Paul, the Pharisee from
Tarsus who became the church’s first great evangelist, confirms
this messianic view, albeit filtered through his understanding of
Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one. [21: Wallace, 2019
]
The early believers and followers of Jesus were Jews who spoke
Aramaic. They lived in Israel and practiced Judaism, which
made them conversant with the Hebrew teachings. They
believed that Jesus was their Messiah, and longed to see him
come back for them. However, the Jewish leadership did not
think that Jesus was their Messiah, and held different
perspectives. For Rabbi Singer claims of Jesus’s divinity or
miracles are false. He claims that Jesus never fulfilled most of
the promises clearly made to the Jewish people in the Jewish
Bible or Old Testament, and as such, He could not believe that
Jesus was the Messiah.[footnoteRef:22] Today, most Jewish
branches uphold the idea that Jesus is not their Messiah. [22:
The Jewish response to a Christian Challenge
]
For Singer, the reference that Jesus as being from the lineage
of King David is a contradiction since according to the Gospel
of Luke and Mathew Jesus was born to a virgin, and therefore
be unable to claim the right to Davidic line because tribal
lineage is traced exclusively through a person’s father clearly
written in Torah. [footnoteRef:23] [23: Numbers 1:18
]
Another aspect that Singer criticizes is the miraculous birth of
Jesus by virgin mother,[footnoteRef:24] This virgin birth is
described in two books of the New Testament, namely Luke and
Matthew. However, Singer claims that these two books

contradict the details about the virgin birth of Jesus. For
instance, the text of Matthew states that Jesus was born to
Mary, who was a virgin wife to Joseph and had never had sex
with her husband before.[footnoteRef:25] The book of Luke
only points out that Mary was a virgin and gave birth to baby
Jesus. The genealogies in books contradict each other, these two
statements are controversial as they do not provide similar
details of the accounts or the events leading to the birth of Jesus
by the Virgin Mary, and there is contradiction in the two birth
narratives. Singer, alongside other Jewish biblical scholars, has
long debated against the virgin birth of Jesus. Most scholars
argue that no direct link displays information about this virgin
birth.[footnoteRef:26] They claim that this virgin birth is only a
myth. They explain that the Hebrew word for virgin is betulah
adding “when missionaries try to prove the virgin birth of Jesus,
they incorrectly quote Isaiah 7:14. The Hebrew word they
translate is “Almah” and not “betulah”.[footnoteRef:27] Singer
also argues that Luke and Matthew present different accounts of
the birth of Jesus. He also adds that Virgin Birth is not included
in the early sources of Jewish readings and teachings
documented in the Jewish Bible. As such, it is difficult for most
Jewish people to believe something that is not present in the
historical records of Judaism. Additionally, the scholar claims
that there is no written evidence from history to show that Jesus
was born to a virgin mother.[footnoteRef:28] Singer asserts that
the notion of virgin birth comes from the book of Isaiah that
describes an "alma" as the virgin that gives birth. The word
Almah translates to a young woman, but rabbi Singer claims
that Christians translated this word to virgin and accorded the
birth of Jesus to a virgin birth without strong evidence. This
fact does not necessarily mean that Mary was a virgin and gave
birth to baby Jesus as a virgin. Either way, other Jews think that
maybe Mary was an Almah and that is the reason why she gave
birth to Jesus despite being a virgin. Tovia Singer writes in his
tow volume book (lets’ get Biblical) against the gospel of the
New Testament as he believes Jesus did not fulfill his

prophesies as he promised.[footnoteRef:29] [24: C. L.
Blomberg, Historical Reliability 2016
] [25: R. W. Yarbrough in The Historical Reliability of the
New Testament: Countering the Challenges to Evangelical
Christian Beliefs ed. Robert B. Stewart and Craig L. Blomberg,
(Nashville: B&H Academic Publishing), 2016.
] [26: D.P. Nystrom, “Historical Reliability of the Gospels,”
2018
] [27: Tovia, Singer, Let’s Get Biblical: Why doesn’t Judaism
accept the Christian Messiah? Volume 1, (RNVN Publishers),
2010, p27
] [28: Wallace, 2019
] [29: Nystrom, 2018]
He claims that Jesus as Messiah separates the Jewish faith from
Christianity., This distinction is not the only one, but it’s the
most crucial. Prophecy to a perfect future is characterized by
peace and useful life in various books, including Jeremiah 31;
Isaiah 2; and Micah 4, among others. This was never fulfilled,
and since we live in chaos, war, and conflicts worldwide,
obviously the Jewish messiah has not yet come.
Singer believes that Paul invented Christianity and not Jesus, as
most Christians believe. Paul was a supporter of Jesus Christ,
and he converted to Christianity after oppressing the disciples
of the same Christianity on his way to Damascus. Jewish people
believe that Paul was the principal founder of Christianity.
When Singer turns his attention to the New Testament he points
out that Jesus never claimed to be God or messiah, while in the
real sense, the apostle Paul was the principal founder of this
religion. He gives evidence of the seven books in the New
Testament, all written by the apostle. Jewish people believe that
Paul developed Christianity from his teachings as a missionary
and an apostle, and what he experienced as revelation of the

resurrection of a Messiah is not true. Upon receiving this
vision, Paul traveled to different countries within the Roman
Empire to spread the gospel about the returning of Jesus from
death and reappearing in the kingdom of God.[footnoteRef:30]
However, critics of Singer’s work contend that Paul did not
develop any religion, but he only advised people to transform
their lives. Time passed, and Jesus did not return. As a result,
Jesus’s early followers questioned Paul to validate his writings
about the coming of Jesus, which made him establish a
Christian doctrine. [30: Wallace, 2019]
According to Singer, The Catholic Church glued The New
Testament to Old Testament to make it more reliable, but to see
and hear Jesus in his historical context enriches and validates
the New Testament because “Jesus of Nazareth dressed like a
Jew, prayed like a Jew (and most likely in Aramaic), instructed
other Jews on how best to live according to the commandments
given by God to Moses, taught like a Jew, argued like a Jew
with other Jews, and died like thousands of other Jews on a
Roman cross.” [footnoteRef:31] [31: Amy Levine, The
Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish
Jesus, (New York: HarperCollins), 2006, 51.
]
Singer believes that Catholic Church attached or glued the New
Testament to the Old Testament to make the story of Jesus more
reliable.[footnoteRef:32] The early Church fathers also did this
to demonstrate some of the events that led to Jesus' time. Singer
claims that the only reliable evidence in the Bible is written in
the Old Testament, Tanach is the word of God, and not the other
way around, which is more different than it is similar to the new
synoptic Gospels. “The assertion of Christianity is that God’s

revelation to the Jewish people and to others did not end with
the canonization of the Jewish scriptures, the Tanach
approximately 450 BCE.”[footnoteRef:33] Christians insist that
God’s revelations did not end at that time but continue with the
writings of the New Testament. [32: Yarbrough 2016.] [33:
Jews for Judaism.org/newtestamentcritique/.org]
Singer believes that Christians have a sole duty to survive and
defend God's word through evangelism and fight against the
enemy, Satan. He finds this notion contradictory as the New
Testament also states that the idea of God's kingdom is in
people's hearts and has nothing to do with our surroundings.
This teaching implies that what churchgoers do outside of the
church is not a concern to God.
Ehrman and Singer pose an immense problem since both see the
Bible simply as a work of ancient literature full of mistakes,
contradictions, historically unreliable, and not as part of their
religious practice. This is precisely why the next section will
focus on a different approach, a more radical approach by
Christian scholars that obtains and critiques the information in
the New Testament in a whole new way.

CHAPTER THREE
CHRISTIAN SCHOLARS AND THEIR PHILOSOPHICAL
ATTEMPTS TO PRESERVE TRADITIONAL READINGS OF
THE BIBLE.
This next chapter successfully examines the thoughts and
perceptions of William Lane Craig on the credibility of the
miracles performed by Jesus in the New Testament. One of the
most important tools of communication for modern philosophers
is the way they understand traditional readings of the biblical
text. Belief in Jesus as the Christ-the Messiah-separates church
and synagogue, Christians and Jews.[footnoteRef:34] For more
than 2000 years, billions of people have believed that the
teachings of Jesus provide them salvation in this world and in
the hereafter as well. The teachings of Jesus have been
translated to almost all major languages, and people believing
in his faith are present in all parts of the world. It is today the
biggest religion in the world, with 2.4 billion
followers.[footnoteRef:35] It is not just the biggest religion of
today, but it has remained as one of the key religions
throughout history since its inception. For the past 2000 years,
it has been expanding from one region to another and became a
source of becoming and enlightenment for billions of people
throughout this time. “Even the most critical historian can
confidently assert that a Jew named Jesus worked as a teacher
and wonder-worker in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius,
was executed by crucifixion under the prefect Pontius Pilate and
continued to have followers after his death.”[footnoteRef:36]
And this is not just because of his teachings, but also his
miracles from which people even today find inspiration. [34:
Amy-Jill Levine, The misunderstood Jew: The church and the
Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperOne 2006) p.17
] [35: Countrymeters.info/world religions/ Christianity.
Retrieved 15 February 2021.] [36: Luke Timothy Johnson, The

Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and
the Truth of the Traditional Gospels, (San Francisco:
HarperCollins 1996), 123.]
The teachings, miracles, stories, words, and deeds of Jesus have
been recorded in four key Gospels, The writings of Mathew,
Mark, Luke and John, and they have passed on from generation
to generation. The Gospels acted as the main source of
information, but the perception and comprehension of Gospels
have changed and evolved over time. The historical study of the
Bible started as the gospels perceived as supernatural histories
before the age of enlightenment. The masses believed the
stories shared in the Gospel without any critical analysis. They
believed that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and that he
died, and God raised him from death. During the enlightenment
phase, the perception about gospels changed. Theologians of the
enlightenment began to critically analyze the teachings and
miracles of Jesus presented in the Gospels and the quest for the
historical Jesus continues. Under this perception, scholars
provided logical rationale and reason for the stories, deeds, and
actions mentioned in the Gospels. This process continued till
1835 when "The Life of Jesus Critically Examined" by David
Friedrich Strauss was published. Then a new era started, a type
of historical guide to the life of Jesus with attention to
historical authenticity of the Gospels. As perceptions about the
Gospels changed, the perception of Jesus also changed. Today,
questions are raised about the possibility of Jesus born of
Virgin Mary and his resurrection after death. The miracles of
Jesus are questioned even by the brightest minds of today. l
William Lane Craig is one of the most influential philosophers
who openly questions the credibility and reliability of the
miracles performed by Jesus. He claims that most of the stories
about miracles of Jesus are legendary and are addressed only by
legends. Still, he gives the benefit of the doubt that Jesus
carried out these miracles as he understands the miracles

a result of divine and supernatural causality. Graig claims that
when historians critique the four primary sources of the life of
Jesus; even the most doubtful person cannot fail to believe that
Jesus cast out demons and healed the sick through his miracles,
as the synoptic Gospels presuppose Jesus as a miracle worker.
Craig believes that the resurrection hypothesis, in turn, is
dependent on the existence of God, so his argument begins
addressing the criteria of credibility which enables readers to
develop a specific interest in the preaching and teachings of
Jesus as a historical event. In this light, Christian scholars
ended up linking Jesus to these miracles such as casting out
demons and treating the sick.[footnoteRef:37] But most
believers today recognize that this idea of mythological
leverage is traditionally inappropriate. On the other hand,
Christian fundamentalist strongly oppose modern scholarship,
and biblical criticism. The extraordinary life of Jesus as a
miracle worker is only necessarily an indication that a person is
divine. [37: William Lane Craig, “Rediscovering the
Historical Jesus: The Evidence for Jesus,” Reasonable Faith,
2019, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-
writings/historical-jesus/rediscovering-the-historical-jesus-the-
evidence-for-jesus/ (accessed August 27, 2020).]
Dr. Craig states that the focus of discussion around the
reliability of the Gospels, and miracles of Jesus is misplaced. It
is not just the number of manuscripts or age of manuscripts
which dictate the authenticity, but it is also the rationale behind
these miracles which prove its correctness. All the manuscripts
from the 1st century and 21st century carry the same stories,
actions, words, and deeds of Jesus. Despite the general belief by
Barth Erhman that the manuscripts have been corrupted or
changed and a contrast between the first manuscripts available
to them and today's manuscripts show that there is not even a
single difference in doctrine or theology. Furthermore, in the
New Testament, there are approximately 140,000 words, and
among this number, only 14,000 words are not authentic or do

not have sufficient evidence to prove their
authenticity.[footnoteRef:38] [38: Reasonablefaith.org,
/podcast/defenders/series3/3. Retrieved 15 February 16, 2021.]
This number is very minimal and presents only 1% of the total
word count. In other words, there exists substantial proof for
the remaining 99% of words. This means that not only is the
New Testament available today for preaching is as accurate as
its first-ever available version, but it also contains the
information which has been authenticated by sufficient
sources.[footnoteRef:39] There exists a distinctive feature
between Dr. Craig's work and the work of Friedrich Strauss.
David Friedrich Strauss, in his book "The Life of Jesus
Critically Examined," stated that the stories, words, deeds and
miracles explained in the gospels are not actual stories but
myths. He provided a unique understating of myth. He said that
myth does not have a physical existence, but it is also true.
Strauss said that these miracles attached to Jesus's name did not
happen, but it does not mean that his early followers
misunderstood natural events as supernatural miracles. In his
opinion, these miracles and stories are created to convey the
attributes and abilities of Jesus. Similarly, Dr. Craig says that a
miracle is an event that the natural causes at a time and place
cannot produce at that time and place. In other words, they
reflect the life of Jesus, his abilities, powers, and divine nature.
They do not have to be historically proven because they are not
presentations of history. History might state something different
because there are other accounts of the past, but the Gospels are
a primary source of information about Jesus, his life, and his
teachings. Another perspective shared by Dr. Craig is that the
miracles of Jesus have more connection with faith than
scientific reasoning. For example, Jesus’ birth might seem
biologically impossible, but in terms of faith and belief it is
entirely possible. If one believes that God exists and he is the
creator of this world, then logically we can infer that a powerful
God who is capable of creating the universe can also create a

human life without male intervention. What difference does it
make for God to give life a chance in the womb of a virgin
woman? [39: William Craig, “#10 Establishing the Gospels’
Reliability,” Reasonable Faith, June 5 2007,
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-
answer/establishing-the-gospels-reliability (accessed August 27,
2020).
]
Similarly, the death and resurrection of Jesus are differentiated
perspectives in Mark and John's gospels. And since both are
contradictory, it indicates that only one story is accurate, But
Dr. Craig says that neither of the two is correct or incorrect. It
is not the way the story is told; It is whatthe story told. Both
stories accept Jesus left his home and went to Jerusalem for his
last meal. There, Jesus had discussions with his followers, after
which he was arrested and crucified the next day. This process
has some ambiguities because of two distinct versions, but
Craig argues that the spirit of the story is more important than
its structure. The order of story could vary, but the spirit or soul
remained intact. Dr. Craig states that the fundamental truth of
Christianity is dependent on the general reliability of the
Gospels. He believes that the Gospels presents four facts that
can be demonstrated historically. Dr. Craig writes in his
published work that historian can examine the historical
grounds for belief in Jesus’s resurrection focusing number one
in the honorable burial by Joseph of Arimathea, number two the
empty tomb, his post mortem appearances, and the origin of the
disciples’ belief in his resurrection. According to Dr. Craig the
resurrection accounts are the best proof Christian have to claim
that God has revealed himself decisively in Jesus. The
resurrection is God’s vindication of Jesus’s radical claims to
divine authority.[footnoteRef:40] [40: William lane Graig,
Reasonable faith: Christian truth and apologetics, Third Edition
(Crossway, 2008) , p.15]

The reliability of the Gospels is based on claims that are
rooted in history, as a New Testament historian, Dr. Craig
approaches the Gospels not as inspired Holy Scripture, but
merely as a collection of ancient writings dated during the first
century A.D, our surprise as seminary students is that the
majority of secular and Christian scholars accept as historical
facts events mentioned in the Gospels.
Fact #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by
Joseph of Arimathea, this fact is highly significant because it
shows the tomb or burial location was known to Jews, in that
case, the disciples could never have proclaimed his resurrection
in Jerusalem if the tomb had not been empty.[footnoteRef:41]
A respected scholar John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge
University writes” the burial of Jesus in the tomb is one of the
earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus.”[footnoteRef:42]
[41: Graig, p.21] [42: John A. T. Robinson, The Human face
of God, (Philadelphia, Westminster, 1973), p.131. ]
Fact #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’s tomb
was found empty by a group of his women followers. The fact
that women testimony was discounted in first century Palestine
stands in favor of the women’s role in discovering the tomb.
Fact #3: On multiple occasions and under various
circumstances, different individuals and groups of people
experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead. The
appearance traditions in the Gospels provide multiple,
independent attestation of these appearances, this is one of the
most important marks of historicity. According to the Oxford
classical dictionary: Historicity denotes actuality of past events,
authenticity, factuality, and focuses on true value of knowledge
claims about the past. [footnoteRef:43] [43: Simon
Homblower, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, (Oxford
University press,2012), p79]
Fact #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen

from the dead despite having every predisposition to the
contrary. Jesus followers were Jews, and they found themselves
between a rock and hard place, first their leader and master was
dead. Jews had no belief in a dying, much less rising Messiah,
the reason Jews until this day do not acknowledge Jesus is
because the Messiah was supposed to overthrow Jews enemies,
not be killed, like Jesus was. They like us believed dead people
stayed dead, there was no belief in a risen Messiah, or any dead
person at the time. The significance of those facts gives us firm
faith in the existence of God and that He sent His message
through Jesus, there leaves no room for doubt. God is the
almighty and everything is under his power, if He is capable of
creating the universe in six days, He is capable of doing small
miracles as well.[footnoteRef:44] The facts about Jesus' arrest,
death, burial, and then empty tomb and resurrection can be
assessed and established separately. These stories might not
seem historically correct, but Jesus was a beacon of change. He
changed the world altogether and introduced the biggest
religion of the world which ruled and existed with full power
for 2000 years, and it is still prospering in Asia, Africa and
Latin America.[footnoteRef:45] That makes the Gospels
reliability significant. [44: William Lane Craig, Reasonable
Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Crossway, 2008), p.16.
] [45: Justo L. Gonzalez, An Essential Guide, Church
History(Abingdon Press, 1996) p. 93
]
Jesus was capable of doing things that might not fall in the
general historic context. All the big names in the religious
world, from Buddha to Confucius and from Mohammad to Guru
Nanak challenged the status-quo, and they did not necessarily
comply with the historic traditions and customs. Their
teachings, words, and deeds were different, and they did not
mold their lives according to the values and customs of their
time. Instead, they brought new values, customs, and concepts
of right and wrong. They not only followed these values

themselves but propagated the message to the masses. These
was not just anybody that was resurrected from the dead, but
Jesus of Nazareth a man approved by God.[footnoteRef:46]
[46: Acts 2:22]
.
There is no denying that some differences exist in the accounts
mentioned in the Gospels of John and Mark, but these
differences only present two different perspectives, and they do
not mean that the actual event did not happen. It could mean
that an event happened, and two different individuals perceived
it in a different manner, and then these different perceptions
reflected in their writings. The miracle in Mark 4:35-41 is
presented first chronologically using Markan priority, and then
the same account is described by another source Matthew 8:23-
27. The fact that this story of the storm is found twice in the
New Testament leaves little doubt that it occurred. One
principle historian take in consideration to establish the
probability of an event or saying is multiple early attestation,
according to contemporary scholarship, when two different
sources providing the same story can be used as enough
historical evidence that an event possibly occurred.
[footnoteRef:47] Major critics point out that Jesus's miracles
are not reliable because they are not historically correct, but the
important question is: Is the written record of history correct?
The history of that time is not well reported either. There are
some books and historic recordings which tell about the values,
traditions and customs of that time but raised questions just like
questions are raised on the authenticity of religious books
including the Gospels and other manuscripts. Since so little
evidence is preserved the authenticity of the manuscripts and
books about the history of that time is controversial. [47:
Robert Stein. “The criteria for Authenticity” (Sheffield: JSOT
Press, 198.) Pp.225-263
]

Lastly, New Testament scholars claim that there exists a
difference of four to six decades between the actual happening
of events and their recording time.[footnoteRef:48] It is true
that the gospels were not written right away after Jesus's
resurrection, but this does not mean that their recording was all
incorrect. After the resurrection of Jesus, many stories were
attached to him but not all of them must have been included in
the Gospels, as it is stated by the critics like Erhman that the
gospels were written by trained and well-educated authors in
big cities. It remained the norm among contemporary
scholarship to credit the author of the Gospel of Luke and book
of Acts that while recording the historic events, he also worked
on its authenticity. This is the case with the gospels of Mark,
Mathew, and John as well. They did not write all the stories
they heard about deeds, actions, and words of Jesus. They
investigated it by tracking down the real records; they checked
the integrity of the person who is stating the story. They looked
into whether or not a person telling a story is deemed as an
honest person by his fellow men in society. It was taken into
account that the story is not narrated by just one person and that
multiple eyewitnesses existed for a single miracle or story.
Similarly, in some cases, some eyewitnesses were interviewed,
and their first-hand knowledge was recorded. This is not unique
to Gospels in Christianity. This same process was achieved in
Judaism, and repeated in Islam as well when the hadith of
Mohammad were recorded in four main books of Sunnah. [48:
Perkins, Pheme (1998). The Synoptic Gospels and the Act of the
Apostles, telling the Christian Story. Westminster John Knox
Press. P.241
]
In short, it can be deduced that the time difference is not a
right medium basis on which the miracles of Jesus mentioned in
Gospels can be rejected. The most distinguishing factor about
Christianity is that Christians believe that God revealed himself
throughout history as presented in the Bible, at a particular time

and place in times of Palestinian Judaism.
As the philosopher William Lane Craig analyzes, the Christian
faith comprises different past experiences that define the faith
through God's Gospel and miracles performed by Jesus.
The Reliability of Jesus's Miracles as Indicated in the New
Testament
Craig highlights five reasons that make him believe that most
Christians tend to assume that the miracles performed by Jesus
were reliable.[footnoteRef:49] First, he states that there was
inadequate time for the people during this time to obliterate the
historical facts surrounding the miracles of Jesus. This is
because the time interval between when the miracles took place
and the spreading of the Gospel was too short for the authors to
memorize all the happenings that led to the miracles. Secondly,
he states that the miracles were not analogous to the modern-
day and folk tales, especially living in an age of reason and
science. These tales do not show the historical events that led
to the narratives of Jesus' miracles. [49: Craig, “Rediscovering
the Historical Jesus,” 2019.]
Third, Craig highlights that the Jewish transmission of the
sacred traditions was highly reliable and established. The
ability to learn and remember all the information in large tracts
was considered a sophisticated skill for the people who oversaw
some of these miracles.[footnoteRef:50] The philosopher also
adds that great consensus has been established in the New
Testament scholarship that is closed to the genre of the
traditional biographies. Furthermore, the generations were so
highly sacred that they never dared to question the reliability of
these miracles. Instead, they would have exercised the same
care using the Gospels and the miracles of Jesus. [50: Craig S.
Keener, Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability
of the Gospels, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans,

2019).p107
]
The fourth reason for the assumption that the miracles
were reliable is that there were significant limitations on the
embellishment of the traditions about Jesus using criteria of
dissimilarity.[footnoteRef:51] These factors would naturally
implement on the facts that preserved the significance of Jesus
in believers' lives. Finally, Craig believes that most people
would assume the reliability of the miracles of Jesus because
the Gospel writers have a reliable track record of the historical
facts that led to these miracles' performance. Even the most
doubtful people can believe the miracles that Jesus performed
and exorcism recorded in the Gospels are “Authentic”
[footnoteRef:52] He concludes that the only reason one can
deny that Jesus performed miracles is the assumption of the
existence of the supernatural powers during the time of these
happenings, which cannot be justified. [51: Craig,
“Rediscovering the Historical Jesus,” 2019.p18
] [52: Craig “Reliability of the Gospels,” 2015.
]
According to Craig, the abundance and the age of the documents
that contain the Gospels is enough proof for their reliability, as
observed by the Christian faith.[footnoteRef:53] Craig agrees
that the New Testament is the best demonstration in
contemporary history in terms of manuscripts' closeness and the
number of the documents presented in an original
form.[footnoteRef:54] This notion proves that the writings in
the New Testament are 99 % similar as the original texts that
were written in the first century times. The philosopher also
adds that nearly 140,000 words in the New Testament resemble
the original texts' words, and only 1,300 still don't do the
same.[footnoteRef:55] As such, the Gospel in the New

Testament is 99% established according to Craig. This implies
that the readers are guaranteed the original texts in the Gospel
of the New Testament. [53: Craig “#10 Establishing the
Gospels’ Reliability,” 2007.] [54: Keener 2019.
] [55: Craig “Reliability of the Gospels,” 2015.
]
Craig claims that the gospels intend to bring out
humanity's history since the creation of heaven and earth. This
means that the gospels in the New Testament represent the
literary genre of the historical writings and preaching of
Jesus.[footnoteRef:56] They are highly incredible and not
fiction, mythological, or fable. The philosopher also adds that
great consensus has been established in the New Testament
scholarship that is closed to the genre of the traditional
biographies.[footnoteRef:57] Some of these things that make the
Gospel of the New Testament to be credible. As such, the
Gospels' writers were attempting to inscribe a historical account
of people, events, and places that happened historically (Luke
3.1-3). [56: Craig, “Rediscovering the Historical Jesus,”
2019.p, 142
] [57: Keener 2019.
]
Craig also establishes the credibility of the Gospels of the New
Testament
through the determination of their influence on the
contemporary scholarship of the New
Testament to develop the specific facts about the gospel of
Jesus without necessarily assuming divine inspiration of the
Gospels.[footnoteRef:58][footnoteRef:59] He addresses the
criteria of credibility, which enables readers to develop a
specific interest in the preaching and teachings of Jesus as a
historical event. Most scholars and philosophers engaged in the
pursuit of the historical teachings of Jesus have pronounced
several strategies of determining the reliability of the Gospels

through the authentic historical features” including “multiple
attestations, dissimilarity to the teachings of Christians,
retention of awkward materials, linguistic Semitisms, and
rationality with other original materials and traces of
Palestinian milieu.”[footnoteRef:60] It is misleading for
scholars to address these argume nts as criteria, as they only
focus on the information's adequacy facts presented in the New
Testament. Craig highlights that this is a matter that is easy to
determine.[footnoteRef:61] [58: ] [59:
] [60: William Lane Craig, Rediscovering the Historical Jesus:
The evidence for Jesus (Journal: faith and Mission, 1998),
p.24] [61: Craig, “Rediscovering the Historical Jesus,” 2019.
]
Craig instead develops the criteria of dissimilarity that
amount to the statements about the influence of the Gospels on
Christians and readers using the likelihood of the different
sayings in Jesus's life.[footnoteRef:62] Some events that led to
the preaching of the Gospel and evidence of the events leading
to this preaching bring a meaningful knowledge to Christians
who believe in God's gospel. Craig confirms the credibility and
the reliability of the Gospels of the New Testament through his
criteria. It is indeed not shocking how the Gospel and the
miracles of Jesus can be established considering his
fundamental personal claims, arrest, burial in a tomb, and
finally, his resurrection. It is almost impossible to believe how
the disciples came to find out that Jesus had risen from the tomb
and that God had raised him from the dead. As N.T Wright a
British Christian scholars writes:” that is why, as a historian, I
cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose
again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.”[footnoteRef:63]
Still, the philosopher gives solid reasons for believing that the
gospel and miracles performed by Jesus were credible based on
the historical facts presented in the New Testament. This makes
the gospels of Christ reliable documents and trustworthy
accounts of the life of Jesus in historical times. Therefore,

William Lane Craig conclusively analyzes that God has acted in
history, and Christians can confirm this through the gospels
included in the New Testament. [62: Ibid] [63: N.T. Wright,
“The New unimproved Jesus, Christianity Today (September 13,
1993), p.26. ]
To conclude, Jesus’s miracles, including the miracle regarding
the storm in Mark 4:35, present stories, actions, and deeds of
Jesus that are as authentic and reliable as any other historic
content. Dr. Craig states that if one has a belief in God, then
there is no reason for not believing in his miracles. If God can
create the world in days, he can definitely create small miracles
in no time. Furthermore, these miracles are the reason which
tells that God can do anything at any time to anyone. He is
capable of everything. As the Biblical writer mentions in Luke
1:37 “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

CHAPTER FOUR
Gareth Moore philosophical assessment of the text
in Mark 4:35-41
The topic “How a philosophical understanding of the text in
Mark 4:35-41 provides an
illumination of divine authority in the person of Jesus” is
brought into focus in Gareth Moore’s
work in philosophy for theology. In the times in which we are
living, philosophy of religion has been focused in two things as
we seen in the previous chapters. Number 1 attacking the
reliability of the Gospels, and number 2, defending the Gospels
as historically reliable ancient works of literature. Gareth
Moore OP who was a scholar in Biblical studies takes an entire
different approach and teaches us a better way in understanding
the Text. The miracle story of Jesus calming the storm in Mark
4:35-41 is important because it seems to indicate that Jesus is a
divine figure. The story portrays Jesus doing what is impossible
to a mere human being, hence the story under scrutiny shows
that he is not a mere mortal.[footnoteRef:64] Jesus speaks and
immediately the storm subsides. If we are not to understand the
miracle story as cause and effect, how can we make sense of
this biblical account? In this chapter is where we discuss the
importance of Jesus speaking to nature and his divine authority.
The story is based on a command from a man and nature obeys.
How can we understand the story and also capture the clear
distinction of Jesus’ close followers in what they say? They are
not asking, how he calmed the storm, but “What sort of a man is
this?” Who is this man, that even the winds and sea obey him?
[64: Hearing the voice of God: two conceptual issues
concerning the relationship between the biblical world and ours.
Gareth Moore, (2004), p.5
]
The disciples understood that it was not magic or power that
Jesus possessed, but his divine authority. A question: what is to

believe in God, the Christian God? What exactly Christians
believe about Jesus? For Jews and Muslims have an idea of
God, they believe God is infinite, and has the power and
authority over nature, what we encounter in the study is a man
doing things only God can do.
The story of Jesus calming the storm is not new. The story has
been there since the first century where the story circulated
orally for decades until it was written in the Gospel of Mark.
The main question being: what problems arise caused by the
distance between the biblical world and ours? We live in a
world of complexity different from that of first century
Palestine. We-and by ‘we’ I mean modern (or even post-
modern), educated cultured western liberals- inhabit a thought-
world vastly different from that of the ancient near east; does
this distance itself create any problems? [footnoteRef:65]
Gareth Moore’s understanding of biblical miracle narratives
gives us an incredible insight how we can dissolve the modern
tension between skeptical and Christian New testament scholars,
presenting an original alternative in the reading of the biblical
text. [65: Gareth Moore, Hearing the Voice of God, Two
conceptual issues concerning the relationship between the
biblical world and ours, (edited by DZ Phillips, 2004), p, 4.]
For the last 200 years the problem of miracles in the
biblical accounts has been analyzed from all possible
expositions. The tension that we have is because of the recent
rise in western culture of an academic, critical study of the
Bible apparently divorced from religious concerns. The goal of
this essay is not whether or not we should believe in miracles,
but rather to offer a way in which miracles can make sense in
our modern technological world. As discussed in chapters two
and three, the problem is that for many years the academic
study of the Bible, employing methods such as literary
criticism, form criticism and redaction criticism, has treaded the
Bible in a new way, simply as any other ancient text; in this

way it has introduced a way of reading the Bible quite different
from that practised by earlier readers and envisaged by the
biblical authors.[footnoteRef:66] [66: Moore, p, 4. ]
The miracle in Mark 4:35-41
First, this essay speaks to seminary students, we are not atheist,
therefore, one thing we have in common is that we acknowledge
one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, infinite, and powerful
with authority over nature. Then, miracles. The miracle stories
are important in the Gospels because they seem to show us
something about Jesus, to indicate that he is a divine
figure.[footnoteRef:67] The Author of the Gospel of Mark gives
us a great picture of the miracle we have been analyzing. Mark
indicates that this incident across the lake was after a long day
of labor or evangelization. Jesus was wearied, and felt the need
of rest. He had been pressed on all day by a very great
multitude, and felt the need of solitude. Jesus is exhausted,
there was a leather, or perhaps wooden, movable seat in the
stern for the steersman, on which a wearied-out man might lay
his head, while his body was stretched in the bottom of the boat.
A hard pillow indeed, which only exhaustion could make
comfortable.[footnoteRef:68] Marks paints a picture of the
terrified disciples, the account says it was late in the evening,
and the sun was gone, and the storm got worse, the wing was
furious, and the waves banged the side of the small ship. They
awoke Jesus, and there is a touch of petulant rebuke in their
appeal, and of a sailor’s impatience at a landsman lying sound
asleep while the sweat is running down their faces with their
hard pulling. It is to Mark that we owe our knowledge of that
accent of complain in their words, for he alone gives their
‘Carest Thou not?’ [footnoteRef:69] the crucial point is next,
Again the Author of the Gospel presents the heart of this essay;
Jesus gets up and says: “Be Still!.” as addressed to the tossing
waves, and then there is a complete calm. At all events, the
famous expression “Be Still” to lay to heart is that Jesus here
exercises the divine prerogative of controlling matter by the

bare expression of his will. [footnoteRef:70] One difference
between our world (western, liberal, educated) and that of the
biblical authors, a difference that creates a difficulty, is that our
world is deeply scientific today in a way that theirs was not and
could not be.[footnoteRef:71] The issue is that we understand
how things work in nature, even at basic fundamental levels,
and for us the story causes immense problems. We tend to ask
how did he do it.? Moore who is apprehended by the
understanding of the story not by scientific terms, or reason,
asks the better question, who is this man? And Moore explains
the answer as follows. [67: Moore, p, 5.
] [68: Maclaren, Expositions of the Holy Scripture(Baker Book
House, grand rapids, Michigan, 1977), p.158
] [69: Maclaren, P, 159.] [70: Maclaren, P, 160.
] [71: Moore, Hearing the Voice of God. P, 5.
]
It is crucial to point out that in this story there are not any
causal mechanisms, or cause and effect. This can be illustrated
in a non-religious example. Suppose I am playing basketball on
the street near my house and I say to the basketball, “Go in the
hoop,” and the basketball does actually go in the hoop, the place
where I pointed out. Immediately we assume that the whole
reason the basketball went in the hoop was because of that
cause: I shot the basketball before the command. That is, we
don’t think of a command as a cause in cases like this. The
command is useless, because we understand it was a result of a
cause, not the response to my command. My friends playing
with me might ask, “How did he do it” and try to duplicate the
shot, but as soon as they can also make the shot, the basketball
goes in the hoop. The command I gave the ball becomes
irrelevant, and my words have no purpose. But the point of the
trick command was to make it look to my friends that I said
something to the ball, and it obeyed. That is because in our 21st
century world, we understand that inanimate things or objects
do not really obey commands.

On the other hand, in the biblical account of Mark 4:35-41 Jesus
speaks, and the storm subsides. That is the whole story, there
are no hidden causal mechanisms present. This miracle, which
is more transparent than other miracles in the gospels, sheds
light on Jesus divine authority. The simplicity of the story is
that Jesus commands the storm to stop, and the storm stops.
The disciples do not suspect any causal mechanisms and look at
each other impressed. No tricks are involved in the event, only a
simple command and it occurs. That is why we keep asking the
same question for centuries, “What sort of a man is this, that
even the wind and waves obey him? Answer: a man with divine
authority. We can expect to have a little trouble following what
is going on. Christians know God can split the Red Sea,
showing divine authority over nature, but, Jesus here is doing
exactly the same, doing what is impossible to mere humans,
hence the story shows Jesus is not a mere human.
The story of Jesus calming the storm is not new. The story has
been there since the first century where the story circulated
orally for decades until it was written in the Gospel of Mark.
We live in a world of complexity different from that of first
century Palestine. Gareth Moore’s understanding of biblical
miracle narratives gives us an incredible insight how we can
dissolve the modern tension between skeptical readings trying
to dismiss the story on the grounds that such events are
impossible to prove historically. The difficulty we have is
believing that under normal circumstances in nature, a storm is
the kind of thing no one can have authority over. It is an
inanimate phenomenon, so if a storm changes its natural course,
there must be an effect of a cause, not in response to a
command. If we are to believe in the biblical account in Mark,
we must accept the occurrence not as a coincidence, but a
miracle performed by a human being that was teaching with a
promise of ultimate security in the midst of the storm.
The disciples are in peril in a dangerous situation, and they ask
Jesus to save them. Jesus gets up, commands the storm to stop,
and saves them. In other biblical accounts the disciples ask

Jesus for advice, and he gives them advice. In this discussion
the significance is not only in Jesus calming the storm, but the
disciples looking for him in a moment of desperation, looking to
their master for immediate deliverance. “God” is not to be
construed as the name of a person or a thing, because it
functions quite different in our language from names like
“Mike” or “Andrew.” The issue we have is that God does
things, he performs miracles, runs the universe, and intervenes
in our lives. Christians believe God intervenes or can control
nature. So, the problem gets bigger when Jesus does things only
God can do. Looking closely at the miracle in the Gospel of
Mark, we notice this time is not God doing things or
commanding nature. The miracle reported is being performed by
a human being--a man named Jesus of Nazareth. As compared to
first century world that was so different than ours, in the age of
early Christianity, miraculous power was thought to be from the
divine nature of Jesus as the son of God. While the more
critical, analytical approach of reading the Bible among post-
modern days, where the Bible is read as any other historical
text, is used to address the divinity of Jesus over nature more
closely. What is revealed in the story of the storm is not the
power of Jesus over nature, but his Divine Authority. In the
Christian tradition, the story of Jesus calming the storm reminds
us of a distinctive language used by God, namely the language
of command and obedience. The book of Genesis, for example,
presents this king of language. When God creates the universe:
“And God said, “let there be light”; and there was light (Gen
1:3). This is the language of Divine authority, not the scientific
language of cause and effect that modern Christians understand.
The miracles of Jesus, most of which he achieved through
commanding the impossible to happen, serve to prove the divine
nature of the person of Jesus, as the son of God. Jesus, as
believed to be the most divine and holy man who walked Earth
by Christians; As such, his life is depicted as being above the
normalcy of human life, despite the belief that God intended for
Jesus to live a life equal to the life of man. The divine presence

in Jesus results in Jesus living a life distinct from that of others.
Following this, Jesus is seen to achieve impossible feats in the
Bible, and this is termed as miracles. The nature of the
miracles, before the age of reason, served only to uplift the
person of Jesus. Modern-day, however, questions the possibility
of the feats being achieved. The application of a critical
analysis of the miracles by the modern-day scholars challenges
the possibility of the feats being achieved. If Jesus commanded
the winds to stop, and they did, the assertion suggests that
nature [in this case wind, and waves] can be commanded.
Through scientific deductions, however, waves are born
between the wind and the surface water. Hence, if Jesus stopped
the waves, then it is not the waves he spoke to, but the winds.
As waves are only a consequence of wind, and logic dictates
only by deterring the cause of something, can you truly deter
something from happening? Only by hitting the break will you
safely stop the car. Otherwise, all else held constant. You
cannot bring the car to a stop. If Jesus commanded the waves to
stop, it is the winds he commanded. Further analysis suggests
that winds are a result of air moving from areas of high
atmospheric pressure to areas of low atmospheric pressure.
Waves, therefore are dependent indirectly on atmospheric
pressure. By commanding the waves, Jesus had divine authority
over the atmospheric pressure.
A solution
What is to believe in God, the Christian God? One way to
answer this question would be to show how we would explain
Christian belief to somebody who did not understand
it.[footnoteRef:72] We live in a scientific world where the
supernatural does not occur, much different from the biblical
world, including the world of first century Palestine. In our
context, we might want to request to duplicate a happening that
may seem supernatural. That would make sense in a world that

conceives all happenings in cause-and-effect terms. But in the
ancient world of Jesus and his disciples, the stilling of the storm
is different because Jesus does not act upon the storm, or
pretend to. In that sense, the apostles know he could not
reproduce the event and the stilling of the storm does not come
about as result of cause and effect. As far as we know there is
nothing Jesus does; he only makes a command, and it becomes
relevant. Jesus does not do anything to the storm, he just
commands it to be still, and the result is absolute obedience
from the storm. We know than in individual lives a
reconciliation between religious and critical reading of the
Bible is possible, for there are, and have been since the
inception of critical Bible study, eminent biblical scholars who
are also devout Christians of profound faith.[footnoteRef:73]
[72: Gareth Moore, OP, Believing in God, A philosophical
essay (T &T Clark LTD,1998) page.1
] [73: Moore, Hearing the Voice of God. P, 15.
]
From the beginning philosophy of Christianity has been shaped
by the philosophical movements that surrounded the faith. In
order to work towards a solution, we first have to ask, what it
might mean for somebody to read the Bible as the word of God
addressed to the reader personally.[footnoteRef:74]We have
been using the term Gospels, it is a familiar phrase to refer to
New Testaments books that were written or addressed to an
audience or readership, to illustrate the life, teachings, miracles,
and crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark
was written to be announce, to be proclaimed to hearers of the
word. Critical New Testament scholars like Erhman or Graig are
historians that can only guess the date the book was written, the
place it was written, the language it was written, its literary
style, the concerns of its author, and so on.[footnoteRef:75] We
can be certain thanks to modern scholarship that the book of
Mark that contains our story, was written in the first century
A.D a few years after Jesus, the book was written by a male

Christian, probably living in Rome, and it was written for other
Christians of that time. So far, a biblical text is much the same
as any other text. But people in whose religion the Bible plays
and important role may go further.[footnoteRef:76]as for us
seminary students, we may say for instance, the Gospel of Mark
is addressed not only to first-century Christians living in Rome,
but also the message is addressed to us (modern day Christians
students of the Bible) to say the Gospel of Mark is addressed us,
it does not mean it is about us, it means it is part of our
religious tradition. [74: Moore ] [75: Moore, Hearing the
Voice of God. P,15
] [76: Moore, hearing the Voice of God. P, 16
]
My purpose now is to point out some of the various connections
in which the Gospel of Mark is not only an ancient work of
literature, but continues to be relevant in the life of Modern
Christians. I know Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t help falling in love’ is
a song written for my father’s generation in the 1960’s and
clearly not addressed to my generation, but it will make sense to
ask: what does Elvis says to us in his love song? To be able to
propose answers to that question we would need to analyze the
words of the song, and briefly gather important thoughts which
will suggest Elvis is talking to us also, as well as previous
generations. But, if we are modern-day Christians our reaction
to the book of Mark is importantly different from our reaction
to Elvis’s song. The essential difference is that if we say Elvis
speaks to us, it is the same to saying Elvis speaks to us through
the song. If, on the other hand, we say that Mark is addressing
us, we will also would like to say God is also speaking to us
though the Text. The voice we hear and listen to when we read
the story in Mark 4:35-41 is not merely the voice of a first
century Christian that wrote the Gospel, but also that of God,
the Christian God, it is the fact that we (modern-day Christians)
believe that God speaks to us through it that gives the text value
and meaning, that is what is important.

What we find in the story of Mark, Jesus calming the storm is a
miracle. But, what is a miracle? A miracle is what happens
when God intervenes in the natural course of things to
safeguard the innocent, to thwart the plans of the wicked, to
confirm the truth of the faith.[footnoteRef:77] [77: Moore,
Believing in God, p.221
]
If we are to believe in the biblical account in Mark, we must
accept the occurrence not as a coincidence, but a miracle
performed by a human being that was teaching with a promise
of ultimate security in the midst of the storm. The disciples are
in peril in a dangerous situation, and they ask Jesus to save
them. Jesus gets up, commands the storm to stop, and saves
them. In other biblical accounts the disciples ask Jesus for
advice, and he gives them advice. In this discussion the
significance is not only in Jesus calming the storm, but the
disciples looking for him in a moment of desperation, looking to
their master for immediate deliverance. “God” is not to be
construed as the name of a person or a thing, because it
functions quite different in our language from names like
“Mike” or “Andrew.” The issue we have is that God does
things, he performs miracles, runs the universe, and intervenes
in our lives. Christians believe God intervenes or can control
nature. So, the problem gets bigger when Jesus does things only
God can do. Looking closely at the miracle in the Gospel of
Mark, we notice this time is not God doing things or
commanding nature. The miracle reported is being performed by
a human being--a man named Jesus of Nazareth. God causes
what nobody causes; is this not, after all, what makes a miracle
so impressive? [footnoteRef:78] What Moore argues is that an
event can happen without a cause, on the other hand, if we say
after all, there was a cause for the event, then the scenario
would be less impressive. Perhaps the easiest way to get to the
heart of Moore’s philosophy is to explain one of his remarks
about miracles. The understanding of this miracle in the story of

Mark is our fundamental concern. What is going on in these
stories of miracles is roughly this: Events take place of a kind
that we would normally attribute to an agent, one who either
acts directly or who guides, supervises and coordinates the
actions of others. Now let’s look at a miracle, this time one
which actually involve an agent, where a miracle is recounted as
being performed by a human being .Mark tells of this miracle
performed by Jesus in Chapter 4:35-41, where Jesus speaks, and
the storm subsides. If all our commonsense and scientific laws
are based solely on principles of cause and effect, how are we to
understand this story? We may think or suppose some causal
mechanism present? To begin with, no such mechanism is as
much as hinted at. Can we even say how a man would go about
controlling the weather so that he could cause a storm to
subside? The story is not told in causal terms at all. It is not a
matter of cause and effect, but of command and
obedience.[footnoteRef:79]Moore’s analysis goes like this: In
causal sequences we believe that there is some power in a cause
that produces an effect. To know such power would be to know
what it is that enables a cause to produce a particular effect. We
would therefore know both the cause and effect and the relation
between them.[footnoteRef:80]It is otherwise in Mark story.
Here Jesus speaks, and the storm subsides. That is all. There is
no question of filling in the story by reference to a hidden
causal mechanism (perhaps operated by a hidden or bodiless
accomplice). If we believe this story, what impresses us is very
simple, and it impresses on account of its simplicity. It is that
all that happens is that Jesus commands the storm to stop, and it
does. Jesus impresses as one with authority, not power or
skill.[footnoteRef:81] [78: Moore, Believing in God. P,223
] [79: Moore, Believing in God. P, 240] [80: Diogenes Allen
and Eric o. Springsted, second edition. (Westminster John Knox
Press, 2007), p, 144.
] [81: Moore, Believing in God. P, 244.
]

Moore tells us that in order to believe or accept this story as a
miracle, we have to be able to see the inanimate world as
subject to authority. If we cannot do that, the story becomes
unintelligible in our modern context. The way this story can be
understood by modern readers of the Bible is the same way it
was achieved and recognized by Jesus disciples, asking the real
questions: What sort of a man is this? The actions of Jesus are
believe by Christians to image in some way the activity of God.
The fascinating thing about the Christian story is the proposal
that seems to state a way in which the particular events in
Palestine that surround Jesus have universal significance,
Christians believe many different and opposed things. The
example used in our study was to clarify problems arising for
Christians from reading the Bible as a specifically Christian
book. We have relied heavily on the passage of Mark 4:35-41 as
a source, not that this guarantees orthodoxy, but it is considered
scripture by all Christians, and this tells us something about
Jesus, something about believing in God. Gareth Moore’s
philosophical assessment of the text offers a new horizon by
which we are able to understand an ancient text and puts us
aboard the ship with Jesus disciples asking: what sort of a man
is this? The even the waves and wing obey him.
Chapter five
Conclusion

The problem discussed in chapter one, is the rise of New
Testament scholars that present skeptical understandings of the
text, an academic, critical study, treating the New Testament
simply as any other ancient book disregarding religious
concerns, and not accepting miracles as demonstrable
historically. One immense issue here is that our modern world is
deeply scientific in 2020 in a way that the biblical world was
not. The story of Jesus calming the storm is perhaps intelligible
in our context, and this causes immense problems for us today.
It is not only a matter of probability, but skeptic scholars
understanding the narrative as untrue, or highly improbable, but
that calming a Storm implies contravening some deep laws of
physics, laws of physics that were also applicable in their
context in early Christianity. However, Jesus miracles to
reinforce his claim for being linked with divinity are not
accepted. The miraculous events, which comprised healing the
sick, raising the dead, commanding nature to obey, including
the miracle of he, himself raising from the dead, are wondrous
and as such, miraculous, and many scholars see it that way.
However, there are those who meet this idea with skepticism,
where they are contended based on the understanding of
causation and the laws of nature. Even so, there are those who
view the events with an increased level of interest.
This is because they are so rare that only one person in a billion
can do them, meaning that almost no one can do them. He adds
that since the Gospels contradict each other, and they are
unreliable as historical documents, there is no concrete evidence
to believe the accounts are true happenings.. He thinks that the
argument of people claiming that Jesus’ body resurrected and
that he would never taste death again plainly goes against the
way nature works. At the same time, it is hard to account for
resurrection using natural means. The miracles by Jesus can
only be argued theologically because there is no historical
evidence that can be used as a basis for the argument
(McCormick, 2008). In Ehrman’s view, historians rely on past
events to justify probable happenings. Thus, one cannot claim

Divine Authority in Jesus Revealed

Divine Authority in Jesus Revealed

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