Miracles of Jesus

[7] There is less agreement on the interpretation of miracles than in former times, though there is a scholarly consensus that the Historical Jesus was viewed as a miracle-worker during his lifetime.

[8] Non-religious historians commonly avoid commenting on the veracity of miracles as the sources are limited and considered problematic.

[9] Some scholars rule out miracles altogether while others defend the possibility, either with reservations or more strongly[8] (in the latter case commonly reflecting religious views).

The three types of healings are cures, in which an ailment is miraculously remedied, exorcisms, in which demons are cast out of victims, and the resurrection of the dead.

The Gospel of John[15] has a similar but slightly different account at Capernaum and states that it was the son of a royal official who was cured at a distance.

The largest group of miracles mentioned in the Gospels involves healing people who are ill, infirm or disabled.

The Gospels give varying amounts of detail for each episode; sometimes Jesus cures simply by saying a few words, at other times, he employs material such as spit and mud.

[20][21] The Gospel of John describes an episode in which Jesus heals a man blind from birth, placed during the Festival of Tabernacles, about six months before his crucifixion.

Jesus is described as responding to the anger by asking whether it is easier to say that someone's sins are forgiven, or to tell the man to get up and walk.

Mark and Luke state that Jesus was in a house at the time, and that the man had to be lowered through the roof by his friends due to the crowds blocking the door.

While teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, Jesus cured a woman who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years and could not stand straight at all.

Jesus justified the cure by asking, "If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?"

In the healing of the man with a withered hand,[27] the Synoptics state that Jesus entered a synagogue on Sabbath and found a man with a withered hand, whom Jesus healed, having first challenged the people present to decide what was lawful for Sabbath—to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill.

Simon Peter had cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant, Malchus, during the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Sometime shortly after his Ascension, the Book of Mormon records that Jesus miraculously descends from heaven and greets a large group of people who immediately bow down to him.

Miracles performed by Jesus are mentioned in two sections of the Quran (suras 3:49 and 5:110) in broad strokes with little detail or comment.

[44] Some thought that mortal men, if sufficiently famous and virtuous, could do likewise; there were myths about philosophers like Pythagoras and Empedocles calming storms at sea, chasing away pestilences, and being greeted as gods,[44] and similarly some Jews believed that Elisha the Prophet had cured lepers and restored the dead.

In their view, the miracle was specifically designed by Jesus to teach the apostles that when encountering obstacles, they need to rely on their faith in Christ, first and foremost.

[62] In the 19th century, self-identified liberal Christians sought to elevate Jesus's humane teachings as a standard for a world civilization freed from cultic traditions and traces of pagan belief in the supernatural.

[63] The debate over whether a belief in miracles was mere superstition or essential to accepting the divinity of Christ constituted a crisis within the 19th-century church, for which theological compromises were sought.

[65] A belief in the authenticity of miracles was one of five tests established in 1910 by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America to distinguish true believers from what they saw as false professors of faith such as "educated, 'liberal' Christians.

"[66] Contemporary liberal Christians may prefer to read Jesus's miracles as metaphorical narratives for understanding the power of God.

[69]Historian Will Durant attributes Jesus's miracles to "the natural result of suggestion—of the influence of a strong and confident spirit upon impressionable souls; similar phenomena may be observed any week at Lourdes".

Russian skeptic Kirill Eskov in his Nature-praised work The Gospel of Afranius argues that it was politically prudent for the local Roman administration to strengthen Jesus's influence by spreading rumours about his miracles via active measures and eventually even staging the resurrection itself.

[74] According to scholar Maurice Casey, it is fair to assume that Jesus was able to cure people affected with psychosomatic disorders, although he believes that the healings were likely due to naturalistic causes and placebo effects.

In the Gospels, the activity of Jesus as miracle worker looms large in attracting attention to himself and reinforces his eschatological message.