The Jewish Annotated New Testament by Brettler Marc Z. Levine Amy-Jill & Marc Zvi Brettler

Author:Brettler, Marc Z., Levine, Amy-Jill & Marc Zvi Brettler [Brettler, Marc Z., Levine, Amy-Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2011-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

JEWISH MIRACLE WORKERS IN THE LATE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD

Geza Vermes

Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels as a charismatic miracle-worker who heals the sick, raises the dead, exorcizes the demon-possessed, and feeds the hungry. These features also appear in the broader context of prophetic-charismatic religion of biblical and early postbiblical Judaism.

The Bible attributes such phenomena to the influence of the Spirit of God or divine power. This power is the source of revelation, thaumaturgy, and ecstasy. The earliest scriptural events of this kind are associated with Moses, the performer of signs and wonders (Deut 34.10–12), and with the elders in the desert, especially Eldad and Medad (Num 11.24–29). Charismatic prophecy begins with Samuel: prophetic ecstasy in his day is regularly displayed by the “sons of the prophets,” who, possessed by the Spirit, worked themselves up into ecstatic states that could be contagious and affect passersby like the first Israelite king, Saul (1 Sam 10.6,10).

The golden age of charismatic prophecy comes with Elijah and Elisha. These men of action were endowed with superhuman power. Elijah bested the prophets of Baal by calling down fire from heaven (1 Kings 18; see also 1 Chr 21.26; Lk 9.54) and eliminated two companies of soldiers sent to arrest him (2 Kings 1.9–12). Elisha routed the Syrian army that besieged Samaria (2 Kings 7.6). However, these prophets were mostly remembered for their beneficial miracles: healing (2 Kings 5.1–19), resuscitating (1 Kings 17.17–24; 2 Kings 4.11–37), bringing rain (1 Kings 18.41–46), wondrous feeding of the hungry (1 Kings 17.8–16; 2 Kings 4.1–7), and other prodigies.

Stories of such wonder-working prophets continue into later biblical and postbiblical Jewish writings as well as in Flavius Josephus and in the Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash. Ben Sira in the second century BCE (Sir 48.1–14) recalls the “zeal,” “wondrous deeds,” “glory,” and “marvels” of Elijah and Elisha. Josephus depicts Elisha as a doer of “paradoxical deeds” (Ant. 9.182), an expression used also in the Testimonium Flavianum, the passage about Jesus (Ant. 18.63), whose partial authenticity is recognized by many scholars. Josephus also mentions a Jewish contemporary, called Eleazar, who practiced exorcism before Vespasian and Titus (Ant. 8.46–48). (See “Josephus,” p. 575.)

Thus the miracles and signs ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels and to his followers in the Acts of the Apostles are not anomalous in Jewish culture. Ecstatic behavior plays a significant part in the story of the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2), the descent of the Holy Spirit on new believers (e.g., Acts 4.31; 7.55; 8.17; 10.44; 19.6), and the charismatic activity outlined by Paul in 1 Cor 11.4–11 and 14.1–33.

The principal representatives of charismatic Judaism in the age of Jesus are Ḥoni, surnamed “ha-Me‘agel,” “the Circle Drawer” (because on one occasion when he prayed for rain and it did not commence, he drew a circle and stood inside it, saying he would not move until the rains came); Ḥoni’s grandsons AbbaḤilkiah and Ḥanan; and the Galilean holy man Ḥanina ben Dosa. Josephus mentions Ḥoni under the Hellenized name of Onias; all four figures appear in the Mishnah and the Talmud.

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