So, if Jesus really didn’t do miracles, what were they doing in the New Testament. We have John’s testimony. In the crucial passage in the Gospel of John, Jesus says:

“Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret. (John 7:8-10)

The idea here is Jesus’ lie to his brothers led to him preaching to the people and creating faith. And, we can then view the Cana wine miracle as obviously non historical but responsible for creating faith. Price comments:

2. Water into Wine (2:1-11)

Though the central feature of this miracle story, the transformation of one liquid into another, no doubt comes from the lore of Dionysus, the basic outline of the story owes much to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17:8-24 LXX (Helms, p. 86). The widow of Zarephath, whose son has just died, upbraids the prophet: “What have I to do with you, O man of God?” (Ti emoi kai soi, 17:18). John has transferred this brusque address to the mouth of Jesus, rebuking his mother (2:4, Ti emoi kai soi, gunai). Jesus and Elijah both tell people in need of provisions to take empty pitchers (udria in 1 Kings 17:12, udriai in John 2:6-7), from which sustenance miraculously emerges. And just as this feat causes the woman to declare her faith in Elijah (“I know that you are a man of God,” v. 24), so does Jesus’ wine miracle cause his disciples to put their faith in him (v. 11).

John thus invents the idea that its author is supremely authoritative as being the beloved disciple, and the message is that Jesus is greater than Dionysus (Euripides Bacchae supplying the foundation of the gospel, as Dennis MacDonald notes), Jesus being God himself, a Christology absent from other NT texts. Why are the miracles present in the writings? John comments:

³¹ But these are written so that you may come to / continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)

For more on Christian Origins as Noble Lies, please see my peer reviewed essay The Justified Lie by the Johannine Jesus in its Greco Roman Jewish Context.