Overview:

What might one make of the miracle stories in the canonical gospels? Christians have traditionally used them to establish the truth of Christianity. But many believe that their prominence in the narratives challenges their historicity. Are they right? Is each and every story legendary? Were they invented whole cloth, to communicate theological meaning rather than historical truth? Or do they go back to misinterpretations of non-miraculous events? Or might genuinely puzzling events underlie some of them?

Dale Allison’s presentation indirectly addresses the conservative apologist talking point about eyewitness testimony of the miracles of Jesus with the counter analogy of the biography of Sai Baba of Siri (d. 1918) with lots of eyewitness claims of miracles written a few years after his death which no one today would believe. Similarly, people may see “something,” and then plug it into a bigfoot or loch ness framework. The early Christians believed Jesus must have glowed at the transfiguration like Moses, and fed a multitude with scant provisions like Elisha, just Jesus did so to a greater degree because he was the greatest prophet. Many eyewitnesses of Teresa of Avila said she glowed. Allison’s main point is that weird things do happen, so there may be something beyond the secular/theism dichotomy.

Analysis:

There is nothing odd about weird experiences, and so a schizophrenic may experience the world as appearing in a conspiracy saturated way. This is a normal part of human life (think of how the world appeared when you were a teenager in puppy love).