is also the scene of the second sign (John 4:36b–54). The problem: A royal official arrives to plead with Jesus to come down and heal his son, ill and near death at Capernaum. Again the narrative is interrupted with Jesus’ comment that his audience will not believe unless it sees signs and wonders. Jesus advances to the problem by summoning the official to go, stating that his son lives. The result is announced by the official’s servant who tells him that his child is alive, that he began to recover the moment Jesus said he would live. The chorus consists of the official’s coming to faith together with his entire household. Scene of the third sign is the Pool of Bethesda, at which lies a man with a thirty-eight year illness (John 5:2–47). Again the sequence is interrupted with a dialogue between Jesus and the invalid. Jesus then advances to the problem with the word that the man “stand up, take your mat and walk,” the result of which is that the man is immediately cured. The chorus is a compound: The Jews’ complain that the deed was done on the Sabbath, then ask who was responsible for the cure; the erstwhile invalid admits his ignorance of Jesus’ identity; Jesus encounters the fellow in the temple and enjoins him to sin no more, lest worse befall; the man informs the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him, following which they commence their persecution for his sabbath breaking, and at his word that he and his Father are at work, plan to kill him. The scene for the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1–15) is variegated. At the Sea of Tiberias a crowd follows Jesus due to his “signs. . .for the sick.” Near to Passover, Jesus goes up the mountain with his disciples, and himself describes the problem. With the crowd coming toward him, he asks Philip where they are to buy bread for the crowd to eat. The sequence is interrupted with the evangelist’s note that Jesus was testing Philip. The problem is accented with Philip’s response that six month’s wages would not buy enough for each to get a little, and with Andrew’s information about a boy with a mere five loaves and two fish. Finally, Jesus advances to the problem with a command that the people sit down. He takes theloaves, gives thanks, and distributes them along with the fish. The result is initially downplayed with the simple statement that “they were satisfied,” then aemphnasized with the gathering of the remnants in twelve baskets, at the sight of which the people chorus with the word that “this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world,” rush to make Jesus king, while he withdraws to the mountain. The same constants or ingredients are present in sign number five, Jesus’ walking on the water, shared with his co-evangelists (John 6:16–21) as noted above. The scene is set near the sea where the disciples board a boat for Capernaum in the dark. The problem involves a rough sea, hard rowing, and terror at the sight of Jesus walking near the boat. Jesus advances to the problem, says: “It is I; do not be afraid.” The result: the boat immediately reaches the shore toward which the disciples were first headed. The chorus follows the people’s search for Jesus after discovering the disciples had taken to the sea without him, and finding him on the other side ask: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” The scene for the sixth sign, the healing of the man blind from birth (John 9:1–41), is set with a mere two words (kai paragon), translated “as he walked along,” presumably in sight of the temple where Jesus had just engaged in dialogue with the Jews over Abraham (John 8:39–59). The problem is that of the man born blind. Jesus’ application to the problem, interrupted by his remonstrating with the disciples respecting the cause of the man’s condition (“Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind to that God’s works might be revealed in him,” 9:3), involves spitting on the ground, making mud with the saliva, spreading it on the man’s eyes and ordering him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The result: The man returns from the pool able to see. The chorus consists of a dialogue between the man and the Pharisees respecting Jesus’ breach of the Sabbath with his healing, their interrogation of his parents who allow he can speak for himself, and after a second dialogue with the Jews, ends with the man’s confession, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing,” in response to which his interrogators drive him out of the synagogue. The seventh and final sign is that of the raising of Lazarus, like the sixth, consuming the entire chapter (John 11:1–57). The scene is set in Bethany, home of Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus. The sisters inform Jesus of the problem: their brother is ill. Solution to the problem is interrupted by Jesus’ diagnosis (“this illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory,” 11:4b), and by the protracting of his visit to Bethany, following which the narrative is strewn with dialogue, first with Jesus’ conversation with the disciples who warn him against another visit to Judea, next with his announcement of Lazarus’ death and of his plan to return to Bethany, on the way toward which he meets Martha who tells him her brother has died, then with a dialogue with her over the resurrection and her confession of him as Messiah, Son of God, then with Martha’s informing her sister of the “Teacher’s” arrival, and Mary’s reproach (“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” 11:32b), and finally, with the Jews’ query concerning Jesus’ power (“Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” 11:37). At last, Jesus makes advance to the problem, but not before another dialogue with Martha at his order to remove the stone to the tomb. He looks upward, says “Father, I thank you for having heard me,” an aside uttered for the sake of those standing by,36 cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And the result: the dead man comes out with bound hands and feet, his face wrapped in a cloth. In what has come to be a typically Johannine device, the chorus is divided between those who believe in Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees who call a meeting, at which the high priest Caiaphas prophesies Jesus’ death “for the nation,” and the crowd at Jerusalem before Passover in doubt over Jesus’ showing himself in public.
Now the question arises as to whether or not these miracles of healing are to be set down as legendary, at best containing a smidgin of historical fact blown out of all proportion through multiplication. What urges toward this assessment is the fact that stories such as are told of Jesus’ healing abound in pagan literature. First and foremost among the divine men of the period was the first century wandering Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana (ca. 15—ca. AD 100) a figure much discussed by the fourth century Church fathers. A current introduction to a textbook on the New Testament teases the reader with a description of Appollonius as if it were of Jesus:
. . ..a supernatural being informed his mother the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously. . ..As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live. . .for what is spiritual. He gathered a number of disciples. . .who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired. . .in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. But at the end of his life he roused opposition, and his enemies delivered him over to the Roman authorities for judgment. Still, after he left this world, he returned to meet his followers in order to convince them that he was not really dead but lived on in the heavenly realm. Later some of his followers wrote books about him.37
First of all, the historicity of the life and career of the Appollonius depends upon the amount of trust placed in his principal biographer, Philostratus the Elder (ca.170—c.247). According to recent research, the discourses which Philostratus professes to copy from Damis, an acolyte and companion of Appollonius, may or may not be genuine. Second, though the possibility that the Jesus-tradition is dependent on that of Appollonius is out of the question, the reverse is not. In such a society as Rome, which had abandoned its traditional gods for deities of the east, assigning divinity with all its trappings to a celebrated figure from Cappadocia, whether or not in competition with Jesus of Nazareth, would scarcely represent a departure from usual habit. Lastly, to cite G. K. Chesterton, in contrast to the great thinkers of antiquity who had very little to do except to walk and talk,
. . .the life of Jesus went as swift and straight as a thunderbolt. . ..Something had to be done. It emphatically would not have been done, if Jesus had walked about the world forever doing nothing except tell the truth. . .The primary thing that he was going to do was to die. . ..He may be met as if straying in strange places, or stopped on the way for discussion or dispute; but his face is set towards the mountain city.”38
It is no secret that for over a hundred and fifty years the majority of Bible interpreters has denied the genuineness of the healing miracles reported of
