Evidence for Jesus’ Miracles Outside the Bible
Everyone knows the Gospels are chock-full of Jesus’ miracles. Making the lame walk, causing the blind to see, and even raising the dead were no problem for him.
Christians heartily embrace Jesus’ miracles. After all, if Jesus is fully God, he created the universe. And if he’s capable of creating the universe, certainly he could give someone his sight back.
Skeptics, however, disagree. Not only do they deny Jesus’ deity, they deny that Jesus performed any miracles at all. Sure, he might have been a wise man who said some good things, but performing miracles is out of the question.
But why come to that conclusion? The Gospels make no bones about Jesus’ miraculous powers. Why not trust these sources?
It’s because they think the Gospels are biased. In other words, since the Gospel writers were obviously Christians, they embellished the stories about Jesus with the hopes of winning many over to their cause. In the end, they can’t trust that the Gospels report the facts objectively.
While I disagree with that logic (sometimes the most committed people to a cause are in the best position to tell the world about it), I believe we can still demonstrate that Jesus was a miracle-worker without using the Bible.
MULTIPLE/ENEMY ATTESTATION
One of the difficult tasks historians face is sifting through all the different historical claims and making judgments on what really happened. For example, how do we know Hannibal crossed the Alps during the Second Punic War?
What if only one person wrote about this heroic feat? And what if that one person was Hannibal’s brother? If we had no other ancient source testifying to this incredible event, would we believe it? Maybe or maybe not.
We’d probably want multiple witnesses, and ones that weren’t as favorable to Hannibal as his brother. Even better, we’d want Hannibal’s enemies admitting that Hannibal pulled off this outrageous military maneuver.
Why? Because people don’t normally fabricate events that make their enemies look good.
Think about it this way. What if Vice President Mike Pence said that Donald Trump is the greatest president in American history? Would you believe him? Maybe. But then again, Donald Trump is his boss, and he’s been known to fire a person or two.
But what if Joe Biden said the same thing about Donald Trump? Well, you might be more inclined to take his words seriously. Why? Because Biden and Trump are political enemies. Not to mention Trump refers to Biden as “Sleepy Joe” every chance he gets. In other words, if a person is willing to admit certain details that make their enemies look good, those details are more than likely true.
As it turns out, we have multiple enemy sources of Christianity testifying to Jesus’ miracle-working ability.
NON-BIBLICAL SOURCES FOR JESUS’ MIRACLES
Outside the New Testament, we have both Jewish and Greek sources testifying to Jesus’ miracle-working power.
THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD (AD 70 – 200)
On the eve of the Passover Yeshu (Jesus) was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, “He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.” But since nothing was brought forward in his favor he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.1
This reference to Jesus demonstrates how the Jews negatively viewed Jesus. As Jesus’ enemies, they didn’t want to paint Jesus in a positive light. Thus, they accused him of sorcery.
While Christians reject the idea that Jesus practiced the dark arts, we notice that even these enemies of Jesus recognize that he performed miraculous deeds, even if they falsely attributed those deeds — much like the Jewish leaders did in Jesus’ day (Mk. 3:22-30).
JOSEPHUS (AD 93)
At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following among many Jews and among many of Greek origin.2
Writing late in the first century, Josephus also seems to indicate that Jesus was a miracle-worker. As a Jew, Josephus rejected the idea that Jesus was the Messiah, so he wouldn’t give Jesus unnecessary credit for his miraculous powers.
We know that some Christians later edited Josephus’ comments by inserting that Jesus was the Messiah who rose again from the dead — something a devout Jew would never assert. But the statement “for he was a doer of startling deeds” appears to be authentic.
THE TOLEDOT YESHU
They therefore, brought to him (Jesus) a lame man, who had never walked. Yeshu spoke over the man the letters of the Ineffable Name, and the leper was healed. Thereupon, they worshipped him as the Messiah, Son of the Highest.
There’s much speculation over the dating and reliability of this Jewish document (AD 400-500?), though it’s understood to reflect earlier Jewish tradition.
If you read the text in its entirety, you will quickly realize that it’s entirely anti-Jesus. It refers to Jesus as a bastard child, accuses him of sorcery, and claims that a gardener stole his body from the tomb.
But in the quoted portion above, it recognizes Jesus’ power to heal. Elsewhere in the text, it states that Jesus raised a dead person to life, made clay birds fly, and caused a millstone to float on the water — all miraculous feats.
While this text is almost all legendary, at the very least, it demonstrates that Jesus had the reputation of a miracle-worker among the Jews.
CELSUS (AD 175)
For he [Celsus] represents the Jew disputing with Jesus, and confuting Him, as he thinks, on many points; and in the first place, he accuses Him of having invented his birth from a virgin, and upbraids Him with being born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.3
Celsus despised Christianity, and spoke very poorly of Jesus. While several of his claims seem to corroborate the Gospels, the one point that is especially important for our purposes is his statement that Jesus acquired miraculous powers in Egypt.
Naturally, Celsus denies that Jesus’ power came from God, but he does admit that Jesus possessed miraculous powers nonetheless.
ENEMY ATTESTATION OF JESUS’ MIRACLES
Personally, I’m content with the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus’ miraculous powers. I’ve come to recognize those sources as authoritative and reliable.
But for those who reject the Gospels as biased accounts, they must grapple with the fact that enemies of Christianity admit that Jesus had the reputation of a miracle-worker. And when an enemy is willing to admit something positive about their opposition, that admission is a strong indicator that what they said is really true.
