I forgot to make this point in the preceding entry…
Notice this: Jesus’ enemies don’t dispute the fact of his miracle-working (as we moderns would if Jesus were walking on earth today), only in whose name and by what authority Jesus works the miracles. Even John the Baptist’s doubts about Jesus (“Are you one, or should we expect another?”) aren’t because Jesus is failing to work miracles (which would likely be the basis for our doubts today). In fact, Jesus reassures John by recounting the miracles, not simply to prove that he has the power to work them (which isn’t disputed), but in order to point to their deeper meaning: they reveal something about Jesus’ identity and God’s kingdom.
Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Luke 7:22).
From our modern point of view, it’s hard to imagine that the fact of Jesus’ miracles was uncontroversial, but it seems to be. Given the hundreds of eyewitnesses who purportedly saw or experienced these miracles throughout Galilee or Judea, it would be risky for the evangelists to say Jesus performed them publicly, when so many people could have easily contradicted them. “I remember Jesus’ teaching and preaching, but healing the sick—whoever heard of such a thing?”
This lends credence to Malina and Rohrbaugh’s view discussed earlier: We don’t and can’t experience reality the way people living in the first century did.