Jesus as Healer

A Gospel for the Body

Jan-Olav Henriksen, Karl Olav Sandnes

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780802873316
• eBook ISBN: 9781467445269
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Healings and miracles play a prominent role in the New Testament accounts of Jesus' life and ministry. In the Western Christian tradition, however, Jesus' works of healing tend to be downplayed and understood as little more than a demonstration of his divine power.
In this book Jan-Olav Henriksen and Karl Olav Sandnes draw on both contemporary systematic theology and New Testament scholarship to challenge and investigate the reasons for that oversight. They constructively consider what it can mean for Christian theology today to understand Jesus as a healer, to embrace fully the embodied character of the Christian faith, and to recognize the many ways in which God can still be seen to have a healing presence in the world.

Part I

Remembering Jesus as Healer:
Perspectives from New Testament Scholarship

Karl Olav Sandnes

Introductory Remarks to the New Testament Part

We start this part of the book by stating a fact: Jesus was remembered as a healer. This remembrance is to be found almost exclusively in stories. Jesus’ healings were recounted and passed on. Storytelling always serves the present in one way or the other. From the very outset we can therefore point out that Jesus was remembered as a healer in a way relevant for posterity. Outside the narrative genre, Jesus as healer is a topic that plays no significant role in early Christianity. It is, for example, entirely absent in the Apostles’ Creed, as well as in creed-­like texts in the New Testament, which are building blocks towards later formulations of what Christian faith is about (Rom 1:3–4; Phil 2:6–11; Col 1:15–20; 1 Tim 3:16; Heb 1:2–4). In a way that became formative for the church, these texts encapsulate the pivotal elements in the ministry of Jesus. Strikingly, the wonder traditions1 are absent. This is, however, not the case in the book of Acts (see later), and it is also worth noticing that Justin Martyr (c. 160 CE) at times includes Jesus’ healings and exorcisms in his creedal statements on the life of Jesus: “In these books, then, of the prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin, growing up to man’s estate, and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated, and unrecognized, and crucified, and dying, and rising again, and ascending into heaven, and being called the Son of God” (1 Apology 31, cf. 48). To Justin, Jesus’ healing sickness is a fulfillment of prophecy; it is part of his proof-­from-­prophecy argument. The Christians did tell and pass on stories about Jesus as healer, and also about his disciples who continued this ministry, albeit more randomly.

As Craig S. Keener points out, “Miracle stories compose nearly one-­third of Mark’s Gospel.”2 The evidence for Jesus as a wonderworker is overwhelming in the relevant sources. It is found explicitly in Q, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, as well as polemically in Jewish as well as pagan sources. The latter sources, for example, rabbinic texts and Celsus, make sense of this activity of Jesus’ differently from how the Gospels present it. They say that Jesus owed his healing power to sorcery, a hostile interpretation echoed also in Mark 3:22 and parallels and some other passages. The polemics make no attempt, however, to deny that Jesus really performed wonders. It is the explanations that differ, and greatly so, not the fact that Jesus performed healings.

Apparently the first-­century Jewish historian Josephus attests that Jesus was seen as a wonderworker. In his so-­called Testimonium Flavianum (Ant. 18.63), he says that Jesus was a wise man who “worked startling deeds” (paradoxa erga). The Greek adjective paradoxos refers to something contrary to all expectations, or what is incredible;3 it refers to things perceived as miraculous. The fact that the wonders are labeled ta paradoxa is worth noticing, since it gives reason to question the commonly held view that people in the ancient world were exceedingly credulous.4 We need to be reminded that a common reaction to Jesus’ healings was the following: “We have never seen anything like this” (Mark 2:12 par.).5 However, the reliability of this piece of information in Josephus is debatable. No doubt, the testimony has been shaped by Christians; but whether it is a Christian addition throughout or only partly remains an issue. It is probable that Josephus included some information about Jesus of Nazareth at this point in his story, and that Christians then expanded on it, but also shaped what might have been there already. To be sure, some of the concepts conveyed about Jesus in this passage find little compliance with how Christians commonly talked about Jesus, thus suggesting that it is not a Christian invention throughout.6 Furthermore, the fact that Josephus mentions “the brother of Jesus” (Ant. 20.200) assumes that the readers have already been introduced to Jesus; most likely this is where the Testimonium Flavianium is now found. If the Testimonium Flavianum is removed, this piece of information about “the brother of Jesus” is left hanging in the air. Hence, it seems justified to assume that the wonders of Jesus had already been mentioned by Josephus.7 The Greek magical papyri (PGM) give witness to the fact that even outsiders considered the name of Jesus to be able to perform miraculous things.8 Although this is worth noticing, PGM attest to the repute of Jesus only.

This source-­critical situation complies with the principle of multiple attestation in historical Jesus research. Again, in the words of Craig S. Keener: “The evidence is stronger for this claim than for most other historical claims that we could make about Jesus or earliest Christianity.”9 This means that the general picture is authentic, but it can nevertheless not be applied to every single instance. What matters in the present context is to point out that Jesus was clearly and broadly remembered as a healer. It is the memories of this activity, not a secured minimum of historically authentic material, that eventually come into play for present-­day theology.

It is here worth rehearsing briefly what Chris Keith has called “the Jesus-­memory approach” in historical Jesus research.10 Its point of departure is the fundamental insight of recent memory studies, which has been picked up on in New Testament studies: Remembering is not simply an act of recalling the past, but the past is reconstructed in the light of present needs. In other words, memory is formed or shaped by the present. Applying this to the Gospels and considering them as “receptions of Jesus-­memory” has significance not only for historical Jesus research but also for the present project. This way of thinking assumes that both past and present have conditioned the memories about Jesus.

These memories were not made without any basis in what happened; certainly the past provided stories to be told and remembered. However, the past would not be remembe...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• I. Remembering Jesus as Healer: Perspectives from New Testament Scholarship
• II. Jesus as Healer and Contemporary Theology
• Bibliography
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts