• The Feeding of the 5000 and of the 4000 (see feeding the multitide) - despite the disciples only being able to collect just a few loaves of bread and a handful of fish, a large number of people are fed, and there are even a number of baskets of leftovers.
• The Cursing of the Fig Tree - Jesus is described as cursing a fig tree, and it subsequently withers
• Turning Water into Wine - at a wedding, when the host runs out of wine, the disciples of Jesus fill vessels with water, but the waiter pronounces the content of the vessels as the best wine that has been served that night
• Walking on water - Jesus is described as having walked over a lake to meet a boat.
• Transfiguration of Jesus - Jesus is described as having climbed a mountain and been changed so that his face glowed
• The Catch of 153 fish - Jesus is described as having instructed the disciples to throw their net over the side of the water, resulting in them hauling in the huge catch (for hand fishing) of 153 fish
• Calming a storm - during a storm, the disciples are described as having woken Jesus, and he as having rebuked the storm causing it to become calm. Jesus then rebukes the disciples for lack of faith.

To these, some Christians, predominantly Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglo Catholics, would add Transubstantiation during the last supper meal, though this is not clear in the narrative, and requires taking Jesus' words in this part of the Gospels extremely literally. Most Protestants reject this instance of transubstantiation, as do most non-Christians. It is worth noting, however, that not all schools of non-Christian philosophy rule out the possibility of transubstantiation in general; in Aristotelian schools of metaphysics the possibility is considered quite mundane rather than indicative of divine power - indeed Aristotle allowed the possibility of transubstantiation but rejected the possibility that God could intervene in the world.

Curing disease

Power over the mind

Power over death

• Jairus' daughter - Jairus, a major patron of a synagogue, asks Jesus to heal his daughter, but while Jesus is on his way, men tell Jairus that his daughter has died. Jesus says she was only sleeping and wakes her up.
• The son of the widow at Nain - A young man, the son of a widow, is brought out for burial in Nain. Jesus sees her, and his pity causes him to tell her not to cry. Jesus approaches the coffin and tells the man inside to get up, and he does so.
• The raising of Lazarus - a close friend of Jesus who has been dead for four days is brought back to life when Jesus commands him to get up.

If the Secret Gospel of Mark is to be considered genuine, then there is a fourth case in the Canonical Gospels, in which Jesus brings back to life a rich man who is loved by Jesus, and lived in Bethany. The rich man in question is implied by the Secret Gospel to be the almost naked individual that Mark states followed Jesus during his arrest, and the individual that Mark states was found in the otherwise empty tomb.

While the raising of the daughter of Jairus is in all the Synoptic Gospels (but not in the Gospel of John), the raising of the son of the widow of Nain appears only in the Gospel of Luke, and the raising of Lazarus appears only in the Gospel of John. It has been argued by several scholars and commentators that the story of the raising of Lazarus and that of the Nain widow's son really refer to the same event, and amongst those scholars also taking the Secret Gospel of Mark to be genuine, these two events are considered to derive from the raising of the youth in the original Mark (i.e. the event that was later excised from Mark, but survives in the Secret Gospel). That the story of the daughter of Jairus does not appear in the Gospel of John, despite the story clearly stating that John the Apostle was one of the only three people that Jesus took with him to witness it, is one of the reasons that most scholars doubt the Authorship of John.

To these must be added Jesus' own resurrection from the dead, if the Gospels are to be taken completely literally rather than allegorically. Most Christians accept this as fact without question, indeed almost defining being a Christian with a belief in the resurrection. Others, like Rudolf Bultmann, argue that the resurrection was not a historical event, as did a large number of early Christians, known as Gnostics, at one point almost a majority. Most non-Christian scholars point to the paucity of evidence, as well as the lack of evidence and scientific plausibility for other people having come back from the dead, and so reject the resurrection's historicity.

To the Gnostics, death had a profoundly allegorical meaning; people who had renounced their lack of knowledge and their carnality, becoming gnostics, were referred to as having died, since they had metaphorically escaped the prison of the body. The Gnostics viewed the resurrection of Jesus as an allegory for people attaining gnosis, and not as something that had to literally have happened, hence viewing these miracles as metaphors, and teaching devices, not actual events. According to those who see Gnosticism as the original version of Christianity, this is how the events were intended to be interpreted, and hence they were non historic, never really having been meant to be seen as historic.

References

• Trench, Richard Chenevix, Notes on the miracles of our Lord, London : John W. Parker, 1846 and many later editions
• Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, 1997 ISBN 0-385-24767-2
• Brown, Raymond E. et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary Prentice-Hall, 1990 ISBN 0-13-614934-0
• Kilgallen, John J. A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, Paulist Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8091-3059-9
• Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, v. 2, Mentor, Message, and Miracles, Doubleday, 1994, ISBN 0-385-46992-6
• Miller, Robert J. Editor The Complete Gospels, Polebridge Press, 1994 ISBN 0-06-065587-9

Notes