Book Review: Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts

Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts by Craig Keener

This is the most exhaustively documented study of miracles that one can find and read. It is readable, organized, interesting, and incalculably informative. Even if you are a child of the Enlightenment and postmodernism and have dismissed miracle accounts as the "God of the Gaps" explanation of people who cannot explain what they have experienced or seen….this may open your eyes to the unseen realm behind the veil. Many moderns think that "ignorant folk' like me just don't have enough education to understand the natural world, and since scientists on TV discount the supernatural, so should we all. Keener destroys this notion in this 2-volume tome.

Craig Keener argues for two theses: "The book's primary thesis is simply that eyewitnesses do offer miracle claims ... The secondary thesis is that supernatural explanations, while not suitable in every case, should be welcome on the scholarly table along with other explanations often discussed". The bulk of Keener's work comes in part three, which surveys miracle accounts beyond antiquity. Keener develops an anthology of miracle stories and perspectives including sources from all across the Majority World as well as the recent West. Keener then picks up his second thesis in part four, where he discusses several proposed explanations for such accounts.

The amount of academic research that Keener put into this text is extraordinary in and of itself. Dare I say miraculous that it was possible to pull all of this data and information into one source. About half of Volume 2 is bibliography. There are 171 pages of just cited sources. This is no academic/research lightweight. This book lays it all bare. Though this is quite pricey at nearly $60 and it requires a long effort to finish the end is clearly worth the effort. 

The weight of the cited evidence that Keener provides is staggering. The implications of this conclusion alone offer a significant insight into the accounts of the Resurrection being that it was a miracle. I came away with renewed vision of the miraculous works of God in the world. The miracles thereby being the signs or signposts in this world pointing to the next. Miracles are road signs that give us direction and point us towards the Kingdom of God. 

Through this all Keener clinically destroys David Hume and Rudolf Bultmann because as he states: 

"It is impossible to prove a negative by induction when one has observed a limited range of data, and it is precarious to infer an inflexibly negative rule by induction when abundant eyewitness claims exist that one merely refuses to admit as evidence" (p. 167).

The truly open-minded historian will at least consider a supernatural explanation a possibility. I can say without reservation that from now on, anyone who has not dealt with the claims found in this book is not qualified to speak on the topic of miracles.