I'm looking for scientific answers - How did the stories about miracle cures performed by Jesus end up in the bible?

Asked by mattbrowne (31732) October 9th, 2009

I want to start a serious discussion and I’m not interested in comments from outraged theists and outraged atheists bashing each other. I’m looking for rational and logical explanations. So let’s really look at all possibilities that exist in principle, none of them violating any known physical laws. How many explanations are there? Here are a few that come to mind:

1) The bible as such is fake and it was fabricated after the First Council of Nicaea so that the Roman Emperor Constantine and the newly founded church could apply social control.

2) The bible is real and was written earlier, but the gospels are fake and the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John made up the stories about miracle cures performed by Jesus.

3) The gospels are real, but some oral traditions are fake and some jokester was spamming oral traditions with fantastic wizardry out of thin air.

4) The miracle cures performed by Jesus were real (perhaps exaggerated), but miracles in a strict sense didn’t happen. All cures have a scientific explanation.

Can you think of other explanations?

I think explanation number 4 is very close to the truth. Jesus was no magician. He didn’t bring back dead people. He didn’t instantly heal cripples. He himself didn’t die and then left his grave two days later.

Here’s what I think happened: Jesus was a very unusual charismatic leader. His words had a very powerful effect on people who listened to him. His life inspired many people, but he also had many enemies. Changing ideologies is never easy. After his death influential people continued to talk about him. The stories survived through oral traditions. Very often telling and retelling of stories lead to great exaggeration of what really happened. This phenomenon can still be observed today. Just look at what people do on Twitter. There’s some remark or news snippets and look what people turn them into.

So here’s my scientific analysis to explain the phenomenon of Jesus healing people. I see mainly five categories of illnesses and cures.

Category 1: Mental illnesses treatable by psychotherapy

Let’s look at Matthew 15 (abridged): Jesus left and went to the territory near the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Suddenly a Canaanite woman from there came out shouting, “Lord help me. My daughter is full of demons.” ... Jesus answered, “Dear woman, you really do have a lot of faith, and you will be given what you want.” At that moment her daughter was healed.

As mentioned before “at that moment” is most certainly wrong. It would turn Jesus into a magician. The expression “is full of demons” can be found in both the old and new testament very often. I think it refers to illnesses such as generalized anxiety disorder (see ICD-10 code F41.1) and major depressive episodes (see e.g. ICD-10 code F32.1). Maybe the girl had been threatened by a wild animal and the experience was so traumatic she couldn’t tell her mother about it. Or it was a case of child abuse involving her father. We know from modern medicine that certain (mild) forms of mental illnesses can be dealt with by talking alone without medication. I think Jesus did talk to the daughter and also the mother. Beliefs are a very powerful tool to deal with hopeless situations. There are modern cases of meth addicts for whom every therapy failed, but becoming part of a very religious community allowed the addicts to overcome their addiction. Ironically dark ages belief systems such as creationism are more effective in those cases than my type of Christian belief for example. Being a scientist is actually counterproductive.

Category 2: Psychosomatic illnesses treatable by talking and psychotherapy

Some physical diseases are believed to have a mental component derived from the stresses and strains of everyday living. It is still difficult to classify some disorders as purely physical, mixed psychosomatic, or purely somatoform (Wikipedia). Examples include high pulse rates, chest pain, stomach ulcers like peptic ulcer, irritable bowel syndrome, neurodermatitis, certain forms of headaches, eczema, and many others. Reasons include stress, mental imbalance, desperation and unhealthy life styles. I would add suffering from spiritual voids. I think Jesus had a gift for filling spiritual voids and the power of his words also reduced stress and he gave people a new form of hope.

For category 2 illnesses the placebo effect can also offer a cure. Maybe homeopathic medicines are very powerful because of this for some people. I think the placebo effect also works in religion whenever the effect is directly linked to a cause like a material object such as a cross or prayer beads or holy water. So if someone believes that the bead has a magical power to let the headache go away, it can go away. Most of Jesus’s teachings themselves cannot be viewed as a placebo because he was using metaphors like light and salt and fish. He asked people to show altruistic behavior. Modern medicine shows that being genuinely interested in other people and helping them can in fact help curing psychosomatic disorders, even some forms of depression. Well, we probably know this since Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

Category 3: Physical illnesses and neurogenesis

This is a very complex field and let me just give one example. It is known that partial paralysis as a result of strokes can be cured by applying certain therapies and learning techniques stimulating neurogenesis. A strong-willed mind is important. I find it likely that Jesus had the effect on people and he helped them to become more strong minded. Yes, I really want to move my right leg. Again this didn’t work instantly. Same as today.

Category 4: Indirect boost of the immune system

2000 years ago when people got infected by a virus or bacteria all they got was their immune system. There were no antiviral or antibiotic drugs. It is known than stress reduction and relaxation can result in a boost of the immune system. The same probably applies for positive thinking in general. Again Jesus’s powerful words encouraged this way of thinking.

Category 5: Spontaneous remission

I think those cases were extremely rare, but they do occur today and they did 2000 years ago. Cancer patients can fight their cancer but they really have to fight hard mentally. A strong belief in getting healthy is essential. I think most cases in the gospels are not a result of spontaneous remissions but maybe a few were.

I’m not interested in purely religious comments based on young-earth creationism and biblical literalism.

My question is: What is your scientific analysis? How do you explain the stories related to the miracle cures performed by Jesus?