The feeding of five thousand + by Jesus using only five loaves of bread and two fishes!
(Mark 6:34-44; see also the parallel accounts in Matthew 14:14-21, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:1-14)
The problem here for skeptics is HOW could it be done, and IS THERE PROOF it ever happened!
The problem with their problem is clear, no matter how much proof is presented, no matter how many people saw it happen a skeptic will be skeptical. The issue is simply a straw man set up to divert us from proof that they CAN'T explain away!
Digging Up the Bible: The Stories Behind the Great Archaeological Discoveries in the Holy Land
The Moses Riddle (Thomas McAllister 'Treasure Hunter' Adventure)
The Archaeology of Jerusalem From David to Jesus (Part One, From the Beginning to the Babylonian Destruction, Part Two, From the Return of the Exiles to the World of Jesus)
Mark 6 says:
34As Jesus landed, He saw a great crowd waiting, and He was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.
35And when [a]the day was already far gone, His disciples came to Him and said, This is a desolate and isolated place, and the hour is now late.
36Send the crowds away to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.
37But He replied to them, Give them something to eat yourselves. And they said to Him, Shall we go and buy 200 [b]denarii [about forty dollars] worth of bread and give it to them to eat? [II Kings 4:42-44.]
38And He said to them, How many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they [had looked and] knew, they said, Five [loaves] and two fish.
39Then He commanded the people all to recline on the green grass by companies.
40So they threw themselves down in ranks of hundreds and fifties [with the [c]regularity of an arrangement of beds of herbs, looking [d]like so many garden plots].
41And taking the five loaves and two fish, He looked up to heaven and, praising God, gave thanks and broke the loaves and kept on giving them to the disciples to set before the people; and He [also] divided the two fish among [them] all.
42And they all ate and were satisfied.
43And they took up twelve [[e]small hand] baskets full of broken pieces [from the loaves] and of the fish.
44And those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men. {Add to this the Women and the Children average and the number is staggering}
"A miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent" (Hume, 123n). However, these days people use the term much more loosely to mean something like "against all odds." The rest of this article is not about people who call themselves or their experiences miracles because the odds seemed stacked against them. Here we will discuss miracle in the theological sense."
mir·a·cle (mr
-kl)
Not everything hard to believe can be quantified as a miracle according to scriptural standards. Miracles are those acts that only God can perform; usually superseding natural laws.
35And when [a]the day was already far gone, His disciples came to Him and said, This is a desolate and isolated place, and the hour is now late.
36Send the crowds away to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.
37But He replied to them, Give them something to eat yourselves. And they said to Him, Shall we go and buy 200 [b]denarii [about forty dollars] worth of bread and give it to them to eat? [II Kings 4:42-44.]
38And He said to them, How many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they [had looked and] knew, they said, Five [loaves] and two fish.
39Then He commanded the people all to recline on the green grass by companies.
40So they threw themselves down in ranks of hundreds and fifties [with the [c]regularity of an arrangement of beds of herbs, looking [d]like so many garden plots].
41And taking the five loaves and two fish, He looked up to heaven and, praising God, gave thanks and broke the loaves and kept on giving them to the disciples to set before the people; and He [also] divided the two fish among [them] all.
42And they all ate and were satisfied.
43And they took up twelve [[e]small hand] baskets full of broken pieces [from the loaves] and of the fish.
44And those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men. {Add to this the Women and the Children average and the number is staggering}
From the Skeptic's Dictionary:
"A miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent" (Hume, 123n). However, these days people use the term much more loosely to mean something like "against all odds." The rest of this article is not about people who call themselves or their experiences miracles because the odds seemed stacked against them. Here we will discuss miracle in the theological sense."
mir·a·cle (mr
-kl)n.
1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: "Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves"(Katherine Anne Porter).
Baker's Dictionary of the Bible defines a miracle as "an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God."
It goes on to add that a miracle occurs to show that the power behind it is not limited to the laws of matter or mind as it interrupts fixed natural laws.
So the term supernatural applies quite accurately.
It's very interesting that a common word used for miracle in the New Testament can also be translated "sign." A miracle is a sign that God uses to point to Himself, he does nothing off the cuff so to speak, purpose is at the center of every act he accomplishes; there would never be a time where God would do something that would make himself look bad. It is OUR perceptions that are off not his purposes!
Does something have to break a natural law for it to be a miracle?
Does something have to break a natural law for it to be a miracle?
C.S. Lewis defines a "miracle" in his work by the same name as an interference with nature by a supernatural power.
Obviously, to interfere with natural law may not necessarily mean to break the natural law.
Nature and "super-nature" become interlocked after a miracle occurs and nature carries on according to the change wrought by that event, in other words God's creation ALLOWS for Miracles to happen and makes a change to fall into line with God's will.
Nature and "super-nature" become interlocked after a miracle occurs and nature carries on according to the change wrought by that event, in other words God's creation ALLOWS for Miracles to happen and makes a change to fall into line with God's will.
Look at the law of inertia (Newton's first law of motion) it states that an object will remain in rest until an external force is applied.
Nature can only move from event to event through supernatural intervention, God holds all things together by his Word so all things are at the call of God's voice, and as believers we command by HIS POWER through his word, speaking forth WHAT GOD INTENDS TO HAPPEN by faith.
Jesus once said that he only did what he already saw his Father do, so it follows then every Miracle he performed was preordained by God to happen. This makes a Miracle a natural part of Nature as it rearranges nature to perform His will.
No true Miracle will break God's preordained order or Laws, they simply flow into each other like two ENERGIES co-mingling to form a perfect union. The food creation here is not breaking any known law, in fact it is fulfilling the law of multiplication to meet a real need!
Satanic false miracles leave a mark on nature, because they break fundamental laws as they rape nature to appear, and while they may look like something of God they lack his creative knowledge!
SO WHAT ABOUT THIS MIRACLE? OVER 5,000 PEOPLE SAW IT HAPPEN, BUT WHAT ABOUT OUTSIDE SOURCES AS WITNESSES after all over 10,000 people witnessed this event didn't they?
Extra-biblical literature comprises Jewish writers (Josephus, the Rabbinics, and other Jewish traditions embedded in non-Jewish lit) and Greco-Roman writers (most of whom were hostile to Christianity at the time they wrote). [We generally exclude from our consideration here "Christian" sources, such as Church Fathers and NT Apocrypha, except where there is some warrant for believing the data was not derived from the canonical tradition.]
One common word translated miracle is the Greek word dunamis- or explosive power.
Could the feeding of the 5000 be JUST a parable?
Remember that a parable is a story that teaches a truth but is not itself an actual historical event. Since the feeding of the 5,000 was an actual event recorded in all four gospels of the New Testament , it is not a parable, and therefore not just a story.
"Were the Miracles of Jesus invented by the Disciples/Evangelists?" CLICK HERE!
"Did the NT author's invent the miracle stories in the gospels?" CLICK HERE!
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