Miracles Under Fire from Historical Criticism and the Perspective of Narrative Analysis

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This article has a double framework: to comment upon the historico-critical handling of miracle undertaken by J.P. Meier and to elucidate how narrative analysis approaches miracle tales. In other words: how does miracle resist the trial of fire (historical criticism) and how does the miracle tale appear to the reader (narrative analysis)? Meier’s historical inquiry leads to regarding as highly likely a thaumaturgical activity on the part of Jesus of Nazareth, but its factual results remain modest. This disappointment is due to the very nature of miracle which is bound to the signified rather than the signifying of Jesus praxis, with the historian concentrating on the signifying. The narratological approach has shown how the tale qualified, for the reader, Jesus’acts as miracles; saying ‘miracle’ is thus an effect of the text, which takes up the word of the witness.