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Summer
Books Miracle stories reveal values of a religion
THE BOOK OF MIRACLES:
THE MEANING OF THE MIRACLE STORIES IN CHRISTIANITY, JUDAISM, BUDDHISM,
HINDUISM, AND ISLAM By Kenneth L. Woodward Simon & Schuster,
431 pages, $28 |
By SUSAN MOSS
Did Jesus really feed 5,000 people? Did Moses, with
Gods help, really part the Red Sea? Did the Prophet Muhammad really
restore sight to someone whose eye had been gouged out? And did the Buddha
really fly through the air? In his book about miracles, veteran Newsweek
religion journalist Kenneth L. Woodward would say that these are the wrong
questions to ask. Miracles, he argues, are not really about supernatural
events. They are, rather, the stories that religions tell about their founders
and their great saints.
We come to know the great religions not so much by their official
teachings or practices, but by the stories they continue to tell. I suspect
that Woodward would agree with H. Richard Niebuhrs comment that the Bible
(like all great religious texts) is far too important to be taken
literally.
The 400-plus pages of this book are filled with story after story
of the miracles of the great religions. Almost the first half of the book is
devoted to Judaism and Christianity. Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism follow, and
there is a concluding chapter that focuses on four contemporary miracle
case histories: miraculous cures attributed to candidates for
sainthood in Catholicism, to Oral Roberts, to Rebbe Schneerson in the
Lubavitcher Jewish community and to the Hindu figure Mata Amritanandamayi.
Within each religious tradition, Woodward offers helpful
background material as well as a suggestion as to the function of the miracles
within the tradition. For example, Woodward suggests that the miracles in the
Hebrew Bible reveal Gods gradual withdrawal to the heavenly background,
as miracles move from Gods hand to human hands and become successively
more private.
The 40 pages devoted to the miracles of Jesus allow Woodward to
give a primer in gospel criticism and to show how each evangelist shapes the
material to his own audience. Woodward provides a readable and coherent life of
the Prophet, and with Hinduism and Buddhism, he provides a concise summary of
their history and of their major texts (quite a feat in itself). Each religious
traditions foundational story, along with its first miracle workers, is
followed by a chapter that recounts stories of later followers and saints and
their miracles, usually as shadows of the miracles performed in that
traditions golden age.
The dust jackets many prominent writers -- from Robert
Bellah and William F. Buckley to Mary Higgins Clark and the Dalai Lama --
comment on the book as an invaluable resource on the subject of miracles, using
miracle stories taken from some of the more widely respected resources. Indeed,
most of the book is devoted to telling the miracle stories themselves, which
after a while can nearly overwhelm the reader.
There is also a helpful bibliography. In sum, the book offers a
considerable amount of material in a highly readable form.
I would have liked more analysis. True, it is a mistake to read
these stories literally. And, yes, it is true that one can learn a great deal
about a religions basic values by reading about the miracles that its
founder is remembered for. It is good to be reminded of the great compassion of
the Buddha, of the playfulness of Krishna, of the holistic healing that Jesus
offered, of the power of Gods hand in parting the seas.
Yet only at the end of this work does Woodward venture to ask some
provocative questions: What happens to miracles, though, when traditions
are no longer transmitted, the classic stories no longer acknowledged or poorly
understood? He comes to the brief but sobering conclusion that miracles
no longer inspire fear and awe of the Almighty, but rather, at least in the
West, admiration of the divinity that is the self.
Woodwards narrative approach to miracles is a helpful
corrective to the wrongheaded idea that miracles can be understood through a
modern binary mindset of true/false. And for Westerners, the stories of the
religions of the East will lay to rest any idea that, deep down, all religions
are really the same.
Susan A. Ross, author of Extravagant Affections: A Feminist
Sacramental Theology (Continuum), teaches theology at Loyola University
Chicago.
National Catholic Reporter, May 17,
2002
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