Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§15.7 Who Did They Think Jesus Was?
themselves. So too there are no objective events of people being healed, no nonmiracles
to be uncovered by clearing away layers of interpretation. All we have
in at least many cases is the shared memory of a miracle which was recounted as
such more or less from the first day. What the witnesses saw was a miracle, not
an 'ordinary' event which they interpreted subsequently as a miracle. There must
have been many who experienced Jesus' ministrations to them as miracles, individuals
who were genuinely healed and delivered, and these successes were attributed
there and then to the power of God flowing through Jesus. Only so could
Jesus' reputation as exorcist and healer have become so firm and so widespread
so quickly. In such cases, we may say, the first 'historical fact' was a miracle, because
that was how the event was experienced, as a miracle, by the followers of
Jesus who witnessed it.
d. Jesus the Exorcist
Two of the exorcism narratives are of particular interest — the demoniac in the
synagogue at Capernaum (Mark 1.23-28/Luke 4.33-37) and the Gerasene demoniac
(Mark 5.1-20 pars.). It will suffice to cite only Mark in both cases, since
Luke follows Mark closely in the first case, and despite the improvements introduced
by the others in the second. 278
1.23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean
spirit; 24 and he cried out, 'What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God'.
25ßut Jesus rebuked him, saying, 'Be silent, and come out of him!' 26And the
unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying,
'What is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the
unclean spirits, and they obey him'. 28And at once his fame spread everywhere
throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
5-iThey came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.
2 And when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man
278. The account of the possessed boy (Mark 9.14-27 pars.) has already been cited
above (§8.4c). Matthew describes the boy in Mark 9.14-29/Matt. 17.14-21/Luke 9.37-43 as
'moonstruck' (seleniazetai, Matt. 17.15), indicating that he suffered from what we would now
describe as epileptic seizures, which in the ancient world were thought to be caused by the
moon (BDAG, seleniazomai; E. Yamauchi, 'Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms',
in D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, eds., Gospel Perspectives. Vol. 6: The Miracles of Jesus
[Sheffield: JSOT, 1986] 89-183 [here 129-30]; see also Kollmann, Jesus 211-12). Pesch
notes that it is hardly a typical exorcism story (Markusevangelium 2.95).
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