Why doesn't Paul mention Jesus' miracles?

Skeptics occasionally object to the historicity of Jesus' miracles on the basis that they aren't mentioned in Paul's letters. I responded to the objection as formulated by John Loftus several years ago. I won't repeat everything I said there. Those who are interested can read that post. What I want to do here is expand on what I said there.

- We have no reason to expect Paul to have mentioned Jesus' miracles. There are places where he could have mentioned them, but I see no way to argue that he should have brought them up in the manner under consideration. Watch the video clip here for some comments from Tim McGrew on the argument from silence. Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist is widely accepted as historical, yet Paul not only doesn't mention it, but also doesn't even mention John the Baptist (if we define a mentioning of such things the same way critics are defining a mentioning of Jesus' miracles). And John the Baptist has a large role in the gospels. Paul knew of multiple brothers of Jesus (1 Corinthians 9:5), but the only one he names is James. The names of the others, especially Jude, are mentioned by multiple early sources outside of Paul. It would be unreasonable to conclude that Paul only knew the name of one of Jesus' brothers simply because he only names one of them in his extant letters. And so on.

- My earlier post linked above mentions passages that make more sense if Paul thought Jesus performed miracles than if he didn't think so. It's more likely than not that Jesus was thought to have performed miracles if his apostles were required to perform miracles to authenticate their identity as an apostle. It's more likely than not that Paul thought Jesus performed miracles if Paul refers to his performing miracles by the power of Jesus (Romans 15:18-19). Etc. Objecting that such passages don't explicitly spell out something like Jesus' walking on water or giving sight to the blind doesn't change the fact that Paul's belief in Jesus' performance of miracles makes more sense of evidence like what I've just cited. Complaining that there isn't more evidence can't be a substitute for explaining the evidence we have.

- One of the passages I brought up in my earlier post is 2 Thessalonians 2:9. Notice that the close of verse 8 refers to the (second) coming of Christ and that the opening of verse 9 refers to the coming of the Antichrist. It seems that the two figures are being paralleled, as we see in other early documents addressing the Antichrist and related issues (Revelation 13:3; The Didache, 16). Much of what's said about the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2 is reminiscent of Jesus: appearing on earth as a man whose coming was predicted; being referred to as a "son" (Son of God, son of destruction); being empowered by the highest spirit of one type or the other (the Holy Spirit or Satan); being worshiped by people on earth; close association with the temple; etc. It seems that there are a lot of parallels between Christ and Antichrist in the thinking of the early Christians in general and in 2 Thessalonians in particular. The reference to the Antichrist's false wonders in 2 Thessalonians 2:9 is best seen as a contrast to the true wonders of Christ. Of course, the presence of some parallels doesn't require that everything be paralleled. Maybe no parallel to other wonders is intended, or maybe the wonders that contrast to the Antichrist's are wonders other than Christ's, such as the wonders of the apostles, but 2 Thessalonians 2:9 makes the most sense if there's a contrast between the miracles of the Antichrist and the traditional Christian view of Jesus' miracle working. And notice that "wonders" is plural, so that the wonders of Christ being alluded to probably include more than his resurrection. It could be objected that the coming of Jesus referred to at the end of verse 8 is his second coming, so that the wonders of Christ are in that context rather than the context of his first coming. But the theme that seems to be in view is coming more broadly, since the coming of the Antichrist isn't a second coming. And Jesus' not performing any miracles prior to his resurrection, then rising from the dead and performing miracles in the context of his second coming would be less plausible due to the discontinuity involved. That sort of scenario is possible, but it's a weaker explanation of the text. The traditional Christian view, in which Jesus works many miracles in the contexts of both of his comings, makes more sense of 2 Thessalonians 2.

- 1 Timothy 5:18 refers to the gospel of Luke as scripture, which carries with it the implication of agreement with what that gospel reports about Jesus' miracles. Critics will typically object that 1 Timothy wasn't written by Paul and may raise the same objection about 2 Thessalonians and whatever other documents. But, in addition to the fact that substantial arguments have been offered for the authenticity of the documents in question, the contents of the documents are still problematic for the skeptic's position even without an acceptance of the traditional authorship attributions. Think of the widespread nature of the early acceptance of Jesus' miracles among the early sources, as discussed in my earlier post, including sources who speak so highly of Paul (Luke/Acts, 1 Timothy, 2 Peter, Polycarp, etc.) or have traditionally been attributed to sources Paul speaks highly of (e.g., John, Mark). Even if you don't accept the traditional authorship attributions of documents like Luke/Acts and 1 Timothy, the fact remains that they're early sources who speak highly of Paul. Continuity between their view of Jesus' miracles and Paul's is more likely than discontinuity. And it's not as though Jesus' miracles are just a small part of a document like the gospel of Luke. When 1 Timothy 5:18 refers to Luke's gospel as scripture, the document being referred to as scripture spends a large percentage of its text discussing a large number and variety of miracles performed by Jesus. Similar comments can be made about other sources involved. A component of this category of evidence that's often overlooked or underestimated is the reception of the gospels and other relevant sources in the early Pauline churches. See my previous post linked earlier for examples of books that provide relevant information on the subject (e.g., Bruce Metzger's book on the New Testament canon). Furthermore, it's not as though there are two competing traditions just after Paul's death. Rather, if Paul thought Jesus didn't perform miracles or was agnostic on the subject, then his view was rapidly abandoned and widely replaced without leaving traces of Paul's view in the historical record. That's a less likely scenario than the traditional view that Paul's position on this subject was basically the one we see so widely accepted in the sources surrounding Paul.

- If Jesus didn't behave at least similarly to what's portrayed in the gospels, the early Christians could have taken any of multiple approaches other than what they took in the gospels. They could have denied that the Messiah should be expected to perform miracles. Or they could have claimed that the miracles in question wouldn't happen until the context of the second coming, much as Christianity has expected other Messianic themes to not be fulfilled at all or to not be completely fulfilled until then. Even if the early Christians wanted to claim miracles in the recent past for some reason, you could claim that a figure worked miracles without making those alleged miracles so public, involving so many people, with so much specification on matters like names, timeframes, and locations, and without having the sort of complicated, unexpected, and embarrassing elements that some of the gospel miracles have and without the corroboration we have from non-Christian sources. The best explanation for why so many sources report Jesus' miracles and report them the way they do, with so many of Christianity's early critics offering alternative explanations for the miracles rather than denying that he performed any, is that he was a miracle worker. The sort of evidence I've just outlined is far more difficult for a skeptic of Jesus' miracles to explain than it is for a Christian to explain the lack of reference to Jesus' miracles in Paul's letters.