Note 49 — Chapter III · ROOTS OF THE MYTH
Reading edition
Still we are met by the objection that whatever the Acts may say the gospels give no indication of any previous Jesus-cult. But that is a position untenable for the biographical school save by a temporary resort to the theory of myth-making. As Professor W. B. Smith has pointed out, the gospels expressly represent that the disciples healed the sick in the name of Jesus in places where Jesus had never been. For the supernaturalists, that is only one more set of miracles. But the biographical school, though it is much inclined to credit Jesus with occult “healing powers,” can hardly affirm such healing by means of a magic name, and has no resource but to dismiss all such matter.49 Yet why should the evangelists have framed such a narrative save on the knowledge that the name of Jesus was a thing to conjure with in Palestinian villages?