10. Feeding the multitudes with a few loaves of bread and some fish
In the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth twice faces hungry crowds who evidently came to hear him speak without concerning themselves over the subject of having enough food (what today would be called overflow crowds were the result of a leper whom Jesus cured of the disease. Jesus warned the leper not to tell anyone of the miracle, the leper told anyway, and Jesus’s fame spread rapidly). On both occasions the crowds were fed when comparatively minute quantities of food – in the form of loaves of bread and fishes – were distributed, and after all present were no longer hungry the disciples gathered the leftovers, which were a greater amount of food than what had been available when the feeding began. This miracle is presented as proof of Jesus’s divinity and that He will provide all that is necessary for those who follow him devoutly. But it was a miracle which had been presented before.
The earlier miracle isn’t from the mythologies of the Greeks, or Mesopotamians, or Phoenicians, or another ancient people. Instead, it is from the documents of the Jews, the Holy Scriptures, and it was a miracle wrought by the prophet Elisha, who also on one occasion raised the dead, according to the Old Testament. In 2 Kings (4: 42-44) Elisha feeds a large crowd with a few loaves of bread and some fruits, after which they, “had some left over”. Elisha worked a smaller crowd than Jesus (100) according to the accounts in the Bible, and he started with a bit more food, but the miracle of feeding many with an impossibly small amount of food preceded the ministry of Jesus, performed by a prophet who likewise raised the dead, if the stories are to be taken literally.
