The author’s main premise is that a lot of the miraculous stuff happens due to Altered States of Consciousness and having to understand the culture at the time.
Tbh I didn’t really follow this argument - I mean I get what he’s trying to say, that miracles are basically just individual’s perceptions as a result of consciousness-altering phenomena. Certainly, this is an easy way to explain away visions but it starts to break down when we get to physical miracles, like the walking on water (did Peter’s trance enable him to walk on water or did it just cause him to believe that Jesus was walking on water and his won sinking was the result of the “dream” being interrupted?). Similarly like I said above, this is an easy way of explaining something like the feeding of the 5000. However, I’m struggling to see how it works with something like healing - a person thinking that they’re cured is one thing, picking up their mat and walking is another altogether. In the same way, no matter how much someone may think they’re cured of blindness, obstacles in their path will obviously suggest otherwise! I suppose this could be further explained by suggesting that they were never really sick or blind in the first place and that it was all just the psychosomatic with Jesus’ role as “healer” being to help the to realise this - all very Cartesian!
All that aside, the assertions regarding “Mediterranean culture” seem to be extremely broad and sweeping, especially given that, in Israel alone, there were at least four different cultures present - Jews, Greek, Romans and Samaritans - and that’s before we start considering the area of modern-day Turkey and Greece!
In the end, imho, it comes down to this. We like to think that we have effectively mastered the world around us, that nothing is completely beyond our capacity to achieve even if it might be out of reach right now. So, when something comes along that defies everything we thought we knew when tend to want to find a way to explain it away in order to make it less threatening because otherwise it challenges our assumption of control. this again goes back to the idea of perceiving things only as they are for us and ignoring the reality they have in themselves. Miracles require faith and faith in turn requires us to trust in something beyond our ability to grasp or comprehend. For seom, the leap required to do this is simply too much and so they seek alternative, easier explanations which are less confronting and help preserve their sense of comfort.
