Did Jesus's Listeners Hear "Miracle?"

In English, we have the word “miracles,” which comes to us from the Latin, miraculum, which means “a wonderful, strange, or marvelous thing.” In English, however, the word has become more associated with supernatural action. The miraculum in the Latin Vulgate comes from a Greek word that is even further removed in meaning from our English word.

This Greek word is not only translated as “miracle” in Jesus’s words, but it is the “"miracles” referred to by all the other authors of the New Testament, including Paul. But, surprisingly, translation of this Greek word as “miracle” is rare. It is usually translated as “power.”

The Greek Word

The Greek Word is dynamis (δυνάμεις). It means "power," "might," "influence," and "capacity." Jesus uses it in twenty-one verses. It is related to a verb,dynamai, from the same root (discussed in this earlier article), which means “to have power in yourself,” "to be able," and "to be strong enough." The related adjective, dynatos, means "strong," and "mighty." Its opposite is adynatos, that means "unable to do a thing," "powerless," and "without strength." As an adverb, it means "weakly," and "feebly."

No matter how it is translated in the Bible, Jesus’s listeners would have heard dynamisas some form of “power,” “strength,” and “capability,” because it and all its related word refer to “power,” ”strength,” and “ability.”

Dynamis is translated as “power” in seventeen of Jesus’s KJV verses but in only twelve of his NIV verses. The NIV translates dynamis once as “mighty one,” three times as “bodies, and once as “mighty”. In Luke 8:46, the KJV translates it as “virtue.”

It is translated as “miracle” only in five of Jesus’s verses, mostly in more modern translations like the NIV. These verses are Matthew 7:22, Matthew 11:23, Matthew 11:21, Luke 10:13, and Mark 9:39. In all these verses, the KJV translates it as “mighty works” except for in the last where it is “miracle.”

Jesus’s Use

The different translations of dynamis are often determined by its context. For example, in the verses when the NIV translates dynamis as “the Mighty One, the word is introduced by an article. For example, Mark 14:62:

NIV: I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.
Listeners Heard: I myself exist, and you will watch the Son of the Man by a right hand having seated himself as part of this power and showing up himself among the clouds of the sky.

Modern translations want this “power” to refer to the Divine, but the text doesn’t say “of the Mighty One.” The problem is that dynamis doesn’t modify “hand” but “having seated himself.” The word form translated as “of” also means “as part of,” which fits better here, “having seated himself as a part of this power.”

However, a verse similar to Mark 14:62 is in Luke 22:69. It says: “the power of God” (the Divine). There are only two other verses that say, “the power of the Divine.” Both are similar. Mark 12:24 and the one below in Matthew 22:29.

NIV: You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
Listeners Heard: You lead yourselves astray, not knowing these Writings nor the power of the Divine.

It is interesting that these are the only three verses in which Jesus directly describes power to the Divine, though he implies it over and over without saying it directly. Dynamis is often associated with the sky because “the sky” is what Jesus associated with Divine power. In the three verses where dynamis is translated as “bodies,” it is translated in the sense of heavenly bodies. For example, Mark 13:25:

NIV: the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
Listeners Heard: And the stars will exist falling out of the sky, and the powers, those in the skies, will be shaken.

This brings us back to our main topic, that of “miracles.”

Miracle Verses

Dynamis is translated as “miracles” when used with only two verbs. Both of these are translated as “performed” or “do.” The other doesn’t mean “perform” at all. It means “becomes” for changes of people or things. and, for events, “happens” (see this article).

Let us start with the verse that both the KJV and the NIV translate as “power,” Mark 9:39:

NIV: Do not stop him. For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me.
Listeners Heard: Don't stop him. Because none exists who might perform a powerful deed with this name of mine and still have the power to suddenly bad mouth me.

Notice that Jesus uses both the noun, “powerful deed,” and the verb from the same root, “have the power” in this verse. By translating one as “miracles” and the other a “can,” the focus of the sentence on power is lost. The verb here means “do,” “perform,” or “make. The “power” is translated as “powerful deed” because in English, we do not say “do a power,” but in Greek that would be understood to mean “a deed,” something that can be done.

The last word in this verse is another of Jesus’s punchlines, “bad mouth me.”