The word of Jesus that made a deaf man hear
by Julian Mann, TCW:
A SINGLE Aramaic word from the Semitic language Jesus spoke, which features in last Sunday’s Book of Common Prayer reading from Mark’s Gospel, powerfully supports the historical reliability of the narrative.
The reading from Mark 7 records Jesus’s supernatural healing of a deaf man during his Galilean ministry:
‘And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain’ (v32-35 – King James Version).
In the Aramaic word ‘Ephphatha’, which Mark translated into a Greek aorist passive imperative, we hear the authentic Jesus speaking. Surely the actual word came from the witness who told Mark the story?
Revisionists determined to believe the Gospel narratives are made-up stories will find reasons to do so. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch in his 2009 book, A History of Christianity (Penguin), the basis of a BBC TV series, sweepingly refers to the cultural climate that he claims is responsible for doubt among church liberals about the veracity of Jesus’s miracles since the 18th century:
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