The Jewish people still exist after 2,500 years, while they have not had a homeland for most of the time. That is a remarkable feat, most notably because the Jews are supposed to be God’s chosen people. It is also a bit of an enigma that Christianity replaced the existing religions in the Roman Empire. Somehow, the message of personal salvation through Christ caught on. A pivotal moment was the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 AD. He made Christianity the favoured religion in the Roman Empire.

A few centuries later, a small band of Arab warriors created an empire stretching from the Atlantic to India, spreading a new religion called Islam. Is it a realistic scenario that the illiterate camel driver Muhammad became a crafty statesman after seeing an angel telling him he had messages from the God of the Christians and the Jews? Historians can explain it, but it is an account of what happened rather than an explanation. The question is, could it occur without someone pulling the strings?

We only know this world, so we cannot answer that question. Proselytising religions like Christianity and Islam have a built-in inclination to grow. That may not be a comprehensive answer. Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same deity. Our universe could be a simulation, and God might be the explanation. But who is to say it cannot happen otherwise?

When Islam arrived on the scene, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians in the area already believed in an all-powerful creator. Muhammad had met them on his travels, so he was familiar with these religions. Before that, Christianity had faced an uphill struggle. While the Roman state suppressed this religion, pagans left their gods behind and accepted the Christian God as the only true God. And they did so in large numbers.

That begs for an explanation, even though the conversion to Christianity was a gradual process that took centuries. The number of Christians increased 2-3% per year between 30 AD and 400 AD. Each Christian may have converted just one or two persons on average. Over time, exponential growth made Christianity grow from perhaps 100 followers in 30 AD to 30 million in 400 AD. Most people lived miserable lives, and the promise of an eternal blissful existence in the afterlife may have been too tempting to resist. But the most often cited reason for conversions were stories about miracles Christians did.¹

An early miracle was Jesus appearing to a few followers after his crucifixion. The New Testament tells of miracles the disciples allegedly performed. These stories may be fabricated or exaggerated, but miracles are a consistent theme in Christianity until today. The Roman Catholic Church has a rich folklore with relics that supposedly have magical properties because Jesus has touched them. The most famous relics are the Crown of Thorns in Paris, the mysterious Holy Grail, the chalice from which Jesus drank, and the Shroud of Turin, a piece of linen cloth with the supposed image of Jesus’ face.

Many of the miracles attributed to these relics are unverifiable or can have other causes like luck, but a few cannot explained away that easily. The Roman Catholic Church keeps a record of them. On message boards, people tell stories about prayers heard and miraculous healings. Many of these stories might result from chance or other causes like a misdiagnosis or lying to get attention, but that is not always the case. And so, there may be more to it than science can explain. Some Muslims also venerate relics. Istanbul houses several relics of the Prophet Muhammad, such as a tooth, a footprint, dust from his tomb, and swords. His beard is in a Turkish museum. However, Muslims don’t have the degree of reverence for those relics as Roman Catholics.

A recurring event is the appearance of the Virgin Mary and other miracles related to her. Thousands of people have seen her. For instance, she appeared several times in Venezuela. She showed herself to Maria Esperanza Medrano de Bianchini in 1976, who received exceptional powers. She could tell the future, levitate, and heal the sick. In Egypt, Mary appeared at a Coptic Church between 1983 and 1986. Muslims also have seen her there. There have been many more Virgin Mary appearances. The most notable sequence occurred in Portugal at Fatima between 13 May and 13 October 1917.

On 13 October 1917 was the grand finale when the sun spun wildly and tumbled down to earth before stopping and returning to its normal position, radiating in indescribable beautiful colours. More than 50,000 people witnessed the show. They had gathered because of a prophecy made by three shepherd children that the Virgin Mary would appear there and perform miracles on that date. Faking this seemed hard to do, considering the technology available in 1917. A lack of holographic equipment would have made the effort challenging.

Jesus also appeared a few times, but less frequently than the Virgin Mary. An intriguing account comes from Kenneth Logie, a preacher of the Pentecostal Holiness Church in Oakland, California, in the 1950s. In April 1954, Logie was preaching at an evening service. During the sermon, the church door opened. Jesus came walking in, smiling to the left and the right. He walked right through the pulpit. Then he placed his hand on Logie’s shoulder. Jesus spoke to him in a foreign tongue. Fifty people witnessed the event.

Five years later, a woman gave testimony when she suddenly disappeared, and Jesus took her place. He wore sandals and a glistering white robe. He had nail marks on his hands, which were dripping with oil. After several minutes, Jesus disappeared, and the woman reappeared. Two hundred people have seen it. It was on film as Logie had installed film equipment because strange things were happening.²

One can imagine such events convince people the message of Christianity, even though most peculiar, is correct as Zeus and Thor failed to show up and do some tricks. It is also notable that the Virgin Mary did the most miracles. The explanation might be that God is a Mother, Jesus was the Son of God, and she was the birth mother of Jesus. The Virgin Mary replaced God as a Mother when God became a Father. In this way, she became the surrogate for God, appearing to have a power greater than Jesus.

Latest revision: 29 March 2024

Feature image: Mohammad receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. Miniature illustration on vellum from the book Jami’ al-Tawarikh, by Rashid al-Din, published in Tabriz, Persia, 1307 AD. Public Domain.

1. The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. Bart Ehrman. Simon & Schuster (2018).
2. How Jesus Became God The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee. Bart Ehrman. HarperCollins Publishers (2015).