A Miracle of Hinduism

Are there any recently documented miracles of other religions? If so, how do they differ from the biblical miracles?

On September 21, 1995, the famous Hindu milk miracle started in New Delhi and spread around the globe. Hindu-GaneshaA man dreamed that the Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha, wanted milk. The man woke, rushed to the temple in the middle of the night, and as a priest watched, he gave a spoonful of milk to the stone statue. What happened next? The statue consumed the milk. And it continued to accept milk all night and into the next day. Meanwhile, word of the miracle spread. People all over New Delhi dropped what they were doing and rushed to make milk offerings to other statues. Other parts of India began feeding milk to statues. They offered milk not only to Ganesha, but to statues of other gods. Some were stone, others copper. Twenty four hours after the phenomena began in India, it stopped. But for several days the miracle continued elsewhere, and people fed milk to idols in New York, Los Angeles, and Canada, until those statues, too, stopped accepting milk.

What was the purpose of these miracles? Possibly to glorify the stone and metal statues of the Hindu gods. But the statues were simply idols that men had created. Were the miracles benevolent? No. They were trivial and rather meaningless. Some stone and metal statues drank some milk. What do these events teach us? Possibly that demons exist and that they can inhabit idols of metal and stone. And these demons will try to deceive people into following any god but the God of creation.

In the next post we’ll contrast the above bizarre events with a miracle where Jesus feeds thousands from a single basket of bread and fish.

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Jesus Brings a Dead Woman Back to Life

How do the biblical miracles compare with Islam. Today let’s look at Matthew 9:18–26 (NLT):

18 As Jesus was saying this, the leader of a synagogue came and knelt before him. “My daughter has just died,” he said, “but you can bring her back to life again if you just come and lay your hand on her.”
19 So Jesus and his disciples got up and went with him. Jesus-Miracle-1871_by_Vasiliy_Polenov20 Just then a woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding came up behind him. She touched the fringe of his robe, 21 for she thought, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”
22 Jesus turned around, and when he saw her he said, “Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
23 When Jesus arrived at the official’s home, he saw the noisy crowd and heard the funeral music. 24 “Get out!” he told them. “The girl isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.” But the crowd laughed at him. 25 After the crowd was put outside, however, Jesus went in and took the girl by the hand, and she stood up! 26 The report of this miracle swept through the entire countryside.

Here we see how a Jewish synagogue leader believed in who Jesus was. He comes to Jesus with the news that his daughter just died. But before Jesus can even leave the room, another woman who’s suffered from constant bleeding merely touches his robe and is cured of a 10-year disease. When Jesus finally arrives at the man’s house everyone there knows the man’s daughter is dead. But he raises her to life.

A God who can create the universe can certainly put a few cells back together and reverse the decay of death. Awesome!

Jesus’s miracle confirms God’s message a salvation through his Son. It’s also benevolent, bringing a dead woman back to life. Putting aside our reservations about the emotional state of earth’s plant matter, we contrast this with Muhammad’s act of consoling a sad tree. Need we say more?

Next time let’s look at a documented miracle of Hinduism that occurred in modern times.

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The Miracles of Islam

Are there miracles of other religions? If so, how do they differ from the miracles of the Bible? These are valid questions.

First, let’s put forward some principles that we’ll find in every counterfeit miracle:
1. They deny the God of the Bible and proclaim a false belief.
2. They glorify a creature or a created thing, not God.
• Because of this they are always self-serving.
• True miracles glorify God or his messengers.

Let’s start by looking at the miracles of Islam:

1. The Quran. The Quran is Islam’s holiest book. The Quran attributes one and only miracle to Muhammad. That is the writing of the Quran itself (Sura 29:49-52). Yet Muhammad, when challenged to do a miracle to authenticate his claim of being Allah’s prophet, says he cannot, that he’s nothing but a human messenger (Sura 17:90-93). islamic-mosque-prayer

According to the Quran, God’s final revelation was the creation of the Quran. We are to believe this because Muhammad, who created the Quran, says it is so. This is the definition of circular reasoning. And since Muhammad created the Quran in secret, while isolated in a cave, the entire affair is suspect.

2. Islam and the Hadith. The Hadith is a collection of the sayings and works of Muhammad. The Hadith flatly contradicts the Quran, stating that Muhammad performed two miracles:
• Sahih Bukhari 4.783: “The prophet used to deliver his sermons while standing beside a trunk of a date-palm. When he had the pulpit made, he used it instead. The trunk started crying and the prophet went to it, rubbing his hand over it to stop its crying.”
• Sahih Bukhari 5.208: “That the Meccan people asked Allah’s Apostle to show them a miracle. So he showed them the moon split into two halves between which they say is the Hiram Mountain.”

The problem with the first miracle is that it’s extraordinarily trivial. Its purpose, if there is one, seems to be consolation for a sad tree. How does this glorify God or its messenger? Where in human experience do we find plants with emotions?

The problems with the second are obvious. The moon, having once been “split”, now seems to have been joined back together.

Both of these “miracles” display a mythological character we never see in the Bible. This too is typical of false religions.

3. We also note that the God of the Bible and the god of the Quran are not the same. We cannot go into the details here, but those who have studied Islam and the Bible all come to this conclusion.

Next time let’s return to the Bible and look at how Jesus brought a dead woman back to life.

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