“Anciently the Prophets made fire descend from the sky at their word; today children do as much with a little piece of [burning] glass.” Joshua made the sun stop; any almanac maker can promise the same result by calculating a solar eclipse.50 And as Europeans who perform such wonders among barbarians are thought by these to be gods, so the “miracles” of the past—even those of Jesus—may have been natural results misinterpreted by the populace as divine interruptions of natural law.51 Perhaps Lazarus, whom Christ raised from the dead, had not really been dead.—
