rain-making (well attested in Antiquity, including early Christianity) as well as
miracles related to earthquake. Concerning the explanatory strategies sur-
rounding magic, I argue that implicit cognitive mechanisms supporting
magic (such as intuitions of contagion and agency) tend to be the cross-
culturally invariable, whereas explicit concepts (such as specific ideas of divine
helpers) are more varied across cultures. Turning to miracle stories, we will
draw on cognitive theories to understand why they are attractive and wide-
spread, what difference cultural patterns make in the reception of miracle
stories, as well as argue that magical practice and miracle stories form a
symbiotic pair in religious traditions. Finally, we apply the theoretical insights
of this chapter to Paul’s activity in Ephesus as narrated in Acts 17, analyzing
the role of contagion, magical helpers, and magical competition in the text.
In Chapter 7, I discuss subjective religious experience, including both
“extreme”and“moderate”forms of it. Ifirst inquire about the phenomen-
ology of subjective experience, which will take us to the concept of religious
experience in cognitive research. In the next part of the chapter, we consider
the contextual factors that generate and influence religious experience, includ-
ing beliefs, textual traditions, neuroanatomy, and practices. I then outline
the lobes theory of religious experience, which connects social, theological,
and ritual variables to cognitive patterns. The lobes theory is used to continue
our discussion of the situation in the Corinthian church, with particular
attention to different types of religious experience pursued by the different
factions. In thefinal part of the chapter, I deal with ancient tours of heaven,
using neuroscientific evidence to make sense of their overall structure and
particular details. The neuroscientific approach outlined is applied to the tour
of heaven in the Ascension of Isaiah, followed by a brief discussion of other
early Jewish and Christian apocalypses.
In Chapter 8 I deal with the cognitive and evolutionary foundations of
morality in the New Testament. While theologians usually focus on explicit
moral instructions and philosophical traditions, this chapter inquires about
the evolved cognitive structures that influence moral judgments, behaviors,
and motivations. First, we look at the connection between empathy and
morality. A complex model of empathy will guide our discussion of selected
passages from Jesus’teaching and the Pentateuchal law. Second, we explore a
range of evolved intuitions that govern moral behavior, such as guilt, cheater
detection, and costly punishment; we also consider how different cognitive
systems handle particular social situations and examine how Jesus’teaching
manipulates those systems. Third, we turn to the question of whether religion
in fact causes moral behavior, including recent debates on the significance of
so-called“big gods”; we take Deuteronomical historiography and Hebrew
Bible scholarship as examples. Fourth, I argue that social arrangements of
exploitation are based on evolved moral judgment and examine the question
of slavery in selected early Christian sources from such a perspective. Fifth, we
6 Cognitive Science and the New Testament