MARK 8:22-25

Although all miracles are possible with God, some are more plausible than others. In my mind the two-part healing of sight recorded in Mark 8:22-25 is the most believable miracle in the whole Bible, if I had to pick one, and that is based mainly on scientific evidence.

“Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, 'Can you see anything?' And the man looked up and said, 'I see people... ...because...I see people like walking trees. [His disjointed speech at this point echoes his visual confusion.] Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”

The unusual feature of this miracle is that it occurred in two stages, not all at once. The fact that it wasn't fully successful the first time around could be used as possible evidence that Jesus was not infallible so a merely fabricated story would not have included this detail. That is the first thing in favor of it being an authentic account. In addition, the mention of trees walking is a realistic touch that doesn't appear to arise from any particular theological point Mark might be trying to make.

Almost all commentators see something very significant in the fact that the man was not healed all at once.

    1. Some feel that the fact that the blind man didn't seek out Jesus himself means that the man's faith was lacking and that hindered his complete healing. Utter nonsense!

    2. Others couple this story with (1) the account in Mark preceding this one in which Jesus bawls out the disciples for not understanding who He is and (2) the story right after this healing in which Peter makes the Great Confession. The disciples are only slowly coming to a better understanding of Jesus' identity just as the blind man is only slowly beginning to see. That seems to be a rather subtle point to make.    

    3. Still other scholars see a spiritual lesson in this miracle as a parallel to Paul's words in I Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Again, that seems to be rather a stretch.

There might be important lessons taught by this miracle, but I think everyone may be missing the main point. The fact that the healing took place in two steps and the comment about the walking trees were included because the event actually happened that way.

The first published case of a blind person gaining the ability to see after an operation wasn't until the year 1728 by the Surgeon William Cheselden. The patient experienced significant agnosia. That doesn't mean that he became an agnostic, but that he experienced serious confusion with his visual perception.

The optical signals were reaching his brain for the first time, but the brain didn't know how to interpret them. Thus, the patient had to learn slowly from scratch what they meant. In other words, the blind man in the biblical account knew by touch that trees were tall, thin vertical things rooted in the ground and his first vision of people corresponded roughly to that description except for the fact that they didn't seem to stay in one place.

Here are some similar recorded examples from patients who experienced agnosia. One called a tennis racquet a fencer's mask, and another one confused a stalk of asparagus with a rose twig. If you want to learn about even more bizarre examples of agnosia, I can suggest a book whose title is self-explanatory: The Man Who Confused His Wife with a Hat. The important thing to note is that this phenomenon was totally unknown and unrecorded before the eighteenth century. In my mind this is an extremely strong confirmation of the historical reality of this miracle. And in fact, it indicates that Jesus actually carried out two miracles, not one.