The Bethsaida miracle (Jesus healing a blind man)
David Buckna
by D. Keith Mano
National Review; 4/21/1997
Getting rid of blindness, I'm told, is not such a bargain after all.
Human eyes, you see -- even when healed physically -- still need
training and rigorous practice before they can transmit what is "real"
and "not real" back to the brain. It doesn't much matter how long
you've been sightless, either: a decade or so of blindness and your
cerebral cortex has to be completely reprogrammed, as if from
infanthood. On opening his eyes, the healed seer confronts a
nonsensical, frightful, and, well, Cubist landscape. Over that
shattered universe he must stubbornly impose the familiar 3D grid we
live in.
Oliver Sacks has written about the new seer in An Anthropologist on
Mars. Virgil, age 50 and blind since childhood, has had "successful"
eye surgery. Five weeks later he "often felt more disabled than he had
felt when he was
blind...Steps posed a special hazard, because all he could see was a
confusion, a flat surface of parallel and criss-crossing lines; he
could not see them (although he knew them) as solid objects going up
or coming down in three dimensional space."
Furthermore, Virgil "would pick up details incessantly--an angle, an
edge, a colour, a movement--but he would not be able to synthesize
them, to form a complex perception at a glance. This was one reason
the cat, visually, was so puzzling: he would see the paw, a nose, the
tail, an ear, but could not
see all of them together, the cat as a whole." And, as his wife noted,
"Virgil finally put a tree together--he now knows that the trunk and
leaves go together to form a complete unit."
The word-picture of an unmade tree set off associations in my mind. I
remembered Jesus and the Bethsaida blind man (Mark 8:22-25. Mark's is
the least adorned and oldest Gospel, dating roughly from 45 to 60
A.D.) "And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto
him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the
town; and when he had spit
on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw
ought."
And the blind man (in what I had always considered a poetic image)
replied to Jesus: "I see men as trees, walking."
That is not a poetic image. It is a clinical description. Like Virgil,
the Bethsaida blind man can now see, but he cannot yet make sense of
what he's seeing. Tree and man run together, as did trunk and treetop
for Virgil. (Both men could see movement because, according to Sacks,
motion and color are inherent in the brain; they need not be learned
or relearned.) All this
moreover is not surprising to Jesus. He knows, it would seem, that a
newly healed blind man has neither depth perception nor the ability to
synthesize shape and form. The blind man's brain must first be
recalibrated: it must be taught (in one miraculous instant) what you
and I have known since childhood--how to see.
So Jesus heals the blind man a second time. "After that he put his
hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored,
and saw every man clearly."
As far as I can judge this is irrefutable evidence that a miracle did
occur at Bethsaida. Back in 30 A.D. the blind did not often receive
sight: there were few, if any, eye surgeons and seldom a decent
miracle-worker. No shill in the crowd could have faked it all by
pretending to be blind--because
only someone recently given his sight would see 'men as trees,
walking,' would see the Cubist jumble that Virgil told Oliver Sacks
about. A faker, not knowing about post-blind syndrome, would have
reported that Jesus had given him perfect vision.
The most astonishing aspect of this miracle is its double nature: you
get not one cure but two. Often even devout Christians downplay the
wonder-working Jesus--lest they seem naive or overcredulous. We are
somewhat embarrassed by New Testament miracles, as if God were
cheating in the
competition for our belief...Jesus healed through positive thought, or
Essene hypnosis, whatever. Rasputin did the same.
That explanation might still hold for Part I of the Bethsaida event...
It does not and cannot explain Part II.
---
[Note: The movie, "At First Sight" (1999) starring Val Kilmer and Mira
Sorvino
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132512/
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1999/01/011504.html
is based on a true story recounted by neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks. In
the movie "Awakenings" Robin Williams played a character loosely based
on Sacks.]
===
Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004
Possible Site of Jesus' First Miracle Found
CANA, Israel - Among the roots of ancient olive trees, archaeologists
have found pieces of large stone jars of the type the Gospel says
Jesus used when he turned water into wine at a Jewish wedding in the
Galilee village of Cana.
They believe these could have been the same kind of vessels the Bible
says Jesus used in his first miracle, and that the site where they
were found could be the location of biblical Cana. But Bible scholars
caution it'll be hard to obtain conclusive proof, especially because
experts disagree on exactly where Cana was located.
Christian theologians attach great significance to the water-to-wine
miracle at Cana. The act not only was Jesus' first miracle, but it
also came at a crucial point in the early days of his public ministry,
when his reputation was growing, he had just selected his disciples
and was under pressure to demonstrate his divinity.
The shards were found during a salvage dig in modern-day Cana, between
Nazareth and Capernaum. Israeli archaeologist Yardena Alexander
believes the Arab town was built near the ancient village. The jar
pieces date to the Roman period, when Jesus traveled in the Galilee.
"All indications from the archaeological excavations suggest that the
site of the wedding was [modern-day] Cana, the site that we have been
investigating," said Alexander as she cleaned the site of mud from
winter rains.
However, American archaeologists excavating a rival site several miles
to the north have also found pieces of stone jars from the time of
Jesus, and believe they have found biblical Cana.
Another expert, archaeologist Shimon Gibson, cast doubt on the find at
modern Cana, because such vessels are not rare and it would be
impossible to link a particular set of vessels to the miracle.
"Just the existence of stone vessels is not enough to prove that this
is a biblical site" and more excavations are needed, he said.
Based on the shards, Alexander believes the vessels found at her site
were 12 to 16 inches in diameter, or large enough to be the same type
of jars described in the Gospel of John.
Other evidence that might link the site to the biblical account
includes the presence of a Jewish ritual bath at the house, which
shows it was a Jewish community. Locally produced pottery was used at
the simple house, showing it could have been from the poor village
described in the Scriptures.
Stephen Pfann, a Bible scholar in Jerusalem, said that while the
American dig has generally been accepted by scholars as the true site,
the shards found in modern-day Cana raised new questions.
"I think there is ample evidence that both sites are from the first
century, and we need more information to correctly identify either
site," Pfann said.
Alexander has been digging in modern Cana since 1999.
The current find came in a last-ditch "salvage dig" before a house is
built on the site. A Christian Arab family financed part of the
excavation, in accordance with Israeli law, before construction can
begin.
Alexander believes that with more substantial investment, the site
could become a major tourist attraction and pilgrimage destination.
"We're really working very hard to save some of this site because what
we do have here is a village of Jesus," she said. "And it was here
that he carried out the first miracle."
===
db
Jack Dominey
dabu...@direct.ca (David Buckna) wrote:
>The Bethsaida miracle (Jesus healing a blind man)
>by D. Keith Mano
>National Review; 4/21/1997
>remembered Jesus and the Bethsaida blind man (Mark 8:22-25. Mark's is
>the least adorned and oldest Gospel, dating roughly from 45 to 60
>A.D.) "And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto
>him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the
>town; and when he had spit
>on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw
>ought."
>
>And the blind man (in what I had always considered a poetic image)
>replied to Jesus: "I see men as trees, walking."
>
>That is not a poetic image. It is a clinical description.
As a clinical description, it's really poor. It's not even consistent
with the modern example that was in the article. After all, the modern
fellow couldn't assemble a recognizable image of things like people or
trees.
And why would Jesus' healing stop at the physical restoration of
sight? As long as there's a miracle going on, why not create (or
restore) the man's ability to make sense of the images transmitted to
his brain?
It seems to me we have another win-win for the faithful: If the man's
vision is restored, but he can't understand what he sees (similar to
the modern version) then hurrah! the Gospel story is validated as
real. If the man can see normally, then hurrah! Jesus' miracle was
even greater than modern medical science.
All I'm convinced of here is that the Bible is a sufficiently rich and
ambiguous document that virtually any meaning can be wrenched from it.
--
"I'm gonna act grown up/That's my plan"
Jack Dominey
jack_dominey (at) email (dot) com