[Dialogue] More miracle stuff from spong

[KroegerD at aol.com]

December 6, 2006 
Miracles VI: Bartimaeus and the  Healing of the Man Born Blind  
In this continuing examination of the miracle stories found in the gospels, I 
 turn this week to the second "sight to the blind" narrative in Mark (10: 
46-52),  the story of blind Bartimaeus. Then I will look briefly at the only 
Johannine  account of a miraculous restoration of sight (John 9: 1-41). We will, I 
hope,  begin to see that while there are six 'sight to the blind' stories in 
the  gospels, four of them look like little more than a retelling of one of 
Mark's  two episodes.  
Matthew gives us two versions of the blind Bartimaeus story (9: 27-32 and 20: 
 29-34) and Luke gives us one (18:35-43). John's single restoration of sight  
narrative, even though he uses elaborate language and enfolds his story 
inside  the interpretive web of Johannine theology, is still nothing but a 
retelling of  Mark's first story of the blind man from Bethsaida. So the first thing a 
modern  expositor of the gospels needs to embrace is that there appear to be 
only two  original traditions behind these six presumed to be miraculous 
accounts. As I  tried to show in the previous column on this subject, Mark's first 
story about  the blind man from Bethsaida is filled with hints that it is not 
a miracle story  at all, but is rather a parable about Peter who, like the 
hero of this story,  was also remembered as a blind man from Bethsaida who came 
to his ability to see  only slowly by degrees. Today, I will look at all of the 
biblical versions of  Mark's second story about blind Bartimaeus, and then to 
complete this analysis  of sight restoration miracles in the gospels, I will 
look at John's single  story, to demonstrate that it too is not a new episode 
but just another version  of Mark's account of the man from Bethsaida.  
In Mark's gospel, the story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus is set in  
Jericho just before the Palm Sunday procession sweeps down into Jerusalem. That  
proximity is important to embrace since the healing of Bartimaeus seems to 
feed  directly into the Palm Sunday events. The first thing about this story that 
we  need to note is that this blind man's name is peculiar. Mark calls him  
"Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus." When that name is read by those who 
understand  Hebrew, its strangeness becomes obvious. In the Hebrew language "bar" means 
son;  so Bar-timaeus literally means 'son of Timaeus.' This means that Mark's 
phrase,  "Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus" is an odd redundancy. This man is 
described as  sitting at the side of the road begging, when he learns that Jesus 
of Nazareth  is passing by. Emboldened, presumably by Jesus' reputation as a 
healer, this  blind man calls out to Jesus, using one of the popular messianic 
titles, "Son of  David." The idea that the messiah had to be the son of 
David, and thus the  legitimate heir of David's throne, had been a growing part of 
the Jewish  expectations for some time. That theme would later inspire the 
genealogies of  Matthew (1:1-16) and Luke (3:23-38), both of which were written 
to assert that  Jesus was in the direct line of succession to the throne of 
King David. This  "Son of David" designation also inspired what is surely the 
legendary tale of  Jesus' Bethlehem birthplace since that was the city of David 
and the messiah's  destiny as the "Son of David" seemed to imply that he had to 
be born in David's  place of birth. This idea entered the Jewish expectations 
in the words of Micah  (5:4) in the eighth century BCE. Matthew quotes Micah 
to explain why Jesus had  to be born in Bethlehem. Luke also alludes to Micah 
when he has the angels sing:  "Unto you is born this day, in the city of 
David, a savior who is Christ  the Lord." The association of Jesus with King David 
is a theme that will gain  much favor. This information alone ought to alert 
readers that perhaps this  story is not a simple miracle story that has to be 
understood supernaturally.  This story is in the service of the messianic claim 
that Jesus fulfills the  expectation of being the heir to David's throne.  
In Mark's Bartimaeus story, we are told that when this blind man hears the  
procession moving toward Jerusalem and learns that it includes Jesus of  
Nazareth, he is encouraged to cry out. Perhaps we can assume that he has heard  
tales of healing power attributed to Jesus. We noted in the previous column on  
this subject that Isaiah had said that when the Kingdom of God dawns, it will be 
 marked by the ability of the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to 
walk  and the dumb to speak. This means that if Jesus was to be the messiah, 
healing  power must be said to have marked his life. So this blind man, using a 
messianic  title, cries out to Jesus as the "Son of David." Mark tells us that 
those with  Jesus rebuke him, ordering him to be silent. That too is a familiar 
gospel  theme, suggesting that the in breaking Kingdom can actually be kept 
under wraps,  if people try hard enough to suppress it. His disciples had also 
rebuked the  children who sought to come to Jesus. In Luke's version of Palm 
Sunday  (19:28-48), the Pharisees ask Jesus to rebuke his disciples, who were 
saying of  him, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." In that 
story, Jesus  responded by saying that the Kingdom of God cannot be suppressed and 
that if the  voices of the crowd were silenced, "the stones would immediately 
cry out."  
Sensing that their rebuke of the blind man was not shared by Jesus, the  
people informed Bartimaeus that Jesus was asking for him. Mark records that the  
blind man threw off his cloak and with great exuberance, sprang to his feet and 
 came to Jesus. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked. "My 
teacher,  let me see again." The blind man responded. To which Jesus simply affirmed 
that  the request was granted, "Your faith has made you well," Jesus said. The 
text  then says, "Immediately he gained his sight and followed him on the 
way." Since  the next episode is the Palm Sunday Procession, presumably the blind 
man was  part of the parade. A contrast is clearly being painted in the 
entire passion  narrative between the blind who know they do not see and yearn to 
have sight and  the blind who do not know that they do not see and who, 
therefore, do not seek  sight. The blindness in this story may then not be physical 
blindness at all.  Mark has already described Jesus as speaking to those who 
have "eyes to see but  see not and ears to hear but hear not." (8:18). To see 
the meaning of Jesus, one  appears to need more than simple physical sight, 
perhaps this is a reference to  insight, second sight or the ability to see 
underneath the obvious. The story of  Bartimaeus is filled with this kind of 
meaning.  
The differences found in the versions in both Matthew and Luke also provide  
data that suggest that later generations tended to literalize into 
supernatural  tales what were originally interpretative signs. Matthew, first of all, is  
clearly confused by the duplication of the names, "Bartimaeus, son of 
Timaeus."  He deals with this confusion by omitting the names altogether and assuming 
that  there are two people not one in this episode. Other than this change, 
he is  fairly faithful to the Marcan original.  
Luke reverts to Mark's single blind man but he too deals with the confusion  
of Mark's peculiar naming by omitting the name altogether, then he follows the 
 story line faithfully. In Matthew's earlier version of this same story  
(9:27-31), Matthew still has two blind men who use the title, "Son of David." 
Jesus touches their eyes, gives them sight immediately and enjoins silence upon  
them. One wonders why Matthew essentially tells this same story twice. One note 
 that might cast light on this debate comes with the realization that the  
Matthean version of blind Bartimaeus comes in his text long after Jesus tells  
John the Baptist that he should look at the messianic signs of wholeness that  
gather around him to answer his query about who Jesus is. Perhaps Matthew 
needed  to include a sight to the blind story before that claim by Jesus made 
sense, so  he related one version of this story before his messianic claim was 
made to John  the Baptist and the second afterward. Everywhere one turns in the 
several  versions of this story, they all appear to have been originally 
messianic  interpretative narratives, which were slowly turned into being healing 
miracles.    
When we turn to the Johannine story, it is also clearly a sign of the  
messiahship of Jesus. The single blind man is described as having been blind  from 
birth. The theological interpretation of that tragedy is debated. "Who  sinned, 
this man or his parents that he was born blind?" Neither, Jesus says. He  was 
born blind so that God could be manifested in him. Jesus next claims to be  
the "Light of the world" who enables all to see. Then spitting on the ground to 
 make clay Jesus anoints the blind man's eyes. Once again the healing was not 
 instantaneous. He had to go and wash in the pool of Siloam first. Only then 
does  he see. Then he becomes the subject of a great debate. People wonder how 
his  eyes were opened. For one to see things that others do not see in the 
world of  darkness is threatening to the religious establishment so they 
excommunicate him  from the synagogue. Since this man's sight did not come through 
the established  religious authority, it has to be evil. That was the conclusion 
of the "blind"  ecclesiastical hierarchy. The story concludes with Jesus 
asking the now-seeing  man, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" The man responds, 
"Who is it Lord that  I might believe?" Jesus then overtly makes the divine 
claim for himself and the  man worships him. John concludes this narrative with 
the words that seem to make  it clear that this is not a supernatural miracle 
at all; it was about the  people's ability to see light in the world's 
darkness; truth in the world's  distortion of truth: "I came so that those who see 
not might see and those who  see might be made blind."  
When the texts of the gospels are looked at deeply enough, they do not appear 
 to be supernatural tales that defy the laws of the universe at all. Rather 
they  are interpretative signs by which people processed the Christ experience. 
Thus,  to read the miracle stories of the gospels as supernatural events is 
not only  wrong, it is actually a distortion of the original intention of the 
gospel  writers. It is a pity that literalists do not understand this.  
Our study of miracles will continue in the weeks ahead. So stay tuned.  
John Shelby Spong  
_Note from  the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at 
bookstores everywhere  and by clicking here!_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060762055/agoramedia-20)   
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Hal Wingo via the Internet writes:  
As an interested reader of your columns, I feel that you are just about the  
only person I can pose this question to and expect an intelligent response. 
The  question has to do with whether or not God ever intervenes in human history 
to  heal individuals or stop natural disasters in response to prayer. I am 71 
years  old and have lived most of life under the ministry of Baptist churches 
that  constantly insist that God heals and answers prayers. In the reflection 
of my  later years, I have come to wonder if this makes any sense at all, or 
is even  possible. If God is capable of inserting himself (okay, herself) into 
human  affairs and to change things in response to prayers of petition, what 
is the  best way to understand that he/she sometimes does and sometimes 
doesn't? It  can't be just the urgency or the numbers of prayers, can it?  
I have read Sam Harris' two books that question the very existence of God and 
 challenges the useful purpose of any religion. He does raise questions that  
cannot be easily dismissed, such as why in all of human history, there is no  
record of God ever healing an amputee by regenerating a limb or changing a 
Down  syndrome child to one of normal health. If God does or can intervene, it 
is only  in situations that can be otherwise explained as natural phenomena? 
Or, deeper  still, should we even think of a God capable of inserting himself 
into human  experience? Is "God" something else entirely?  
Dear Hal,  
Your question is a primary and essential one and cuts immediately to the  
essence of theological debate today. Yet it is one that most people who identify  
themselves with evangelical Protestantism or conservative Catholicism seem to 
 think they can either ignore or repress. They cannot. It is also a question 
that  in order to address it adequately would take a book, not a column.  
Sam Harris' criticism of popular religion is right on target. The weakness of 
 his book is that he assumes that popular religion is what Christianity is 
all  about.  
The intervening, miraculous God is built upon the old idea of the record  
keeping Deity who lives above the sky and who swoops down on earth to split the  
Red Sea, or to rain heavenly manna on the starving Israelites in the 
wilderness.  This is also the God who delights in sending plagues on Israel's enemies, 
the  Egyptians, and drowning them in that same Red Sea.  
This is also a God who apparently has not accepted the insights of Isaac  
Newton about how the world operates. It is a world, not of precise natural law,  
but of controlled chaos. Most theologians have long since abandoned such a  
deity.  
When people assert that God intervenes in human life to heal, they must  
explain why God does that so sporadically. When people assert that splitting the  
Red Sea was a miracle to save Jews from death, they must explain why God 
allowed  the Holocaust that destroyed Jews by the millions. It is not a simple 
subject.  
The only thing that needs to be said quickly is that the idea that anyone  
knows who God is or how God works is ludicrous. What kind of human folly is  
that? I do not think that a horse can describe what it means to be human.  
Humanity is a dimension of life and consciousness that is simply beyond that  which 
a horse can embrace. Similarly, I do not believe that human beings can  
describe what God is. The realm of God is simply beyond that which the human  mind 
can know. The Greek philosopher Xenophanes once wrote that "If horses had  gods 
they would look like horses!" Perhaps one ought to observe that most of the  
deities that human beings have worshiped throughout history have looked  
remarkably like human beings, magnified and supernaturalized. We have no God  
language to use so we force our God consciousness into human language. Only when  
that truth is acknowledged and accepted can we even begin to answer your  
question.  
The discussion must then turn to the nature of God, again something we cannot 
 know but about which we speculate endlessly. I believe God is real, but my 
human  mind and human language can never penetrate that reality. So I cannot 
describe  God, I can only describe my presumed God experience and honesty 
compels me to  state that I might be delusional. Only at that point can we begin a 
discussion  on the reality of prayer.  
When I wrote a book entitled, "A New Christianity for a New World," based on  
lectures I had given at Harvard University, I sought to address the issues 
you  raise. The book is almost 300 pages long. It challenges most of the  
pre-suppositions of traditional Christianity. It seeks to find new meaning for  the 
most traditional symbols. It seeks to move between what I call both the God  
experience and the Christ experience which I believe are real and the way both  
the God experience and the Christ experience have normally been explained, 
which  are to me dated, inadequate and generally unbelievable. Your question 
rises out  of that mentality.  
I hope this helps though it only scratches the surface of the territory where 
 an answer can be found. I want to assure you that your question is the right 
 question and that you are not wrong or weird to be raising it. Those who  
continue to repeat the slogans of their religious past as if they are still  
operative are wrong and they are increasingly weird.  
John Shelby Spong 
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