Jesus is called the Great Physician, but the stories of healing miracles of Jesus in the gospels document outdated and false notions about disease. Here are some examples.
Sickness can come from sin. Jesus healed a disabled man but warned him, “You are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
Evil spirits cause disease. Demons caused insanity in a man, and Jesus expelled them into a herd of pigs, which ran into a lake and drowned. We also read that demons can cause physical crippling.
Potions can cure disease. Jesus healed a blind man by making mud with his spit and putting that on the man’s eyes. After rinsing, the man could see. In the parallel story from another gospel, Jesus needed two tries to get it to work.
Jesus heals by touching. Jesus used touch to cure a leper, a person with a fever, and two blind men. He also raised the dead.
Touching Jesus can heal. Touching Jesus healed a woman without Jesus doing anything, as if he were a medicine battery: “At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.”
Spells can heal. The Bible carefully recorded the words Jesus used to heal: the Aramaic words ephphatha to cure a mute man and talitha koum to raise a dead girl.
Healing works over distance. Jesus didn’t even need to be there. For example, he healed the centurion’s servant remotely.
It’s unclear what to make of this hodge-podge of techniques except to wonder why Jesus didn’t just put up his feet and heal thousands of worthy people remotely or eliminate entire diseases like cancer and smallpox.
The gospels say he was motivated. In Matthew, Jesus was moved by compassion and healed the sick in a crowd. “His heart went out” to a woman at her only son’s funeral, and he raised the son from the dead. He healed people, at least in part, for the same reason a modern doctor does, because of compassion. He also used healings as proof of his divinity.
Compare Jesus’s approach with modern medicine. Jesus healed lepers. We don’t heal lepers with miracles but with antibiotics. Leprosy is no longer much of a problem, as is true for smallpox, plague, polio, and many other diseases.
Jesus cast out demons. We don’t because we have found only natural causes for disease and can conclude that demons aren’t a factor. While we can’t cure all illnesses, we do a better job now that we’re focused on the actual causes.
Jesus restored sight and hearing. Modern medicine has made remarkable progress, not only in restoring sight and hearing but in preventing illness before it happens.
Jesus raised the dead. Modern medicine has saved thousands from conditions that just a century ago would have killed them.
These Bible stories are a fascinating look at an ancient view of health when there was no alternative, but modern medicine shows that science is much more effective than Jesus.
Continue to chapter 6.
Image credit: National Cancer Institute via Unsplash
Notes
incestuous relations between Lot and his two daughters: Genesis 19:30–38.
“You are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”: John 5:14.
Demons caused insanity in a man, and Jesus expelled them into a herd of pigs: Mark 5:1–20.
demons can cause physical crippling: Luke 13:10–13.
Jesus healed a blind man by making mud with his spit: John 9:6–7 and Mark 8:22–5.
Jesus used touch to cure a leper, a person with a fever, and two blind men. He also raised the dead. Matthew 8:2–3, Luke 4:39, Matthew 20:34, Luke 7:14.
“At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him”: Mark 5:30.
cure a mute man: Mark 7:33–5.
raise a dead girl: Mark 5:35–42.
[Jesus] healed the centurion’s servant remotely: Matthew 8:5–13.
“His heart went out”: Luke 7:13.
[Jesus] healed people . . . because of compassion: Matthew 14:14.
[Jesus] also used healings as proof of his divinity: Luke 7:22.
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At the time of Jesus it has been estimated that 20,000 people a year were being crucified along the roads. At the same time average people were being taxed to death. It has been shown that psychosomatic illnesses soar during times of intense stress. Jesus was very selective about who he healed. This is in sharp contrast to the temple leaders at the time that shunned anyone they suspected of being sick and didn’t care about financial hardship. Roman soldiers would hit people just to see if they would get angry and crucify them if they did.
The meeting with the Centurion is noteworthy because he was a leader of the enemy most likely asking about his Jewish concubine. This is like a rabbi having the boldness to praise a Nazi commander as having great faith and being an example to follow. If you were this Jewish concubine, would you not rise up on hearing this and be healed?
What about Lazarus and the little girl in Mark 5? Where they dead or just fatalistic? What did Jesus do to give them hope? He cried! He cared and asked politely.
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20,000 people/year crucified? “Roman soldiers would hit people just to see if they would get angry and crucify them if they did”? Citation needed.
“What about Lazarus and the little girl in Mark 5?” These miraculous stories are just stories. Do you think they’re history?
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I’ll have to dig around. I do know there was a shortage of wood from all the cross building so when the apostles walked away from their boats, they were literally walking away from a fortune. The turn the other cheek comes from the Roman practice where they would slap you with the back of their right hand. By calmly offering the other cheek, you were tempting the soldier to hit you like a family member with the palm of their hand. Many Greek writers noted the crucifixions lining the roads to cities.
Jerusalem was critical to Roman grain shipments from Egypt so they had to “pacify” the natives. Herod was a Roman wannabe building his villas. The leaders at the temple were raising money for a rebellion and believed that if they prayed hard enough, God would give them a military victory over the Romans. This lead to triple taxation, massive corruption, and theological bankruptcy all at the same time.
Fatalism is a real thing especially in such an intense time. I read these stories for what likely was going on rather than literally. Lazarus in my view gave up. The little girl may have faced being married off and decided she would rather be dead. Without the emotional impact, you are right these are just stories.
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zarhoth: “I do know there was a shortage of wood from all the cross building so when the apostles walked away from their boats, they were literally walking away from a fortune.”
Again, citation needed.
“Many Greek writers noted the crucifixions lining the roads to cities.”
Wikipedia says about the end of the Spartacus slave revolt in 71 BC, “Six thousand survivors of the revolt captured by the legions of Crassus were crucified, lining the Appian Way from Rome to Capua.” That was an extraordinary event. 20,000 crucifixions per year is hard to imagine, if for no other reason than, as you mention, finding enough wood is hard.
“Jerusalem was critical to Roman grain shipments from Egypt so they had to “pacify” the natives.”
Huh? If you were going to ship grain from Egypt, you’d use the coastline, not go into the mountains, where Jerusalem is. And you wouldn’t go by land anyway—you’d go by ship.
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Spartacus and his rebellion was a lot closer to Rome. I note articles about the Canadian wildfires soared when the smoke reached New York. Here in the Northwest have noticed this for years.
You are partially right about going by ship. Rome still needed a pathway to march its armies through if a rebellion broke out in Egypt. Ships needed friendly ports to survive bad weather. Geopolitically losing the area around Jerusalem in a rebellion would be a disaster to the Romans.
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