Jesus is called the Great Physician, but the stories of healing miracles of Jesus in the gospels document outdated and false notions about disease.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.