Miracle in Two Parts:

During His three-year ministry Jesus performed many miracles, but the one that is the most unique is recorded in Mark 8:24-26:

When they arrived at Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then He spit on the man’s eyes and placed His hands on him. “Can you see anything?” He asked. The man looked up and said, “I can see the people, but they look like trees walking around.” Once again Jesus placed His hands on the man’s eyes, and when he opened them his sight was restored, and he could see everything clearly. 

It is generally believed, according to the witness of the early church, that Mark wrote his gospel first, based upon the remembrances of Peter.  Matthew and Luke must have had access to Mark's gospel because they follow the same general outline, adding their own unique remembrances and research. It is interesting that neither Matthew nor Luke chose to include this particular miracle, because it appears that Jesus did not get it right the first time. This is the only miracles where Jesus seems to be adding a correction and possibly for this reason, they did not include it. Yet, of all the miracles, this is the only one confirmed by, of all things, medical science.

In his book An Anthropologist on Mars (Vintage Books, New York, 1993), popular author Oliver Sachs dedicates a chapter to a man he named Virgil. Virgil was a middle-aged man who had been virtually blind since childhood, but he was able to delineate light and darkness. At the insistence of his fiancé’ Amy, Virgil was convinced to see an ophthalmologist.  Upon examination, it was discovered that there was nothing wrong with his eyes, but they were covered by large cataracts and the removal of the cataracts was not a difficult procedure. So, he underwent surgery, first on the one eye that was in the worst condition. When the bandages were removed, it was a miracle. For the first time in forty-five years, Virgil could see, but there was a problem. Sachs explains:

But when Virgil opened his eye, after being blind for forty-five years – having had little more than an infant’s visual experience, and this long forgotten – there were no visual memories to support a perception, there was no world of experience and meaning awaiting him. He saw, but what he saw had no coherence. His retina and optic nerve were active, transmitting impulses, but his brain could make no sense of them. He was, as neurologists say, agnostic. Everyone, Virgil included, expected something much simpler. A man opens his eyes, light enters and falls on the retina: he sees. It is as simple as that, we imagine. And the surgeon's own experience, like that of most opthamologists, had been the removal of cataracts from patients who had almost always lost their sight late in life--and such patients, do indeed, if the surgery is successful, have a virtually immediate recovery of normal vision, for they have in no sense lost their ability to see. And so...there was little discussion or preparation for the neurological and psychological difficulties that Virgil might encounter. (p. 114-115) 

After visiting with Virgil, Sachs further comments:

Further problems became apparent as we spent the day with Virgil. He would pick up details incessantly—an angle, an edge, a color, a movement—but 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 a paw, the nose, the tail, an ear, but could not see all of them together, see the cat as a whole. Amy had commented in her journal how even the most obvious connections—visually and logically obvious—had to be learned.  Thus, she told us, a few days after the operation “he said that trees did not look like anything on earth.” (p.121)

I’m quite certain that if the blind man from Bethsaida, after receiving his sight, had been further studied, his experience would be the same as Virgil’s. While his eyes were functioning and images were being transmitted to his brain, his brain was unable to make sense of what he was seeing. “He saw men as trees walking.” So, Jesus touched his eyes again, but this time his brain was adjusted so that he could see things clearly.

Obviously, in the first century there was no understanding of the relationship between what the eyes perceived and what the brain interpreted, but Jesus understood it. The interaction between Jesus and the blind man of Bethsaida is so brief that Mark records, based upon the recollections of Peter, no further conversation between Jesus and the blind man. Jesus, the Divine ophthalmologist, asks the man the question, “Can you see anything?” This is unique! In no other miracle Jesus performed did he ever ask the recipient, “Did it work?” But Jesus, understanding the situation, asks the question and since the brain of the blind man was not interpreting what his eyes were seeing, Jesus touched his eyes again and he saw clearly—a miracle in two parts.

This is irrefutable evidence that a miracle took place at Bethsaida, and if we are to believe this miracle based on the evidence of medical science, why would we doubt any of the other miracles performed by Jesus. 

(Note: I cannot take credit for discovering this unique comparison. Author Keith Mano wrote regarding the similarity between Virgil and the miracle at Bethsaida in the National Review about twenty years ago.)