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Men as Trees, Walking: Mark 8.22–26

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

J. Keir Howard
J. Keir Howard
Affiliation:
Department of Community Health, Wellington Clinical School (University of Otago) Wellington Hospital, Wellington 2, New Zealand
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Extract

The story of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida forms a pair with that of the deaf man recorded slightly earlier in the Markan narrative (Mark 7.31–37). In both cases the healings appear to have been accomplished only with difficulty and again in both cases physical means were used in the cure. Further, both stories were closely linked to miracles of feeding. This paper, however, does not address itself, in the first place, to the theological interpretation of the story, but sets out to consider the meaning of the odd response of the blind man to his first glimmerings of sight in the context of the healing as a whole.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , May 1984 , pp. 163 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1984

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References

page 163 note 1 See the comments of Cranficld, C. E. B., St Mark in The Cambridge Greek New Testament Commentary (Cambridge, University Press, 1963), pp. 253 5 and 263 4.Google Scholar

page 163 note 2 Vaughan, D. and Asbury, T., General Ophthalmology (Los Altos, Lange, 1977), p. 304.Google Scholar

page 164 note 3 See Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Ed. Kittel, G.), (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1964), Vol. I, pp. 387–389.Google Scholar

page 164 note 4 Steinhauser, M. G., ‘Part of a “call story”’. Exp. Times, 94 (1983), p. 204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 165 note 5 Roy, F. H., ‘World blindness; definition, incidence and major treatable causes’. Ann. Ophthalmol. 6 (1974), p. 1049Google ScholarPubMed. See also World Health for February/March 1976 which devoted entirely to this problem.

page 165 note 6 Note the Talmudic saying, ‘The saliva of an older son has curative powers for the eye’ (Baba Bathra 126b). The various classical allusions to saliva are probably of little relevance to a Palestinian situation although often quoted. They merely indicate that such views were widespread in the ancient world.

page 166 note 7 Clark, R. E. D., ‘Men as trees walking’. Faith and Thought, 93 (1963), p. 88.Google Scholar

page 166 note 8 von Senden, M., The Perception of Space and Shape in the Congenitally Blind before and after Operation (E.T.), (London, Methuen, 1960).Google Scholar

page 167 note 9 See further on this subject, Mackay, D. M., ‘The psychology of seeing’. Trans. Soc. Ophthalmol. UK 93 (1973), p. 391.Google Scholar

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page 170 note 13 Wilson, M., The Church is Healing (London, S.C.M., 1966), p. 74.Google Scholar