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So I'm looking at the commentaries on this famous episode in Mark 8.22-26. But so far I haven't encountered anyone discussing what seems to me an obvious possibility: Maybe Mark (or his source) was modeling the healing after the real-life failed "healings" that people claimed to perform in first-century Palestine. People who had trouble seeing might claim to see a little better after being "healed" by a miracle-worker, even though the improvement would be in their imagination. But then in Mark's story, Jesus proves himself better than those hacks by going an extra step further and actually healing him.Something like that. Does anyone know of a commentator discussing such a possibility?It seems instead that most commentators regard it as some sort of symbolic parallelism for the disciples slowly over time coming to understand who Jesus is and what he must do. This is possible but seems to me a stretch.Hugh Anderson has a better (in my opinion) explanation: "Probably, as frequently in such popular stories, the gradual cure suggests no more than the intractable nature of the malady and so in the end magnifies the healer's miraculous power." (p.204)But I still like commentators should be discussing the possibility of being modeled after real-life failed healings. Does anyone know of an example?
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