I've remembered a website on the magical acts of Jesus, based on the author's PhD dissertation (the link is to the most relevant page).Do these details come from magical practice, as Morton Smith suggested?
If so, why are they in Mark?
I haven't read the dissertation, and neither the whole site, so I can't be of more help, but maybe you will find something relevant there (it seems that she uses Smith's research heavily).
My guess is that it was a default way of "curing" blindness, etc., so these descriptions also were present in gMark "by default".
As to why they were removed from the later gospels, Dr Ingram posits:
... so it's the absence, not presence, of such descriptions that requires explanation.Although the miracle stories were essential tools in the promotion of the Christian message, the legal penalties and social fears that were associated with the practice of magic ensured that it was imperative that any suspicious material that could be seized upon by opponents was eliminated or adequately explained by the Gospel authors. As a result, the miracle accounts have been subjected to an intense editorial process which has strained out a great deal of evidence of magical practice. Possible reasons for why specific passages have been edited or omitted will become evident when examining certain healing accounts on an individual basis, but a general overview of this editorial whitewashing shows the magnitude of this activity.
Statistics: Posted by Prophanius — Sun Jan 05, 2025 11:35 am