Article
Perception and Prosopagnosia
in Mark 8.22-26
Journal for the Study of
the New Testament
2014, Vol. 37(1) 71­–85
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X14546079
jsnt.sagepub.com
Brian Glenney
Department of Philosophy, Gordon College, USA
John T. Noble
Department of Bible and Religion, Huntington University, USA
Abstract
Our article addresses the ‘middle-blind’ status of the man from Bethsaida whom,
according to Mk 8.22-26, Jesus heals in two phases. Drawing on observations from
modern philosophical psychology and from ancient Greek and Jewish perspectives
on vision, we argue that the two healing touches of Jesus are distinct in kind: the
first restores the optical function of the eye, and the second enables cognitive
synthesis of form. This reading better conforms to the narrative theme of ‘seeing
but not perceiving’ than traditional interpretations, and it provides the theological
impetus for what has otherwise been considered a discomfiting account of Jesus’
inefficiency.
Keywords
Bethsaida, blindness, extramission, healing, Mk 8.22-26
double healing may suggest 2 qualitatively different types of healing
Interpreters of Mk 8.22-26 have long understood that the blind man of Bethsaida
is a kind of analogue for the disciples and their spiritual perceptions or
With special thanks to the participants of the ‘Sensory Perception in the Bible and Early
Judaism and Christianity’ section of the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical
Literature in San Francisco, particularly Yael Avrahami and Ross Winkle. Steven A. Hunt
deserves our appreciation as well for his review of an early draft of this article.
Corresponding author:
Brian Glenney, Department of Philosophy, Gordon College, 255 Grapevine Rd., Wenham, MA 01984, USA.
Email: brian.glenney@gordon.edu
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)
misperceptions.1 What has not been widely recognized, however, is the function
of this healing story in two phases. Exegesis of the passage usually implies what
we might call a quantitative explanation: the first healing removes some of the
visual impediments, and the second one completes the task, finally providing full
restoration of sight.2 In short, the first attempt is useful, but not wholly effective.
This is often understood to be the way that the other evangelists have interpreted
the Markan account, explaining why they did not include a double-healing story
that displays Jesus’ initial ineffectiveness.3 This article seeks to reevaluate this
theological dilemma by suggesting that Mark presents the second healing as
qualitatively different from the first: whereas the first healing addresses optical
sight, the second touch enables cognitive perception.4 In our view, this way of
reading the passage better accommodates the broader narrative context of ‘seeing but not perceiving’.5
By making use of modern cognitive sciences, we find that the blind man’s
multi-phased restoration of sight is not inconsistent with a modern understanding
of the physiological processes in question. In fact, if we can assume that this
pericope reflects Mark’s acquaintance with anecdotal accounts of sight recovery,
then the two phases of healing are best interpreted in terms of optical and cognitive restoration, respectively.
Through textual analysis and consideration of Greek and Jewish conceptions
of vision, we make the case that Mark would have understood vision to involve
not just the eyes, but also an internal capacity to synthesize images as
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
This is especially so among those advocating the ‘discipleship’ model of Mark, including
Telford (1999: 100) and Marcus (2009: 599-602; 1984: 557-74, esp. 566 n. 34). An overview
of proposed interpretations is found in Larsen (2004), who advocates a ‘Christological’ interpretation, namely, the view that Mark’s primary concern is unveiling the nature of Christ.
Larsen also argues that ‘the disciples remain in the dark to the end’ (2005: 122 n. 200). We
follow Marcus (2009), who maintains that elements of progress in the disciples are conveyed
throughout the remainder of Mark’s Gospel, even if complete sight is not realized until the
resurrection, thus suggesting an emphasis on a discipleship theme.
But see J. Keir Howard (1984: 168-69): ‘The miracle here, as in all the healings of blind
people in the gospels, was, as Valvo has pointed out, functional as well as anatomical’. See
Valvo 1968: 1214.
E.g., Sim 2011: 180; Hagner 1995: 463-64; cf. Wilkinson 1998: 304.
J.D.M. Derrett presents a similar interpretation of double healing: ‘[A] person who recovers
sight after a long interval, and who first sees objects inverted, takes time to recover the interpretative power. The interval between darkness and the correct interpretation of an erect
image, complete with distance and perspective, is a period of mental confusion with its own
frustrations’ (1981: 36). Although Derrett is on the right path, we find his conclusion with
respect to the cause of the continued confusion of the blind man after the first healing to lack
specificity regarding the nature of confused sight.
Cf. Mk 4.12, 24; the theme is on display throughout Mk 8, especially vv. 18, 27-38. See Marcus
1984: 569; Keller 2001: 153. On the connection between sight (or observation) and understanding Jesus (or the Kingdom of God), cf. Mk 3.2; 5.14; 9.1; 13.14, 26, 29; 14.62; 16.7.
Glenney and Noble
73
meaningful forms. In other words, Mark respects the physiological difference
between seeing and perceiving.
explanation of the first healing: other studies vs this article's
suggestion of prosopagnosia
We begin with the question of the blind man’s report of ‘trees, walking’. Our
effort hardly represents the first attempt to account for the physical processes that
are involved in the blind man’s double healing. H. Fraser (1973) explains that,
after the first healing, the displacement of the lens results in the increase of the
retinal image so that the size of people distorts into larger, in this case taller,
appearances. For Fraser, this explains why the blind man mistakes the appearance of people for trees.6 In another study, John Wilkinson argues that blurriness
persists in this transitional state, providing inaccurate identification of his surroundings: ‘People carrying burdens on their heads resembled trees to his newlyreturned but still blurred vision. This meant his near vision had returned and
allowed him to recognize the gross outline of objects and their movements, but
not the finer detail of these objects’ (1998: 116). Furthermore, J. Keir Howard
(1984) is noteworthy for combining distortion and blurriness, offering a more
detailed account based on modern knowledge of ophthalmology.7
Although these accounts of partial blindness provide constructive readings of
the Markan text, the dependence of their analysis on the physiology of the eye—
whether distorted, blurry or both—does not adequately explain the man’s
description of the ‘men who look like trees, walking’. The people walking do not
appear ‘tall-like’ or ‘blurred’ to the blind man, but rather ‘tree-like’. Therefore a
more precise explanation is needed to account for this particular detail.
More importantly, these optical readings fail to take into account Mark’s
broader narrative theme of ‘seeing but not perceiving’. Any plausible interpretation should provide a basis for partial blindness that accounts for how something
can be seen, presumably with a measure of acuity, but not observed—that is to
say, truly understood. A cognitive explanation that goes beyond the attribution of
distorted appearance or a lack of visual acuity will better account for the report
that the people specifically appear ‘tree-like’. Our suggestion is that the first
healing may have cured the man’s ‘optical blindness’, which likely involved the
removal of lens opaqueness (cataracts), as other commentators have observed.8
Prosopagnosia
6.
7.
See also Sussman (1992: 12).
As Howard writes, ‘the important consequence of this condition of functional loss of the lens
is the distortion of size perception that it produces … a marked increase in the size of the retinal image compared with the normal eye—the ratio may be as much as 1:1.5. In addition to
this there would be considerable blurring of the image consequent the loss of focusing power
due to the effective removal of the lens from the optical system (in technical terms there
would be a 12 dioptre hypermetropia)’ (1984: 168).
8. See Fraser 1973, Howard 1984 and Wilkinson 1998.
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)
After this healing there is no suggestion in our passage of light blockage, only a
misconception of what form the light took. The remaining deficiency in the transitional period is something ‘cognitive’ that relates to the interpretation of the
percept.
The distinction between optical and cognitive blindness provides a basis for
exploring various types of ‘double blindness’ (Noë 2004: 12). A subject that is
both optically and cognitively blind would need to be doubly cured in order to
recover vision of form. In some cases where a cure is found for long-term or
congenital-optical blindness, some time and experience is required for the perception of form to become possible (Fine et al. 2003). This presents a clear
asymmetry between optical and cognitive blindness. One may be cognitively
blind, on the one hand, but have normally functioning eyes; on the other hand, if
one is optically blind, that person is also cognitively blind.
The empirical confirmation of double blindness provides a more exact interpretive rubric for consideration of the experiences of the middle-blind. The result
of many studies is that upon removal of optical blockages, newly sighted individuals retain specific cognitive delays.9 This cognitive blindness could manifest
itself either at an ‘Intermediate-Level’ in visual processing areas that inhibit the
ability to see line orientation, boundaries, color and so forth, or ‘Higher-Level’
areas which lead to eccentric forms of blindness, including blind sight,10 and
other specific forms of agnosia.11
The two most reliable empirical case studies of cured blindness come from
experiments on cataract patients SB and MM.12 According to these studies, distance and size are meaningfully interpreted at first sight, whereas depth properties—such as line drawings of cubes—are initially meaningless to subjects.
More significantly, human faces and everyday objects are also largely unrecognizable upon first sight.13 The philosophical psychologist Alva Noë (2004) summarizes the empirical evidence for a cognitive basis for middle-blindness, a state
he calls ‘experiential blindness’, as follows:
What we learn from the case studies is that the surgery restores visual sensation, at
least to a significant degree, but that it does not restore sight. In the period immediately
9. For a recent review of these studies, see Cattaneo and Vecchi 2011: 98-102.
10. For a useful case study on the blind sighted subject DF, whose experiences are equivalent to
blind subjects, but whose behavior approximates sighted perceivers, see Goodale and Milner
2004.
11. See Farah 2004.
12. On SB, see Gregory 1974; also Le Grand et al. 2001; Ostrovsky et al. 2006. On MM, see Fine
et al. 2003: 910.
13. Furthermore, anatomical evidence supports the specific deficit of an inability to recognize
faces and objects in cataract patients. The specific face (FFA) and object processing areas
(TE) in the brain are shown to be largely inactive in MM. See Fine et al. 2003.
Glenney and Noble
75
after the operation, patients suffer blindness despite rich visual sensations. That is to
say, they suffer experiential blindness (Noë 2004: 5).
Although light detection is restored by cataract surgery, the ability to interpret
the spatial information encoded in the light is unavailable. Hence subjects have
minimal sensory experiences, i.e. sensations, but without understanding what
they represent. Furthermore, there are various possible kinds of experiential
blindness, differentiated by the kind of cortical ‘blockage’ or lesion present in
experientially blind subjects.14 One particular kind of cognitive ‘blockage’ noted
in these cataract subject case studies is that of ‘face blindness’, or prosopagnosia,
which, we will argue, bears certain affinities with the blind man of Bethsaida
after his first healing.
In cases of prosopagnosia, the ability to recognize objects is not possible at
first sight, although there is some degree of recognition if the objects are in
motion (recall our ‘trees, walking’). The moving objects provide a cue for distinguishing foreground from background and serve as the basis of primitive object
recognition. Striking evidence for this comes from subject MM: a stationary
line-drawing of a cube evokes no recognition response, whereas a rotating drawing of the same cube evokes a ‘Kinetic depth effect’ and accounts for MM’s correct response over a number of trials (Fine et al. 2003: 910). The significance is
that while object and face recognition are largely unavailable upon the recovery
of sight, motion provides favorable conditions for object recognition.15 Without
facial recognition, however, people may appear ‘tree-like’ because trees closely
resemble the human body without facial features.16 Thus, the blind man’s own
report provides suggestive evidence that the first healing clears away cataracts
providing full optical sight, but it fails to enable him cognitively to identify the
faces of people, thus leaving the middle-blind man in the condition of
prosopagnosia.17
14. For a discussion of the correlation between brain function and brain area—‘domain
specificity’—see Downing et al. 2006.
15. Duchaine and Nakayama (2005) have conducted a study that clearly demonstrates a disassociation between face and object recognition.
16. Note that prosopagnosia does not entail unidentifiable facial features, but rather the inability
to identify individuals by their facial features. A broad range of miscomprehension can result
from this. For instance, in one of Oliver Sacks’s more infamous cases, a prosopagnosiac mistakes his wife for a hat (1998: 8-22).
17. There are both congenital and acquired forms of face blindness, the latter being the result of
either traumatic injury or long-term blindness. Interestingly, subjects who acquire face blindness seem not only to lack the ability to recognize faces, but also facial expressions. See
Humphreys et al. 2007.
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)
Textual Analysis of Mark 8.22-26
study of different translations of important terms
A close reading of our passage bears out this diagnosis. In v. 23 Jesus asks the
man, ‘Do you see anything?’ (ei! ti ble/peij). As is well known, the verb ble/pw
conveys sensory capability, the ability to see. However, it can also be used
figuratively, as in English, for ‘to pay close attention to something’,18 ‘to develop
an awareness of something’19 or ‘to process information by giving thought’.20 It
appears that both senses—optical and figurative—are operative: the optical
meaning is primary, on the surface; but the figurative meaning, conveying process of thought, is also implied in the sense that the entire episode functions as a
metaphor for spiritual insight (a point to be developed later in this article). This
is consistent with Mark’s use of the term in 4.24, where Jesus playfully uses
ble/pw to instruct the disciples to ‘see’ what they ‘hear’. Such a meaning is also
apparent from the immediate context of our passage in Mk 8.18, where Jesus
asks, ‘having eyes do you not see/understand (ble/pete)?’
The rest of the passage contains several compound verbs from ble/pw that
represent different kinds of seeing; these also have ambiguous meanings that
have caused some confusion in translation and interpretation. The beginning of
v. 24 is usually rendered as ‘And he looked up …’ (kai\ a)nable/yaj).21 However,
there is no reason to suppose that the blind man should have to ‘look up’,22 and
there is a second connotation of the term that better fits the context: ‘to gain
sight’. The word is often used this way in the Greek sources,23 more notably in
the Gospels and Acts,24 and most importantly in Mk 10.51-52, which records the
fulfilled desire of Mark’s only other blind man, Bartimaeus, to ‘receive sight’.25
A better translation of Mk 8.24, then, is ‘and he received sight and said “I see
people who look like trees, walking”’. The word a)nable/yaj is not usually
18. 2 Cor. 10.7; Mt. 22.16; Mk 12.14. See particularly BDAG, 178-79; also Michaelis 1967:
343-44.
19. Mt. 14.30; Rom. 7.23; 2 Cor. 7.8; Heb. 3.19; Jas 2.22.
20. Note esp. Mk 4.24 and 13.33; also Lk. 8.18; 1 Cor. 1.26; 3.10; 10.18; 16.10; Eph. 5.15; Phil.
3.2; Col. 2.5; 4.17.
21. E.g., NRSV, NASB, NIV, ESV, KJV.
22. Pace Marcus 2009: 594. Jesus leads the man by the hand, presumably on foot, and the reader
should suspect that the blind man is standing (cf. v. 23).
23. E.g., Herodotus, Histories 2.111; Aristophanes, Plutus 126; Plato, Phaedra 234b; PseudoApollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.4.3.
24. See esp. Mt. 11.5; 20.34; Lk. 7.22; 18.41; Acts 9.12, 17; 22.13.
25. In this instance, the term could mean ‘regain sight’. Cf. Lagrange 1942: 213; Johnson (1979:
376): ‘Wherever the word is used in reference to blindness … it always refers to a regaining
of sight.’ However, the use of ‘receive’ is probably better than ‘regain’ in ambiguous instances,
despite the a)na prefix, because of the occurrence of this same verb in John’s account of the
congenitally blind man, where recovery is precluded (Jn 9.11, 15, 18). 2 Clement 9.2 makes
reference to the reception of sight (a)neble/yate) as a metaphor for salvation.
Glenney and Noble
77
translated this way, of course, because it is assumed that the blind man does not
really receive his sight until v. 25. By our reading, the blind man of Mk 8.24 has
received his optical sight, but still suffers from some cognitive visual deficit like
prosopagnosia and therefore cannot yet fully process what he sees, especially
individual faces and identities.
Complete perception only comes after the second healing touch, when the
man ‘looked intently’ (die/bleyen)26 and finds that he has been ‘restored’
(a)pekate/sth, v. 25). The reader must note that this last verb does not necessarily refer to the restoration of sight, even though many translations supply the
subject ‘sight’ where it does not occur: ‘his sight was restored’.27 The more literal translation, ‘he was restored’,28 is better in this case because the blind man
had already received (or regained) sight after the first touch, and now his cognitive capacity to process his sight is restored.
The final compound verb from ble/pw in this Markan healing episode more
fully explains the final restoration: e0ne/blepen thlaugw~j a#panta (v. 25: ‘he
began to observe everything clearly’). This, too, is a departure from typical
translations, because we have used ‘observe’ rather than ‘see’. We are justified in
this correction because e0ne/blepen conveys much more than ‘seeing’. This verb,
which can mean ‘look at something directly and intently’, has some semantic
overlap with die/bleyen. But it is also used for ‘give serious thought to
something’.29 It is not surprising, then, that people, or groups of people, are
almost always the object of this verb in the Gospels. For example, John the
Baptist observes Jesus walking by and says ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ (Jn
1.36). In Mark, Jesus observes or ‘sizes up’ the man inquiring about eternal life,
then ‘loves him’ and diagnoses the thing he lacks (Mk 10.21).30 Once again in
Mk 8.22-26, it appears as though the people in question are being observed. This
blind man from Bethsaida has been touched a second time by Jesus in a way that
allows him not just to see, but to identify faces, even to observe them in a way
that suggests consideration. "observe" used several times as verb of consideration of others in Mk
This interpretation was anticipated over a century ago by the English biblical
scholar Henry Barclay Swete, who determined that the erstwhile blind man ‘was
able henceforth to examine every object and interpret the phenomena correctly’
(1898: 164). One result of our argument is the understanding that Jesus cannot
permit the healed man to enter the village lest his newfound ability to see (and
observe) so clearly should prematurely compromise something of Jesus’ identity
26. We are in agreement with Marcus (1999: 250-56) that Mk 8.25 is not a tautology, but demur
at his sharp distinction between ‘look intently’ and ‘see through’ in this context.
27. NSRV, NIV, ESV.
28. NASB, KJV.
29. See the useful discussion in Johnson 1979: 378-79.
30. Also Mt. 19.26; Mk 10.27; 14.67; Lk. 20.17; 22.61; Jn 1.42; cf. Mt. 6.26.
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)
and mission (Mk 8.26). We return to this later. For now, the burden remains to
demonstrate that Mark and his community would think about vision restoration
in similarly qualitative terms.
Ancient
Greek and Jewish Conceptions of Vision
Gunnar Rudberg refers to the Greeks as ‘a people of the eye’, enjoying the gift
of sight and contemplation, and ‘appreciating what was seen in its different
forms and at different spiritual levels’ (1942: 162); moreover, it is claimed that
Greek religious thinking is characterized by vision (Kerényi 1941: 120).
Nevertheless, the limitations of sensory perception were readily acknowledged,
and particularly that the senses are not adequate to perceive an object’s true
nature. A parade example is the human inability fully to perceive and judge theophanic appearances in mythology (Michaelis 1967: 320)—a limitation not
without analogy in the surrounding context of Mk 8.22-26, which portrays the
obtuseness of Jesus’ disciples on the question of his identity and mission.
Biblical scholarship has given much attention to the ‘extramission’ theory of
vision, common in antiquity, which compares the eye to a lantern through which
light shines and thus facilitates vision (Betz 1979; Hoorn 1972).31 This notion,
attested in the fifth century bce by the pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles
(Diels and Kranz 1985: I, 342, 4-9 [31 B 84]) and developed by Plato and
others,32 involves particles of light emanating from the eyes, which then ‘beams’
objects into the mind.33
Joel Marcus, for example, applies extramission analysis to Mark’s description
of the second healing of the blind man of Bethsaida:
annoyingly
insensitive
or slow to
understand
According to this exegesis, at the conclusion of our Markan narrative the formerly
blind man is able to see clearly because his vision [is thought to have] … become ‘farbeaming’, i.e. the internal light beams have been freed of the impediments that
restricted them, so that they can travel the necessary distance to objects in the external
world, and vision can ensue.34
Marcus’s interpretation of the second healing appears to support what we have
called quantitative healing, implying a removal of additional optical occlusions.
The problem in his discussion of extramission as applied to Mark’s report is that
it overemphasizes vision as light detection, when the primary issue is the
31. Cf. Mt. 6.22.
32. Plato thus considers the eye to be ‘the most sunlike of all the instruments of sense’ (Rep.
6.508b).
33. Democritus and later Epicurus, by contrast, developed the now modern idea that eyes receive
reflected light to create images in the mind—the ‘intromission’ theory (Betz 1979: 48-49).
34. Marcus 1999: 254. See also Allison 1987: 61-83.
Glenney and Noble
79
cognitive apparatus involved in shape or form detection. The partial blindness
suffered by the blind man of Bethsaida is one of miscomprehension rather than
impediment. If so, we might then say that Mark understands vision in a way that
is akin to contemporary cognitive theory.
Such a reading also accommodates ancient Greek and Jewish emphases on the
connection between vision and understanding. As early as the late sixth to early
fifth centuries bce, Heraclitus makes reference in a fragment to ‘barbarian souls’
whose human eyes and ears make poor witnesses: kakoi\ ma&rturej a)nqrw&poisin
o)fqalmoi\ kai\ w}ta barba&rouj yuxa_j e0xo&ntwn.35 As Philip Wheelwright
notes from other Heraclitean fragments, ‘the mere accumulation of details is not
enough’, and ‘polymathy does not teach understanding’, but ‘knowledge of particulars serves a good purpose only so far as one’s discovery and interpretation
of them are guided by listening to the Logos’ (1959: 26-27). The claim is that
those who use their sensory organs without ‘understanding’ (fro&nhsij) are unable to interpret meaning from the senses.36
Eleftheria A. Bernidaki-Aldous’s four typical categories of blindness in
ancient Greek literature are useful in this respect (1990: 3):
1. blindness as a condition of helplessness and dependence, especially in
combination with old age;
2. blindness as ignorance, and in contrast to light, truth and even moral
standing;
3. blindness as punishment, human or divine;
4. blindness as a feature of a prophet or seer, one who sees truly and with
understanding.
In his analysis of these categories, Chad Hartsock notes that the groupings are
not mutually exclusive, but are different layers of the same topos, and that ‘most
often the same blind character may fit multiple categories’ (2008: 63-64).
The blind man from Bethsaida is a fine example of these multiple layers: at
first he is dependent on others to lead him where he would go (Mk 8.22), then his
implied ignorance is transformed into optical vision and cognitive processing—
even understanding—in the rest of the passage. Indeed, an association between
physical eyesight and understanding or spiritual insight is not unexpected in
Mark’s context.
The prevalence of the association between physical and spiritual sight may be
observed in passages from the Hebrew Bible and other Second Temple literature,
including the narratives of Samson, Eli and Tobit, all of whom lose physical
35. Diels and Kranz 1985: I, 175 (22 B 107). See Betz 1979: 47.
36. Instead, they must ‘make it up’ (e9wutoi=si de\ doke/ousi). See Diels and Kranz 1985: I, 155 (22
B 17); and Betz 1979: 47.
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)
eyesight along with their spiritual sight (Hartsock 2008: 104-17). Deuteronomy
28.28 warns the Israelites that ‘YHWH will smite you with madness, blindness,
and confusion of mind’. The Deuteronomist is also careful to point out that
Moses, even in his old age, does not suffer impairment of sight (Deut. 34.7),
signaling that his understanding is sound in addition to his unflagging vigor. And
the figures of Ahijah (1 Kgs 14.1-18), Elisha (2 Kgs 6.6-18) and Zedekiah (2 Kgs
25.7) are all associated with blindness that symbolizes insight or its lack. Most
significant, no doubt, is Isaiah’s use of blindness as a metaphor for Israel’s spiritual condition (Isa. 6.9-10), a metaphor cited by all four evangelists, including
Mark (4.11-12). In the New Testament, those persons who do not respond to the
preaching of the apostolic message are said to be ‘blind to the gospel’.37
For our purposes, the important point is that ancient Greek and Jewish conceptions of vision attribute the interpretation of meaning to something internal
that is beyond the sensory organs, and that sight itself is closely associated with
understanding and spiritual insight. This realization is of key importance for
appreciating the two-stage healing of the blind man, which we take to be a metaphor for the lengthy process required for the disciples to focus in on Jesus and his
mission.
A Metaphor for Spiritual Insight
The healing of the blind man can be paralleled with the
disciples' understanding
The two-stage healing of the blind man of Bethsaida enables an appreciation of
the metaphor ‘seeing but not perceiving’ and the meaning of discipleship in
Mark. The middle-blind condition is one in which a person ‘has eyes but fails to
see’, as Jesus puts it. For the blind man of Bethsaida, the first healing gives optical capacity, but only the second touch can make him understand the sensory
data. We have already suggested that the new sight of the man of Bethsaida may
actually point towards something deeper, something like insight. One clue comes
from Jesus’ instruction to the man not to make contact with the nearby village
(8.26). And the notion is strengthened by the context of ch. 8, which describes
the disciples’ own experience of middle-blindness that precludes their understanding of Jesus and his mission. For the disciples, too, the problem is not optical capability, but rather cognitive synthesis.
As Jesus and the disciples leave Bethsaida, we discover that Peter can plainly
see, given the revelation he has been shown, that Jesus is the Christ. However, he
cannot properly process the meaning of what he sees. It may be worthwhile to
note that Jesus’ sharp rejoinder to Peter includes the admonition that he has set
his mind (fronei=j) on human rather than divine things (8.33). This is consistent
37. See, for example, Rom. 2.19; 2 Pet. 1.9; Rev. 3.17 (Hartsock 2008: 143). The blind man of Jn
9 is the most explicit expression of the association between blindness and spiritual
perception.
a1 yeast of pharisees "you dont understand"
b double healing
a2 peter's declaration
Glenney and Noble
81
with Jesus’ previous frustration after the disciples cannot understand his caution
of the yeast of the Pharisees. ‘Why are you reasoning (dialogi/zesqe) that it is
because you have no bread?’ Jesus asks. ‘Do you still not perceive (noei=te) or
understand (suni/ete)? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see?
Having ears do you not hear? Do you not recall (mnhmoneu&ete)?’ (8.17-18).
For Mark’s Jesus, there is an important connection to be made between sensory capacity and these five verbs of mind-setting, reasoning, perceiving, understanding and recalling. The disciples have eyes to see and ears to hear but, sadly,
no ability to synthesize the information. Their misunderstanding is not for lack
of demonstration—Jesus has shown them everything they should need for a right
perception. The problem results instead from a deficit in processing power. They
cannot put faces, as it were, on the walking trees.
In this way, the blind man of Bethsaida serves as a metaphor for the disciples’
situation of middle-blindness. Just as it requires multiple interventions by Jesus
to produce both optical sight and cognitive observation in the blind man, so too
will the disciples require repeated miracles, culminating in the resurrection,38
both to see and understand Jesus and his mission.
Conclusion
The disciples, man from Bethsaida, and Bartimaeus' understandings of the identity
and mission of Jesus
Our study attends to both the modern theoretical apparatus for understanding
sensory perception and to Mark’s own sensibilities about vision by reading the
period of middle-blindness as a misapprehension of clearly seen moving objects
rather than as a distinct apprehension of unclearly seen objects.39 This best
accounts for the unusual description of the man seeing people ‘like trees’ in Mk
8.24, as the restoration of his optical sight allows visual acuity of people but not
an ability to process fully these clear sensations, especially individual faces and
identities, due to a cognitive visual deficit like prosopagnosia. According to our
interpretation of the physiological changes evident in this healing narrative, the
middle-blind man is privy to light, and all occlusions are removed after the first
healing act. The second healing touch does not so much represent a further
‘clearing up’, as other commentators have suggested, but rather enables the middle-blind man’s cognitive ability to integrate and identify properly the images in
his field of vision.
Two further observations are apropos for our consideration of Mark’s unfolding drama of the disciples’ perception. First, this article supports those studies that
emphasize the literary connection between the two blind men of Mark, namely,
the man of Bethsaida (8.22-26) and Bartimaeus (10.46-52). Whether or not the
38. See Johnson 1979: 383.
39. This reading emphasizes the effects of prosopagnosia, where subjects are able to recognize
objects in motion, but are unable to identify human faces.
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Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)
two healing episodes function as a bracketing inclusio,40 there is no doubt that the
two blind men have certain features in common. Both experience healing of a
nature that is associated with understanding, and both exhibit perception that surpasses that of Jesus’ disciples. However, whereas Jesus’ second healing touch of
the Bethsaida man is of a qualitative, not quantitative nature, thus correcting the
ability of the blind man to synthesize cognitively the things his eyes have seen,
Bartimaeus is one who functions in some sense as a blind seer by correctly identifying Jesus as the ‘Son of David’ even before his healing (10.47-48). Unlike the
other blind man, he needs no second touch to enable his cognitive perception
because his perception has been intact all along. In fact, it is Bartimaeus’s prehealing perception—his ‘faith’—that makes him well according to Jesus (10.52).
In this respect, it should be noted that Bartimaeus, like Peter, identifies Jesus
by a messianic title; but unlike Peter, he does so without the benefit of direct
sensory perception, and without censure from Jesus—apparently reflecting a better perception of Jesus than that displayed by Peter. Mark’s readers understand
that the blind men have—or are made to have—a better understanding of Jesus
than the disciples themselves. And, as many others have noticed, the literary
position of the Bartimaeus healing towards the end of Jesus’ ministry is a strong
hint that the movement of Jesus towards Jerusalem coincides with the progressive nature of the revelation of his purpose and mission: the blind men may know
better than the disciples, but the second blind man knows even better than the
first one insofar as he correctly identifies Jesus and does not require a second
healing touch.
Secondly, in spite of the castigations that Jesus aims toward his disciples for
their misunderstandings, only his second healing touch is sufficient to restore the
blind man’s full sensory perception, including both optical and cognitive capacities. Perhaps this is what Mark intends to imply concerning the disciples as well.
Not only are the miracles necessary for the disciples to see, but the meaning of
the messianic mission can only be deciphered through a process of continued
experience and cognition ‘on the way’.41
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