As Jesus passed by from there, two blind men followed him, calling out and saying, “Have mercy on us, son of David!” When he had come into the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They told him, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.”
Blindness can be reversed through strong personal conviction alone.
Show this passage in
The cited passage
What current science says
Blindness has dozens of medical causes — cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, optic nerve damage, retinal detachment — and zero of them respond to willpower. Your retina contains over 100 million photoreceptor cells; once those are destroyed, no amount of conviction regenerates them. Modern medicine can treat some forms of blindness with surgery or gene therapy, but these require physical intervention at the cellular level. Belief doesn't rewire neurons.
What the text says
This comes from Matthew 9:27-29. The text describes two blind men whose sight was restored after expressing belief, with the declaration 'According to your faith be it unto you.'
Three honest ways to read this passage
-
As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
-
As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
-
As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.