Mark 8:22-25 And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to [Jesus] a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

Jesus performs many healing miracles in the New Testament, but this one stands out as particularly strange. What is the significance of spitting in the man's eyes? Couldn't the healing have been accomplished without such a crude symbolic act? Also, why did the first attempt to heal the man's blindness not seem to work? The man could not see clearly until after Jesus laid hands on his eyes a second time. If this was unintentional, then why was Jesus' healing so imprecise? If this was intentional, then what was the purpose or lesson that what meant to be taught? Is this the same blind man as described in the story of John 8:59-9:6? If so, then why is the healing miracle described differently? In John, Jesus spits onto the ground to make clay to place on the man's eyes and it takes place in a different location. Regardless of whether the two stories describe the same or different miracles, why would Jesus need to use different methods to heal the same affliction? In yet another story (Mark 10:46-10:52) a blind man is healed instantaneously with no physical contact or spit involved.