5. Curing a man, at the pool of Bethesda, with an infirmity of thirty-eight years' standing.
Of the twenty-four miracles recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John, said to have been the eye-witness of all, confirms only two—viz., the feeding of the five thousand, and the walking on the sea.
These two miracles are thus a chronological break, in all the Gospel narratives, of the movements of Jesus, by which a clear comparison can be made, thus:—
As to the subsequent events, from the entrance into Jerusalem to the crucifixion, the four gospels agree in the main, though they differ in several important particulars. But from the entrance into Jerusalem back to the feeding of the five thousand, how utter the divergence! And, again, from the feeding of the five thousand back to John's baptism, how irreconcilable the accounts of the two professed eyewitnesses represented as fellow-travellers over the greater part of the journeyings mentioned! The first three gospels place all Jesus' ministry and miracles, and the calling of his disciples, as to time, after John's imprisonment, as to place, in Galilee and its neighbourhood, until he went up once for all to Jerusalem, from which he never returned. John, on the contrary, makes his ministry commence before the Baptist's imprisonment, places the calling of two of the same disciples, Andrew and Peter, while Jesus was a follower of the Baptist, and mentions three or four visits to Jerusalem before the final entry on the back of an ass. Moreover, the discourses recorded in John are very unlike the discourses in the other three narratives, and, what strikes as very remarkable, there are no parables in the fourth Gospel.
Here, then, are two witnesses, followers of Jesus, giving different and irreconcilable accounts of his ministry, his wanderings, his public utterances, his miracles; agreeing, indeed, thus far, that they both record two of the last, but even with these two (see the two paragraphs marked 9 and i above) at variance with each other in several details. Of two ordinarily intelligent eye-witnesses can it be that one would represent Jesus as "sending the multitude away," and the other as "departing from them," and the multitude next day being in the same place? or would one assert that he "constrained his disciples to take ship" and the other that he left his disciples, and that they took ship afterwards of their own accord? And yet this is what two, not ordinarily intelligent—for as to that nothing is known—but divinely inspired and divinely guided eye-witnesses affirm.
The miracles recorded in the four gospels are all of a benevolent character, except the cursing of the fig-tree and the permission given to the devils to go into the herd of swine. But notwithstanding "the good-will to men" thus displayed, the Gospels avow that Jesus' wonder-working failed to convince or to captivate by far the greater part of his contemporaries. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Tyre, Sidon, and Capernaum are all denounced, and assigned a doom more terrible than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, because of their unbelief. And against this general contemporaneous unbelief what is there to place? The single testimony of Matthew the publican for a score of miracles which he is said to have witnessed, confirmed by the hearsay testimony of Mark and Luke, but quite unsupported by the testimony of John the Galilean fisherman, who is also said to have witnessed them. Again, the single testimony of John, unsupported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for five most marvellous events, including the raising from the dead of a man who had been some time buried. The united testimony, weakened by divergence in detail, of Matthew and John, for only two of the alleged miracles, and the hearsay account of Luke for the raising from the dead of the son of the widow of Nain, quite unsupported by either Matthew or John. And then recurs the question: Would an Almighty maker of the universe, wishing to show compassion to his creatures, and to accredit, not only to the men living at the time of his appearance, but to all subsequent ages, by undoubted testimonies, a messenger from himself (the son of his own right hand), and to accredit him, moreover, by such testimonies as were most suited to the comprehension of men, have allowed the record of these credentials, on belief or unbelief on which the eternal doom of each individual man henceforth would depend, to rest on evidence so worthless—taken at its very best—as this?