# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1902. 45

Matthew, however, according to his custom, summarizes the story of both healings briefly, and he could not write otherwise than he has written. For both times many circumstances were in fact quite alike, yet without this being in the least odd and suspicious. If in a city there are two blind men who must beg, is it so remarkable that the one begs before this city gate, the other before the other? Certainly not; if they sit together they receive much less than if each begs alone. That Jesus is addressed by the one blind man as by the other with the words: "Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me," betrays indeed in both a fairly good acquaintance with what they had to think of Jesus, but is also not very surprising. A wretched blind man, possessed man, paralytic, indeed even leper in Israel at that time would have had to live quite and wholly off to one side and be outside all intercourse with the people, if he had not occasionally come to hear of the wonderful Jesus of Nazareth, who went about and made people well, and who was known among the people as a son of David. Both times, to be sure, we also find that the people standing by rebuke the blind men crying for help, telling them to be silent, but yet with a difference. Bartimaeus, the second blind man, who was healed when Jesus went away from Jericho, will have heard that Jesus the day before had the other blind man brought to him and healed him. Therefore he too would not be held back from crying still more: "Thou son of David, have mercy on me." But we also hear that on the second day the people said to Bartimaeus: "Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee." And that he then did at once, cast away his garment and let himself be brought to Jesus. And is it supposed to astonish us that the second blind man, like the first, answered Jesus' question: "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" with: "Lord, that I might receive my sight"? Should we not rather have to be astonished if he had said otherwise? And finally, that after the healing had happened the one as well as the other was thankful, praised God and followed Jesus in the way, are we to see a contradiction in that, a suspicious coincidence on account of which the one story or the other could not be true, or both not? No, nothing really goes more without saying than this. — But if, as has been said, Matthew wished to summarize briefly what happened one time at Jesus' entry, the other time at his exit from Jericho, he could not do otherwise than as we heard at the beginning from his mouth.

"And they that were crucified with him reviled him."
(Mark 15:32. Luke 23:39.)
On this Kahnis remarks: "If we had, concerning the two thieves on the cross, only Matthew's statement: 'The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth,' we should be compelled to assume