"Those healing stories in the Bible are exaggerated. Ancient people didn't understand medicine or mental illness."
How it sounds in your head: They probably had conditions that resolved naturally or were psychosomatic. Ancient writers didn't have our scientific understanding, so they attributed everything to miracles. Leprosy might have been psoriasis, demon possession was probably schizophrenia.
"Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, 'Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.'"
-- John 11:39Source: Modernist skepticism that elevates human reason above God's Word and power.
His education taught him to view ancient accounts skeptically. Medical explanations for biblical miracles sound intellectual and sophisticated, protecting him from looking foolish for believing impossible things.
Blind from birth - no eyes that gradually deteriorated, but never functioned from conception. Jesus made mud, applied it, man washed and immediately SAW for the first time in his life - his neighbors and the Pharisees interrogated him repeatedly trying to explain it away and couldn't.
I REFUSE the lie that Bible miracles are exaggerated. IT IS WRITTEN that Lazarus was dead FOUR DAYS and STINKING - witnesses verified the decomposition, then watched him walk out alive. These weren't primitive people easily fooled; they questioned, investigated, and couldn't deny what they saw. IT IS WRITTEN that the man born blind received sight so dramatically that neighbors debated if it was even him. God gave detailed accounts with witnesses specifically so we'd know these were REAL miracles, not natural explanations. I believe the Word as written.
The Father included specific details of stench and decomposition and witness interrogations precisely because He knew skeptics would come - He's not intimidated by your questions and invites investigation of His miraculous power. Truth withstands scrutiny.