5.24

Genre of a Healing Story

In the New Testament Gospels, the “healing story” becomes a recognized literary genre that exhibits the same essential characteristics almost everywhere it occurs:

• the presence of a person (or representative of that person) in need of healing, including details that heighten the miraculous deed, for example, the great length of the illness, previous failures at being healed, the horrible condition of the afflicted person, or various effects the sickness has on members of the community or household
• the powerful words and/or actions of the healer, including various bodily manipulations such as touching the ears, washing the eyes, commands to walk, or dialogue with demons
• the confirmation of the sudden healing, which often includes such details as a raised person eating again, the astonishment of those witnessing the event, a visible sign that demons have left a person, a return to previously impossible activity, and so forth.

See J. Keir Howard, Disease and Healing in the New Testament (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001).