Two
29 As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed Him.
30 And two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!”
NASBu Matthew 20:29-30
One
46 Then they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road.
NASBu Mark 10:46
35 As Jesus was approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging.
NASBu Luke 18:35
SAB contradiction 876 (by book)
SAB can’t count
SAB complains: ‘How many men were healed near Jericho?’ and gives the following options: Two, or only one. This is ridiculous! Can’t you count Mr SAB? There were altogether four blind men that were healed near Jericho. Let’s count: Two while leaving Jericho who were together (Matthew); one man while leaving Jericho who was alone, Bartimaeus (Mark); one man while entering Jericho (Luke). That’s four, isn’t it? We should be more sceptical about the Skeptic Annotators than about the Bible, I guess.
That’s great!
There is another consideration that should not pass unnoticed. A Christian who is questioning how many blind men were healed near Jericho, may react: ‘How many healings occurred near Jericho? I don’t know exactly, but at least one. That’s great, isn’t it?’ The Skeptic Annotator is only trying to bring the Bible into disrepute with this questioning and will never say: ‘At least one, that’s great!’ And so it happens that throughout history many Christians have read this and similar stories seeing the grace of God, and leaving the details to the theologians.
Liberal and orthodox theologians
Honestly speaking, I don’t know one theologian who has defended the fact that four blind men were healed near Jericho. Why not? Theologians generally assume that after a period of oral tradition the representation of one healing event was just not preserved precisely: was it while entering Jericho or while leaving Jericho? Was one man involved or two? Liberal theologians have declared that errors entered into the texts; orthodox theologians suppose that two men were healed and that in two of the descriptions (Mark, Luke) only one of them is mentioned, without answering the remaining problem of where it was: entering Jericho, or leaving. So orthodox theologians are also accepting the idea that changes in the information occurred as a result of the oral tradition.
Jesus’ stenographers
The most painful aspect of this is that they apparently accept the idea that the gospel writers changed the spoken words of Jesus. According to Mark and Luke, Jesus said: “What do you (singular) want Me to do for you (singular)?” but according to Matthew He said: “What do you (plural) want Me to do for you (plural)?”
The three stories have many similarities and the assumption that the same event is thus being described, seems reasonable. However, we have seen earlier that speedy writers and stenographers followed Jesus. Differences in the spoken word are the best proof that we are dealing with three different events. But how then are the similarities to be explained?
Living context
That night, while Jesus stayed with Zacchaeus, a healed man walked through the streets of Jericho. He had no problem finding his way; he knew every stone on the road by heart. He did not want to sleep now. He met with his blind friends, and he started to tell them circumstantially what had happened. And then they made a plan. The next day when Jesus left the city, the friends sat by the roadside to do the same thing. They had listened very well: they used almost precisely the same words as their informant. The people compassionately tried to make them silent (as they were calling Jesus ‘Son of David’, Messiah, which was forbidden), but they cried louder and louder. Jesus, recognizing what was happening, decided to speak in the same way as he had the day before to comfort and heal them.
No Bible Contradiction