50 Fun Facts About Miracles of Jesus

At a wedding in Cana, Jesus performed the first of his signs by changing water into what?

Wine had run out at the feast, and the steward who tasted the new supply said the best had been kept until last. He had no idea where it had come from.

Which disciple stepped out of a boat and walked on water toward Jesus before losing his nerve?

Peter walked toward Jesus until the storm frightened him, and Jesus reached out a hand and took hold of him. Only Matthew's Gospel includes this part of the story.

Which friend of Jesus walked out of his tomb alive after lying dead for four days?

Lazarus came out wrapped in his grave-cloths when Jesus called to him, and Jesus had to ask the bystanders to unbind him. Only one of the four Gospels tells the story.

How did friends get a paralysed man past the crowd to Jesus inside a packed house in Capernaum?

Through the roof was the only way in, so they dug an opening above Jesus and lowered the man down. Mark's Gospel says four men carried him there.

Jesus sent demons out of a man living among tombs and into which animals, which then drowned?

Pigs grazing on a nearby hillside took the demons, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the water. Mark's Gospel numbers the herd at about two thousand.

What was Jesus doing in the stern of the boat when a fierce storm terrified his disciples?

Sleeping on a cushion, Jesus had to be woken by disciples who asked whether he cared that they were about to drown. Then he quieted the storm with a few words.

Finding only leaves, a hungry Jesus cursed a roadside plant near Jerusalem for lacking which fruit?

Figs were not even in season, Mark notes. In his telling Jesus then drove the money-changers from the temple, and by the next morning the plant had withered to its roots.

Where did Jesus tell a disciple he would find a coin to pay the temple tax in Capernaum?

In a fish's mouth, the first one caught, was a four-drachma coin: exactly enough to pay the tax for two people. Only Matthew's Gospel tells the story.

In one Gospel, who supplied the five loaves that Jesus multiplied to feed a crowd of thousands?

A young boy had brought the food along with him, a detail only one Gospel gives. The disciple Andrew pointed him out, then asked what use so little was among so many.

At the arrest of Jesus, which part of the high priest's servant did Jesus heal after a sword blow?

His ear, the right one, had been cut off, and Jesus touched it and healed him. It is the last miracle the Gospels report before the crucifixion.

After Jesus fed a crowd of thousands from five loaves, how many baskets of scraps were left over?

Twelve baskets of broken pieces were gathered once everyone had eaten their fill, far more food than the meal began with.

What did the frightened disciples think they saw when Jesus walked across the lake to their boat?

A ghost was their first thought, and they cried out in fear until Jesus called to them to take heart. They had been rowing against the wind for most of the night.

Jesus calmed a sudden storm while crossing which body of water in a boat with his disciples?

The Sea of Galilee is really a freshwater lake, and it was known for sudden, fierce storms. Several of the disciples in the boat had made their living fishing on it.

What did a woman who had been bleeding for years touch in a crowd to be healed by Jesus?

His cloak was enough: she came up behind him, touched it and felt at once that she was well. Jesus turned around and asked the crowd who had touched his clothes.

After his disciples failed in a healing, Jesus said faith as small as which seed could move a mountain?

Mustard was his picture of something tiny: in a parable he calls it smaller than all seeds. Faith that size, he said, would leave nothing impossible for them.

Jesus healed ten men with leprosy, but the only one who returned to thank him was from which group?

Samaritans were outsiders to Jesus's Jewish listeners, which gives the story its sting. Jesus asked aloud where the other nine had gone.

Before raising his friend at Bethany, Jesus did what, in the shortest verse of the King James Bible?

He wept, a moment the King James Version tells in just two words. The verse is the shortest in that translation, though not in the original Greek.

Jesus angered the Pharisees by healing a man's withered hand in a synagogue on which holy day?

The Sabbath was a day of rest, and the Pharisees were watching to see whether Jesus would heal on it. He asked who among them would leave a sheep in a pit that day.

Which miracle did Jesus refuse to perform for himself after forty days of fasting in the wilderness?

Turning stones into bread was the tempter's first suggestion to a hungry Jesus. He answered from scripture that people do not live on bread alone.

In which hometown could Jesus do only a few miracles because people there refused to believe in him?

Nazareth knew him as the local carpenter, and Mark says he could do no mighty work there beyond healing a few sick people. He remarked that a prophet has no honour at home.

Which miracle of Jesus, apart from his own resurrection, is the only one recorded in all four Gospels?

Feeding the 5,000 is the one story all four evangelists chose to keep. Matthew and Mark also describe a second, smaller mass meal for about four thousand people.

Which two Old Testament figures appeared and spoke with Jesus on the mountain at the Transfiguration?

Moses and Elijah have long been read as standing for the Law and the Prophets, a reading that goes back at least to the third-century theologian Origen.

Which kind of officer in Capernaum amazed Jesus by asking only for a word to heal his sick servant?

A centurion was used to giving orders that were obeyed, and this one reasoned that Jesus could do the same with a word. Jesus said he had not found such faith in Israel.

Which synagogue leader begged Jesus to come and heal his dying daughter, whom Jesus then raised?

Jairus was on the way home with Jesus when messengers said the girl had died and there was no reason to bother the teacher any more. Jesus kept walking.

Which blind beggar sat by the road outside Jericho and shouted until Jesus stopped and healed him?

Bartimaeus kept shouting even when the crowd tried to silence him. Mark explains that the name means son of Timaeus, and it is unusual for a healed person to be named at all.

What name did the possessed man of the Gerasenes give when Jesus asked, because there were many of them?

Legion was also the word for a Roman army unit of 3,000 to 6,000 soldiers. Mark and Luke keep the name, while Matthew's shorter telling leaves the demons unnamed.

Luke says seven demons had gone out of which woman who travelled with Jesus and supported his work?

Mary Magdalene heads Luke's list of followers who paid for the group's needs out of their own resources, ahead of Joanna and Susanna.

What did Jesus first tell a paralysed man in Capernaum, prompting scribes to accuse him of blasphemy?

His sins were forgiven, Jesus said, and the teachers of the law objected that God alone can do that. Only then did he tell the man to get up and walk.

What did Jesus tell the man he healed at the Pool of Bethesda to pick up as he walked away?

His mat got him into trouble: it was a day of rest, and he was told the Law forbade him to carry it. He had been ill for thirty-eight years.

Which Gospel calls the miracles of Jesus signs and builds its first half around seven of them?

John opens its run of seven signs with the wedding at Cana. It leaves out scenes the other three share, such as the parables and the Transfiguration.

After Jesus put mud on the eyes of a man born blind, at which pool was the man told to wash?

Siloam is where he washed and came back seeing. The story adds that the pool's name means Sent, and the man's neighbours argued over whether he was really the same person.

In Mark, what did the blind man of Bethsaida say people looked like after Jesus first laid hands on him?

Trees walking was his report, so Jesus laid hands on him a second time and his sight came clear. Some argue no early Christian would invent a cure that seemed to fail at first.

What did Jesus sternly order a man he had just cured of leprosy to do, an order the man ignored?

Tell no one, Jesus said, but the man spread the news so widely that Jesus could no longer enter a town openly and had to stay out in lonely places.

When Pharisees demanded a miraculous sign, Jesus said they would get only the sign of which prophet?

Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, and Jesus said the Son of Man would spend as long in the heart of the earth.

After a night of catching nothing, disciples were told by the risen Jesus to cast their net where?

On the right side of the boat the net filled so full they could not haul it in. Until that moment they had not recognised the man calling to them from the beach.

In Luke's miraculous catch, the haul was so large that what happened to the two boats that shared it?

They began to sink under the weight, and the nets were breaking too. Jesus told the stunned fishermen that from then on they would be catching people.

After raising a synagogue leader's dead daughter, what practical order did Jesus issue about her?

Give her something to eat, he ordered, once the girl was up and walking around. Minutes earlier the mourners at the house had ridiculed him.

The miracles of Jesus are often sorted into cures, raisings, nature miracles and which fourth kind?

Exorcisms, the driving out of demons, fill the pages of Matthew, Mark and Luke. One of the four Gospels, though, does not describe a single one.

In Mark, Jesus said the spirit his disciples could not drive out of a man's son came out only by what?

Prayer was his answer when the disciples asked in private why they had failed. The desperate father had told Jesus he believed and begged for help with his unbelief.

The six large jars that Jesus had filled with water at the Cana wedding were normally used for what?

Ritual washing was a Jewish purity custom, and the servants filled all six jars to the brim before Jesus sent a sample to the steward.

At the gate of which village did Jesus stop a funeral procession and raise a widow's only son?

Nain is where Jesus told the grieving mother not to cry, touched the coffin and told her son to get up. Only Luke records the story.

Which mountain have Christians since the 3rd century named as the site of Jesus's Transfiguration?

Mount Tabor has long drawn pilgrims and is the site of the Church of the Transfiguration. The Gospels themselves never name the place, calling it only a high mountain.

Scribes from Jerusalem claimed Jesus drove out demons by the power of which so-called prince of demons?

Beelzebul was the charge, and Jesus answered that no kingdom fighting itself can stand. His image of a house divided later gave Abraham Lincoln a famous speech.

A Gentile mother won her daughter's healing by reminding Jesus that even dogs get what from the table?

Crumbs from their masters' meal were all she claimed, throwing Jesus's own picture of dogs and dinner back at him. He praised her faith and her daughter was healed.

Seeing a man blind from birth, the disciples asked Jesus whether the man or who else had sinned?

His parents, they guessed, on the assumption that blindness must be a punishment for someone's wrongdoing. Jesus answered that neither was to blame.

Jesus sighed and said the Aramaic word Ephphatha to a deaf man who could barely speak; what does it mean?

Be opened is Mark's own translation, and at once the man could hear and speak plainly. Jesus had first led him away from the crowd to heal him in private.

One Gospel gives an exact count of the catch that disciples hauled ashore for the risen Jesus: how many?

153 is the tally, and writers have hunted for a hidden meaning ever since. Augustine pointed out that it is the sum of every whole number from 1 to 17.

At the Transfiguration, a voice calling Jesus a beloved Son spoke to the disciples from what?

A bright cloud overshadowed them, and the disciples fell on their faces in fear until Jesus touched them and told them to get up.

How did local people react after Jesus cured the possessed man of the Gerasenes and their herd was lost?

Asked him to leave sums it up: frightened, they begged Jesus to go. The cured man wanted to come along, but Jesus sent him home to tell his friends what had happened.

Matthew's count of the thousands whom Jesus fed with five loaves left out which people?

Women and children were not counted, so the real crowd was well above the famous figure. The same note is attached to the later meal for four thousand.