The Case of the Missing Miracles: Why Some Gospel Stories Disappear

The idea of conspicuous omission is simple but powerful: if a Gospel writer knew about a miracle, they almost certainly would have written it down. The fact that many miracle stories don’t appear in all of the Gospels suggests that these tales were not universally known, but instead were living traditions that evolved differently from place to place. Some stories even splintered into multiple versions with overlapping details—like the two separate accounts of Jesus feeding a large crowd. This uneven spread of miracle stories is a strong indicator that the Gospels are not reliable historical records of what happened, but snapshots of what particular Christian communities believed had happened at the time their texts were written.

The Widow’s Son at Nain

Luke tells the story of Jesus raising a widow’s only son in the town of Nain (Luke 7:11–17). It’s a dramatic resurrection story, yet Matthew and Mark don’t mention it at all. Both of them do include Jairus’ daughter being raised from the dead (Matt. 9:18–26; Mark 5:21–43; Luke 8:40–56). If Matthew and Mark had known about the widow’s son, why wouldn’t they have included such a compelling miracle? The simplest answer: they never heard that story.

Where’s Lazarus?

The Gospel of John includes one of the most jaw-dropping miracles of all: Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1–44). But here’s the problem—Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t mention Lazarus at all. If this event were widely known, you’d expect the other authors to use it as proof of Jesus’ divine authority. Their silence speaks volumes. Once again, omission here looks like lack of awareness, not intentional editing.

How Many Miracles Are We Talking About?

Across the four Gospels, there are thirty-seven recorded miracles. Out of all of them, only one shows up in every single Gospel: the feeding of the five thousand (Matt. 14:13–21; Mark 6:30–44; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–14). Think about that. The miracle where Jesus turns a few loaves and fishes into enough food to feed a massive crowd is the sole event that all four writers agree on. Every other miracle is found in only one, two, or three Gospels, which highlights just how unevenly these stories were shared.

A Patchwork of Sources

This pattern fits perfectly with the scholarly theory of Markan Priority—the idea that Mark wrote first, and Matthew and Luke used him as a source (Brown 158). Luke also drew on other material, sometimes called “L” (Ehrman 95). John, meanwhile, appears to have had access to entirely different traditions. The differences aren’t about careful censorship; they’re about each author working with a different mix of sources.

As James D. G. Dunn explains, most of the Jesus tradition was passed on orally before it was written down (Dunn 76). Oral traditions don’t spread evenly. One community might hold onto a story, another might never hear it, and still others might reshape it as it gets retold. And yes—some stories may have been invented outright long after Jesus’ death.

Why This Matters

When we see miracles vanish from one Gospel to the next, the simplest explanation isn’t that an author chose to cut them. It’s that the author never had the story to begin with. The Gospels are not polished eyewitness accounts—they’re messy collages of oral traditions, shaped by the beliefs and agendas of different communities.

That’s why Lazarus appears only in John, why the widow’s son shows up only in Luke, and why the feeding of the five thousand is the single miracle they all share. The uneven record tells us more about how stories spread, fractured, and evolved than it does about history itself.

Works Cited

Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. Yale University Press, 1997.
Dunn, James D.G. Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003.
Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Oxford University Press, 1999.
The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. National Council of Churches, 2021.

Appendix - Exhaustive List of the Miracles of Jesus from the Four Gospels