@mattbrowne, I think I generally agree with your take.
If I’m reading it correctly you are basically saying, in your typically very polite fashion, that Jesus was doing the same thing that modern “faith-healer” charlatans are doing nowadays.
I can buy that the miracle stories are often probably exaggerated legends from these, um, humble roots. However, I also think it’s worth keeping in mind two things:
1) the gospels are quite late. Mark, the earliest, probably dates to around 70–80 AD. Decades after Jesus died. Paul, the earliest Christian writings we have, mentions nothing of Jesus’ healing. It’s possible that the author of Mark had some kind of written source for some of the gospel, but if you look at how dissimilar the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) are compared to the gospel of John with respect to the magical healings, it starts to get a little suspicious.
2) the gospels are not the only ancient documents with magical healing stories. In Seutonius’ biography of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, he claims that Vespasian magically healed a blind man and a cripple. Seutonius was actually a respected historian, unlike the un-named and undated authors of the gospels (the names Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John are given by later traditions and are not in the actual texts).
In light of this I also think it’s entirely possible that many of the stories are just outright bullshit fiction concocted by the authors of the gospels (or perhaps their sources) to make Jesus seem magical.