Steve Hays' trifles about Paul's Damascus-road experience

At Triablogue Steve Hays decides to spend a good portion of his day uploading a "defense"  of the "historicity" of Paul's experience on the road to Damascus.  See here.

As usual, he asks the reader questions, but he doesn't appear to know the answer, or care.  I'll answer here his article and those who remarked thereto.

Thursday, May 02, 2019

The Damascus Road experience

    But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. (Acts 9:1-9).

    5 as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.

    6 “As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. 7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ 8 And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’ 9 Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. 10 And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’ 11 And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus (Acts 22:5-11).

    12 “In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. 14 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 15 And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, 17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ 19 “Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, (Acts 26:12-19).

1. How should we interpret the Christophany that triggered Paul's conversion? Was it a subjective vision? Or did Jesus appear to Paul physically? If you were a movie director, how would you visualize the scene? What would you show the audience?

Paul uses the rare Greek word "optasia" as he tells the readers that, 14 years after the fact, he still doesn't know whether his flying into the sky took place physically or spiritually (2nd Cor. 12:1, 2-4).  It's the same Greek word Paul uses to describe the Damascus-road event (Acts 26:19).  So atheists are "reasonable" to say that Paul didn't even understand in what exact manner Christ "appeared" to him on the road to Damascus, which in turn makes it reasonable to say this ancient story is worthless for purposes of historiography.

2. A critic might say the question is pointless since Acts is pious fiction. I'm not going to take the time to defend the historicity of Acts. There's the classic monograph by Colin Hemer, the multi-volume work edited by Bruce Winter, and Craig Keener's encyclopedic commentary. In addition, there are commentaries in the pipeline by Richard Bauckham, Stanley Porter, and Loveday Alexander which will presumably include erudite defenses of its historicity.

You forgot to mention“Acts and Christian Beginnings:  The Acts Seminar Report”, Dennis Smith, Joseph B. Tyson, editors.  Polebridge Press, 2013. It concludes Acts was written in the 2nd century as an apologetic text.  Contributors: Ruben Dupertuis, Perry V. Kea, Nina E. Livesey, Dennis R. MacDonald, Shelly Matthews, Milton Moreland, Richard I. Pervo,  Thomas E. Philips, Christine R. Shea, Dennis E. Smith, Joseph B. Tyson, William O. Walker, Jr.  This Seminar met from March 2000 to March 2011. 

Whatever allows you to automatically dismiss the scholarship of liberals, allows me to automatically dismiss the scholarship of conservatives.  I don't dismiss anything, I'm just making sure you don't mistake your favoring conservative scholarship as some sort of divinely sanctioned goal.

But either way, I don't argue that Acts is completely fictional, I believe it is, like most eyewitness accounts from the ancient world, a work that contains both history and fiction.  So merely showing that Ramsey was impressed with Acts' accuracy is not going to "demonstrate" that Acts is entirely truthful.  Some evidence that Luke found lying beneficial might be the obvious fact that the objective reader of Luke 24 reasonably takes Jesus to have ascended the same day he rose, whereas Acts 1 separates the two events by 40 days.  Again, it's probably something more than coincidence that the 40 days' worth of risen-Christ appearances just happens to cause the infilling of the Spirit to occur on "Pentecost".   

Approaching this from another angle, if Luke is writing fiction, why does he create an apparent discrepancy between 9:7 and 22:9?

 For the same reason dishonest eyewitnesses in Court don't always tell a perfectly consistent story.  If it sounds too refined, it will sound rehearsed or planned.

Likewise, why does he make Paul's traveling companions have a somewhat different experience of the Christophany than Paul?

 Because those traveling companions did not experience what Paul did, but Luke could not afford to simply say that while Paul was talking to an invisible man, these compansions were just looking at him and wondering if he had gone crazy.  Luke has to have the compansions experience SOME damn thing or other so as to give the story an air of plausibility.  Liars could possibly have written that Paul had a completely mental vision, but alas, Luke is writing to entertain, and so a dramatic "blinded by the light" story fills the need.

And as far as the historicity of the event, Acts 9 puts Paul's consultation of flesh and blood "immediately" within days after this event:

 19 and he took food and was strengthened. Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus,
 20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." (Acts 9:19-20 NAU)

And Paul himself in Galatians contradicts this immediate-preaching account and places a trip to Arabia and 3 years between the event and his first preaching of Christianity:

 13 For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it;
 14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.
 15 But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased
 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood,
 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.
 18 Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. (Gal. 1:13-18 NAU)

Obviously Paul is lying, he was consulting with flesh and blood for 7 days between the experience and his recovery of sight.  He was lead by the hand into Damascus, and he stayed for those 7 days with others while he recovered:

 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus.
 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
 10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." And he said, "Here I am, Lord."
 11 And the Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying,
 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight."
 13 But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem;
 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name."
 15 But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel;
 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake."
 17 So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
 18 And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized;
 19 and he took food and was strengthened. Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus,
 20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." (Acts 9:8-20 NAU)

So Paul's denial that he consulted flesh and blood "immediately" after his experience (Gal. 1:16) really does contradict the assertions in Acts that immediately after the experience, he consulted with Annias (who apparently was required for God to heal Paul of blindness) and he consulted with the Damascus disciples for 7 days before he began preaching.

The issue is not whether you can learn the skills of a defense-attorney and pretend that any evidence is consistent with your own view, the issue is whether non-Christians can be reasonable to reject inerrantist harmonization scenarios and assert that the accounts really do contradict.  They can.

Why not fabricate multiple independent witnesses who share the same sensory impressions?

Because trying too hard to look credible can reveal your tendency to lie.

3. Suppose, for argument's sake, that Jesus didn't physically appear to Paul. Suppose this is an apparition of the dead. Although in that case it can't be used as a prooftext for the Resurrection, it would still mean that Jesus survived death.

 You are drunk.  A story from 2,000 years ago about somebody seeing an apparition of Jesus "means" Jesus survived death?   What, are you writing this article solely for inerrantists?  And I reject your proposal anyway, at best Paul suffered a brain malfunction, see "St Paul and temporal lobe epilepsy", Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 1987;50:659-664.  Brorson and  Brewer were fools to challenge this by saying the story in Acts doesn't specify Paul endured all known effects of temporal lobe epilepsy.  Of course it doesn't.  Luke was a professional liar, you gain much in the eyes of gullible readers by staying quiet about something.

Paul also went from one extreme (killing Christians for being Christians) over to preaching in favor of Christianity, which makes it reasonable to suggest he experienced some type of psychotic episode and Luke has simply written up a partisan account that makes it seem more divine than it really was.

Not only is he still alive, but he appears to Paul in the trappings of a theophany. Moreover, an apparition would still be consistent with the Resurrection. So even on that interpretation, the Christophany is incompatible with naturalism or mythicism.

 Nonsense.  Saul was delusional and Luke is lying about what the traveling companions experienced, and you don't disturb the reasonableness of that position by pretending that there are ways to make the account make sense. 

4. Is the Christophany inconsistent with Jesus physically appearing to Paul? According to the three accounts, Paul and his traveling companions individually sensed something with their eyes and ears. They all saw something and heard something. That suggests a public, objective event.

It also suggests the author's ability to tell tall tales, and his knowledge of what it takes to make an absurd story sound more believable than it really is.

A mind-independent phenomenon, caused by an external stimulus. Something you could record on camera if you were there.

 And if we saw any similar video footage, we'd be inclined to say this is similar to what happened at the Salem Witch trials, with simpleton girls deceiving scores of people into seeing things they hadn't seen before, or otherwise accepting the girls' stories as truth.

5. Does the luminosity imply a psychological vision rather than a physical manifestation? No. The Christophany is reminiscent of the Transfiguration, where a physical Jesus becomes incandescent.

6. Did Paul just see light, or did he see the figure of Jesus? The statement in 9:7 suggests a point of contrast between what Paul saw and what his traveling companions saw. He saw something they didn't. He saw more than they did.

Paul also has a tendency to fly into the sky and later be unable to tell whether it happened physically or spiritually, 2nd Cor. 12:1-4, using the same optasia Greek word he uses to label the Damascus road experience, Acts 26:19.  I only bother with your trifles after this point solely for the education of doubting Christians who would like to see a full rebuttal.

7. Regarding the apparent discrepancy, the intended distinction seems to be that they heard sound or heard a voice, but couldn't make out what was said. Does that imply a subjective vision?

The story is a lie based partially on the ecstatic visionary called Paul.  yoru trifling questions are not interesting to anybody except other bible-believers who have at least some inclination to avoid saying the story is total bullshit.

i) It was an overwhelming experience. What if they were too stunned to listen? Consider people who say that when their doctor told them they had cancer, they stopped listening after the word "cancer"? Another possibility is that God controlled what they perceived.

Your analysis only impresses Christians, nobody else.  Another possibility is that the story is mostly fiction.

ii) But here's another consideration: Paul is going to Damascus to take into custody Syrian Jews who converted to Christianity. He can handle the Greek or Aramaic side of the conversation, but what if he picked traveling companions whose first language is Syriac to interrogate Syriac speaking converts? When Jesus speaks to Paul in Aramaic, they might not understand what was said.

Then what?  Maybe god doesn't want the traveling companions to experience this level of proof for Jesus' reality?   yeah right, and maybe the tooth fairy uses her magic dust to cause adults to disbelieve in her, for her own mysterious reasons. FUCK YOU.

8. Why was Paul blinded but they were not? Why did they only see light? Since we weren't there, we can't say for sure. But here's one way to reconstruct the scene: as they are walking, Paul momentarily turns around (due to subliminal divine prompting) and bam: the Christophany explodes into view. He is facing the Christophany while his traveling companions have their back to it. They don't turn around because it's painfully bright.

Paul sees Jesus, in a glaring nimbic aura, before it blinds him. Just like staring directly at the sun doesn't instantly blind the viewer, but if you look at it for too long, you will go blind.

9. The time of day means they were wide awake when it happened. It wasn't a trance or revelatory dream.

But other considerations, as already shown, indicate that you gain nothing but distinguishing this from a "trance".  Lies eyewitnesses tell on the witness stand do not involve trances, but what they claim to have physically experienced, but you don't find their stories more compelling for that reason.

10. Because the KJV uses the word "heaven", modern versions tend to copy that since Bible translations are commercially conservative; they avoid changes that would upset customers used to a traditional, venerable version. But "heaven" is ambiguous and prejudicial. It can mean several different things:

i) The abode of God/saints/angels

ii) An event that originates in heaven

iii) The sky

iv) A pious circumlocution for God

The Greek word doesn't imply that Paul saw Jesus in heaven (i). The description of the event, judging by its impact on Paul and his traveling companions, suggests light from the sky. That's reminiscent of the Ascension, where Jesus is suspended in midair, until the Shekinah envelops him.

it's also reminiscent of total bullshit.

    Jason Engwer5/03/2019 6:10 AM ☍

    Topography has the potential to simultaneously explain some of the factors involved. Let's say Paul is walking in front of his companions. They're going over a hill. Paul can see over the hill, but his companions can't. He can see Jesus before the light begins shining. They can't. Since Paul is closer to Jesus, the light affects him more (blinding him, but not them), and he hears more of what's said. Or there may have been a scenario involving a bend in the road rather than a hill. Or it could have been a scenario like what Steve described, with Paul walking behind the others. Trees or other objects could have been involved in determining what was seen and when. And so on.    In addition to topography, there are issues like where people were looking at the time and how far apart they were walking. Notice that it's so easy to think of multiple potential scenarios that would explain what we read in Acts.

Sure, historical sources usually aren't written in such technically precise fashion as to exclude mere possibilities. Try again, this time, do something more persuasive then simply positing possibilities.  Show why unbelievers who reject the story as fiction, are likely "wrong".

    But it does require more thinking than would be necessary if somebody were making up an account that they wanted to be more easily understood and accepted.

How much thinking went into the deceptions created at the Salem witch trials?

The complexity of these accounts suggests their authenticity.

Then you must think the devil really did manifest himself physical in Salem Massachusetts in the 17th century.  Oh wait, I'm talking to Jason Engwer, the fool who wants to prove the spirit world so much, he gave substantial sums of money to spiritist organizations to obtain their bullshit evidence to help him authenticate the absurd "Enfield Poltergeist".  Nevermind.

And my challenge to Jason on that score has never been challenged.  show pictures of a girl jumping from her bed, nobody case.  Show the same pictures but give it the "she was levitating" story, and prepare for swarms of gullible people to be "amazed".

In fact, there are a lot of reasons for thinking the accounts are historical.

 Do you conclude when an eyewitness includes historically true details, that the entire story is true?  Obviously such a broad-brush isn't always justified, and Luke's being a "historian" therefore likely knew how to spruce up historical truth to make it more dramatic for the reader. 

For example:

    - There's no competing account.

Do you also argue from silence that the judaizers never wrote to each other in the first century, because we don't have any of their letters?

    - Luke's reliability.

You need to grow up.  You might choose to leap from "general reliability" over to "reliable in details", but that doesn't intellectually compel anybody else to do the same.

    - Why fabricate an account in which Paul's companions don't convert?

 Because to have them convert might make the story sound more fable-like.  Not having them convert makes it sound more "objective".

    - Why fabricate an account in which Paul's companions don't see the risen Christ and don't hear all that was said?

Because stories about how space aliens were not experienced the same way by all the present by-standers make for really interesting reading.

    - Why not make the physicality of the appearance more obvious, as with earlier resurrection appearances, like the earlier ones in Luke and Acts?

Because as you admit, the physicality-crap was already played, playing it more might make the story sound embellished.

    - Why make the events so complicated (as discussed above)?

Because the Paul probably had this experience, and Luke is simply sprucing up the details, realizing, like any careful historian would, that leaving some complexity in the account helps it "ring" more true to the average reader.

You say nothing here that intellectually compels anybody to drop the 'fiction' interpretation.

Jason Engwer5/03/2019 6:11 AM

    ☍

    Regarding the physicality of the appearance, I'll add some points to Steve's. Acts tells us that Paul saw Jesus, not just a light (9:27, 22:14).

 Do you subject pre-Christian pagan supernatural stories to the same gullible exegesis (i.e., Pindar tells us that Zeus really did get Danae pregnant, is wasn't a mere dream)?

Paul says the same in his letters (1 Corinthians 9:1).

 Paul is also a deluded liar who cannot tell whether his flying into the sky took place physically or spiritually (2nd Cor. 12:1-4).  And you suddenly "discovered" that this epistles wasn't written by Paul.

Resurrection in Paul's letters and early Christianity in general involves the raising of the physical body that died, so a physical appearance of Jesus would make more sense than a non-physical one in that context.

Licona denies that Stephen's "vision" of Jesus was the same as Paul's, so apparently the nature of Jesus' resurrection doesn't even slightly favor the speculation that he'd only appear to others afterward in a physical way.

Similarly, the context of the remainder of Luke and Acts and earlier resurrection appearances in general is a context in which all of the earlier appearances were physical ones. So, it makes more sense for the appearance to Paul to be physical than it does for the appearance to be non-physical.

So what?  yeah, the story says Paul saw something physical.  So?  What, are you writing solely for inerrantists?

The objective, physical nature of how Paul and his companions heard Jesus' voice, with different people having heard him to different degrees, makes more sense if the voice came from Jesus' body than if Jesus wasn't physically present. And passages like Acts 22:15 group the hearing and seeing involved together, suggesting that both the hearing and the seeing of Jesus were of a physical nature. 22:14 refers to the voice coming from the "mouth" of Jesus. That terminology normally refers to a portion of the human body. Jesus is a human who was speaking in the context of a resurrection appearance, which involves a raised physical body, so the reference to a mouth in 22:14 is most naturally taken as a reference to Jesus' being bodily present during the appearance to Paul. There's no reason to think that something like an anthropomorphism is involved in 22:14. The passage is most naturally taken to refer to Jesus' bodily presence. Furthermore, Paul groups the appearance to him with the appearances to others (1 Corinthians 15:5-8), and early Christian tradition, reflected in a large number and variety of sources, portrays the appearances to the other resurrection witnesses as bodily appearances. Like Paul's writings, the book of Acts portrays Paul as a resurrection witness in the same category as the others (13:31-32, 22:15), and those other witnesses are said to have seen bodily appearances of Jesus.

 Granting the bodily nature of the story in Acts 9, 22 and 26 only hurts its credibility, since when somebody in a crowd sees that which all agree was "physical", we would have to question the story if the other eyewitnesses told of experiencing that physical thing differently.  To be physically discernable is to be discernable to every person standing nearby who has normal sight.

Feel free to say God didn't want the traveling companions to experience Jesus as intensely as Paul did, but again, you might make defense attornies feel better about the fact that language is never absolute and there will always be possible some half-way plausible alternative view...but you aren't saying anything to intellectually compel atheists to see the story as something other than embellished history.

    Jason Engwer5/03/2019 6:32 AM

    ☍

    We should also take into account the multifaceted later corroboration of Paul's experience: Ananias' paranormal knowledge of what had occurred,

 Christians always think one another as specially gifted when they aren't.

the healing of Paul's blindness,

 So the story says.  I don't believe it.

Paul's acquisition of the ability to perform miracles, etc.

Paul never did any miracles, these are just tall tales.  You aren't going to be adducing such strong contrary evidence as to show that I'm "unreasonable" to deny Paul's ability to work miracles.

And the evidence we have for Paul's apostleship, like the miracles he performed and the confirmation of his apostleship from other apostles,

 Because the original 12 apostles were Judaizers, Paul was either lying in Galatians 2:9, or the famine of the Jewish church at the time caused them to realize they could get their hands on Paul's money and alleviate suffering by doing something that takes no effort at all, and publicly assert that Paul was a true apostle, or a member of the group.  I care about the other apostles approving of Paul about as much as I care about Nathanial Urshan approving of Robert Sabin.

gives us reason to trust Paul's interpretation of what he experienced, which he describes as a resurrection appearance.

 Maybe they give YOU reasons to trust Paul, but they aren't sufficient to do what you think they do, and demonstrate the unreasonableness of those who call Paul a fraud.