Peace again to you redeye,
RedEye wrote:
tam wrote:
RedEye wrote:
tam wrote:
[
Replying to post 1 by RedEye]
If a person ignores any details that conflicts with their theory or agenda, then of course a person can make up any story they like.
1 - Epileptic episodes do not have external things that other people experience. The two men with Paul heard the sound (they did not understand the words, but they did hear), and while they did not see Christ Himself, they are described as seeing a light that surrounded them all.
That is not a description of epilepsy. Nothing more should be needed than that.
I have already addressed that in my previous posts. I refer you to the first page of this thread.
Yes, you addressed it by discarding the details that conflict with your hypothesis.
No, I pointed out that accounts provided by hearsay decades later are not necessarily reliable in every detail.
Yes, I know, the details that
refute your hypothesis are the ones that are unreliable, right?
I do not see how this reasoning is much different than various religions that claim the scriptures refuting their doctrines are just interpreted incorrectly.
I also pointed out the incoherent nature of the claim that one of video/audio would be "leaked" to other bystanders.
Why would this claim be incoherent? You're assuming 'leaked' as if this was supposed to have been something that no one else witnessed. Why do you assume this?
Furthermore I provided a reason why the author of Luke/Acts might have inserted such a detail.
To give it weight? Why would Luke have felt the need to do that? You are claiming that Paul's sole testimony of this vision was enough for Luke to believe, since you are stating that Christ was not even an idea before Paul had and shared his vision (even though both Luke in Acts and Paul in his own letters refute this claim... Galatians 1:13.) If it was enough for Luke, why would he feel the need to add more weight to it for others?
You are also suggesting that someone who so devotedly believed (as Paul would have believed, due to his vision)... lied.
Only after three years did I go up to Jerusalem to confer with Cephas, and I stayed with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lords brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing to you is no lie.
"James, the Lord's brother" also disputes your claim that Paul had no knowledge of a human Christ.
Since you address none of these arguments I can only assume that you concede them.
I think you may have assumed a great many things that are untrue.
2 - Something like scales fell from Paul's eyes. This is suggested by some to be a metaphor, but I understand that something like scales truly fell from his eyes. This is also not in line with epilepsy. But even if one cannot accept that, point 1 effectively disputes epilepsy. Unless of course one chooses to ignore any evidence that disproves their theory.
See above. A TLE episode can be a powerful and emotional experience. If the person having it is not aware of the cause (that it is a problem within the brain --- an uncontrolled electrical "storm") then of course they may consider the "visions" produced to be real.
What does this have to do with what I wrote?
What do you want me to say? Do I believe that literal scales can fall from people's eyes? No, I don't. That's ridiculous. Of course it is a metaphor and that is what I was addressing, the underlying experience which might invoke the use of such a metaphor.
But Luke is the author, not Paul, correct? Luke did not have that underlying experience so as to invoke the use of such a metaphor. Nor does Luke use that metaphor in his previously written gospel, in which a blind man did receive his sight. (Luke 18:35-43)
3 - He was not speaking about himself in the passage about the man who had received visions, taken up to the third heaven, in or out of the body. You are correct that it is widely accepted that he is speaking of himself yet being humble, but something being widely accepted is not a good reason to believe it.
See my post just above this one where I have comprehensively refuted that claim.
You disputed the claim. You did not refute the claim.
You are entitled to your opinion. I beg to differ.
Just because Paul also had a vision (at least one vision) does not mean that he cannot have boasted about another man who had a vision (the other man he is speaking about). He states in black and white that he is not boasting about himself, but rather about another man he knows, and he does not name that other man because it is not his right to do so.
That can be easily explained by Paul choosing to show humility in this instance. In verse 7 though he reveals that it really is about him.
You mean humility for a couple of sentences? Why? If he reveals in verse 7 that it was really about him, then where is the humility?
But this is kind of beside the point. Because we know that others had visions as well as the vision Paul received of Christ on the road to Damascus... such as John and the Revelation given to him (of which Paul's description fits perfectly), and Peter (with the vision of the clean and unclean foods).
*sigh* We know no such thing. Those are claims, not evidence.
If you consider corroboration to be evidence, then John's revelation is corroborated in Paul speaking about him and his revelation (as the man caught up to the third heaven) and even in Daniel who received similar visions as John.
But let's look at your points:
Paul is different because:
a) He tells us that he suffered from an embarrassing lifelong "affliction".
No he does not. He said that he was given a thorn in the flesh (stating that this 'thorn' must be epilepsy is speculation and conjecture). Paul does not state that this thorn was lifelong.
Nor is it ever mentioned anywhere that Paul suffered from seizures (and continued to suffer this through his entire ministry), which seems a simple enough thing to mention if it were true.
If epilepsy was one of those diseases that people 'spit at', does it seem likely that Paul would have been rising in the ranks as a Pharisee (just think about how much importance was placed upon afflicted and diseased people being unclean, being sinners - that such a man would rise in the ranks?)?
b) He exhibits a common symptom of epilepsy (disinterest in sex).
I believe William disputed this earlier with Paul's knowledge of what it meant to 'burn with passion'.
Just because one chooses not to marry (or even to be celibate) does not mean that they are suffering from epilepsy or even that they are disinterested in sex.
c) He himself alludes to visions (how he received the gospel from no man).
He states that he learned from Christ. I have no argument with you on that. But one does not need to have visions in order to learn from Christ. One can listen (and so hear Christ), as is also attested to. Paul does not state that he learned only in visions.
*Side point: You are suggesting also that Paul's vision invented Christ, are you not? But then how were others (such as the apostles) preaching Christ first?
d) Later independent support in Acts from the author of that work.
Later independent support from Acts also corroborates Paul stating that he is the least of the apostles and that Christ appeared to him LAST.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth. For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 1 Corinthians 15:3-9
This directly refutes your claim that Paul's vision invented Christ and others later made up an 'historical Jesus'. The above quote from Paul in Corinthians is corroborated by the account given by Luke in Acts.
e) The accounts have sufficient detail (eg. temporary blindness) to link it to a TLE episode (supported by a neuropsycholy researcher).
To suggest the possibility of that link you mean (providing that one ignores the two witnesses and the absence of any mention of further episodes). In the paper you linked to in the OP, others disputed the likelihood that Paul had epilepsy, and still others postulated multiple medical possibilities for his blindness.
Even diagnosing someone in person often has a great deal to do with ruling things out, even with all our medical advancements and technology.
f) Some Christians had come to the same conclusion themselves referring to epilepsy as St. Paul's disease in old Ireland.
Some may have believed this; but that is hardly evidence for it being true.
So Paul is not alone in having received a vision or revelation from Christ.
He is alone in those visions being believable and consistent with an epileptic condition.
I also believe that his vision occurred, so I have no argument with you on that. Just on the cause.
Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy
