What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus?

[Wootah]

Acts 9 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Conversion of Saul
9 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 heaven 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.

What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus?

[bluegreenearth]

Here is what some secular Biblical scholars have discovered:

As the great Tübingen critics already saw, the story of Paul’s visionary encounter with the risen Jesus not only has no real basis in the Pauline epistles but has been derived by Luke more or less directly from 2 Maccabees 3’s story of Heliodorus. In it, one Benjaminite named Simon (3:4) tells Apollonius of Tarsus, governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia (3:5), that the Jerusalem Temple houses unimaginable wealth that the Seleucid king might want to appropriate for himself. Once the king learns of this, he sends his agent, Heliodorus, to confiscate the loot. The prospect of such a violation of the Temple causes universal wailing and praying among the Jews. But Heliodorus is miraculously turned back when a shining warrior angel appears on horseback. The stallion’s hooves knock Heliodorus to the ground where two more angels lash him with whips (25-26). He is blinded and is unable to help himself before being carried to safety on a stretcher. Pious Jews pray for his recovery lest the people be held responsible for his condition. The angels reappear to Heliodorus in answer to these prayers, and they announce God’s grace to him: Heliodorus will live and must henceforth proclaim the majesty of the true God. Heliodorus offers sacrifice to his Saviour (3:35) and departs again for Syria where he reports all this to the king.

In Acts, the plunder of the Temple has become the persecution of the church by Saul (also called Paulus, an abbreviated form of Apollonius), a Benjaminite from Tarsus. Heliodorus’ appointed journey to Jerusalem from Syria has become Saul’s journey from Jerusalem to Syria. Saul is stopped in his tracks by a heavenly visitant, goes blind, and must be taken into the city where the prayers of his former enemies avail to raise him up. Just as Heliodorus offers sacrifice, Saul undergoes baptism. Then, he is told henceforth to proclaim the risen Christ, which he does.

Luke also added details from �The Bacchae,� a play written by Euripides approximately 500 years earlier. In The Bacchae, Dionysus has appeared in Thebes as an apparently mortal missionary for his own sect. He runs afoul of his cousin, King Pentheus, who wants the licentious cult (as he views it) to be driven out of the country. He arrests and threatens Dionysus only to find him freed from prison by an earthquake. Dionysus determines revenge against the proud and foolish king by magically compelling Pentheus to undergo conversion to faith in him (“Though hostile formerly, he now declares a truce and goes with us. You see what you could not when you were blind,� 922-924) and sending Pentheus in woman’s guise to spy upon the Maenads, his female revelers. He does so, is discovered, and is torn limb from limb by the women led by his own mother. As the hapless Pentheus leaves, unwittingly, to meet his doom, Dionysus comments, “Punish this man. But first distract his wits; bewilder him with madness… After those threats with which he was so fierce, I want him made the laughingstock of Thebes� (850-851, 854-855). “He shall come to know Dionysus, son of Zeus, consummate god most terrible and yet most gentle to mankind� (859-861). Pentheus must be made an example, as must poor Saul, despite himself. His conversion is a punishment, meting out to the persecutor his own medicine. Do we not detect a hint of ironic malice in Christ’s words to Ananias about Saul? “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name� (Acts 9:16)

[Goose]

Here is what some secular Biblical scholars have discovered:

As the great Tübingen critics already saw, the story of Paul’s visionary encounter with the risen Jesus not only has no real basis in the Pauline epistles but has been derived by Luke more or less directly from 2 Maccabees 3’s story of Heliodorus. In it, one Benjaminite named Simon (3:4) tells Apollonius of Tarsus, governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia (3:5), that the Jerusalem Temple houses unimaginable wealth that the Seleucid king might want to appropriate for himself. Once the king learns of this, he sends his agent, Heliodorus, to confiscate the loot. The prospect of such a violation of the Temple causes universal wailing and praying among the Jews. But Heliodorus is miraculously turned back when a shining warrior angel appears on horseback. The stallion’s hooves knock Heliodorus to the ground where two more angels lash him with whips (25-26). He is blinded and is unable to help himself before being carried to safety on a stretcher. Pious Jews pray for his recovery lest the people be held responsible for his condition. The angels reappear to Heliodorus in answer to these prayers, and they announce God’s grace to him: Heliodorus will live and must henceforth proclaim the majesty of the true God. Heliodorus offers sacrifice to his Saviour (3:35) and departs again for Syria where he reports all this to the king.

In Acts, the plunder of the Temple has become the persecution of the church by Saul (also called Paulus, an abbreviated form of Apollonius), a Benjaminite from Tarsus. Heliodorus’ appointed journey to Jerusalem from Syria has become Saul’s journey from Jerusalem to Syria. Saul is stopped in his tracks by a heavenly visitant, goes blind, and must be taken into the city where the prayers of his former enemies avail to raise him up. Just as Heliodorus offers sacrifice, Saul undergoes baptism. Then, he is told henceforth to proclaim the risen Christ, which he does.

Luke also added details from �The Bacchae,� a play written by Euripides approximately 500 years earlier. In The Bacchae, Dionysus has appeared in Thebes as an apparently mortal missionary for his own sect. He runs afoul of his cousin, King Pentheus, who wants the licentious cult (as he views it) to be driven out of the country. He arrests and threatens Dionysus only to find him freed from prison by an earthquake. Dionysus determines revenge against the proud and foolish king by magically compelling Pentheus to undergo conversion to faith in him (“Though hostile formerly, he now declares a truce and goes with us. You see what you could not when you were blind,� 922-924) and sending Pentheus in woman’s guise to spy upon the Maenads, his female revelers. He does so, is discovered, and is torn limb from limb by the women led by his own mother. As the hapless Pentheus leaves, unwittingly, to meet his doom, Dionysus comments, “Punish this man. But first distract his wits; bewilder him with madness… After those threats with which he was so fierce, I want him made the laughingstock of Thebes� (850-851, 854-855). “He shall come to know Dionysus, son of Zeus, consummate god most terrible and yet most gentle to mankind� (859-861). Pentheus must be made an example, as must poor Saul, despite himself. His conversion is a punishment, meting out to the persecutor his own medicine. Do we not detect a hint of ironic malice in Christ’s words to Ananias about Saul? “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name� (Acts 9:16)

When you say "Biblical scholars" you mean the fringe scholar and Jesus-myther Robert M. Price.

This bit you cut and pasted was lifted verbatim from Price's website (see here) under section F. Acts of the Apostles, 4 Pauls' conversion.

[neverknewyou]

Here is what some secular Biblical scholars have discovered:

As the great Tübingen critics already saw...

This bit you cut and pasted was lifted verbatim from Price's website (see here) under section F. Acts of the Apostles, 4 Pauls' conversion.

So what you are saying is that you cannot dispute any of what Price wrote or you would have. Actually, he's just pointing out what is there for anyone to read for themselves. Acts is not historically useful unless you find it useful, it's full of encounters with angels and spirits. Maybe you find stories about angels and spirits useful, meanwhile, if one wants to read a history book there are better choices available. If one wants to read how Acts was constructed, Price et al might be a good read.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 189 by Goose]

Yes, when I prefaced the post by indicating that what followed was the perspective of some secular Biblical scholars, it was my intention to imply the information was copied and pasted from an external source. While Robert Price was the external source in this case, his perspective is shared by other secular Biblical scholars. So, my statement was not inaccurate. I didn't identify the source because it is the merit of the information that we are evaluating in this thread and not the secular Biblical scholars.

[polonius]

Acts 9 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Conversion of Saul



What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus?

RESPONSE: He had an epileptic seizure and fell off his horse. That's what Luke describes. Nothing in Paul mentions anything about such an incident.

But Paul admits to hearing voices (which he claimed was Jesus).

[bluegreenearth]

So what you are saying is that you cannot dispute any of what Price wrote or you would have.

I'm still waiting in eager anticipation of Goose's response to your post and mine.

[polonius]

The first report we read in scripture of Jesus' resurrection is found in Colossians I written by Paul in about 53 A.D.

Paul claims that Jesus appeared to 500 people

However, these people were in in a city 805 miles from Jerusalem, the writing was about 25 years after the supposed event, none of those seeing Jesus raised from the dead wrote anything about it and none of the writers of the Gospels mention it. Also, Paul was actually in the east and he himself did not see the event.

Yet some people say we have to believe the story because its in the Bible.

Do we?

[YahWhat]

First of all, notice how all the extra-mental details (bright light, voice, blindness, companions) are only mentioned in Acts which wasn't written by Paul. There is no independent evidence of these details in Paul's letters or by any of the supposed "companions."

Secondly, the story in Acts seems to be an embellished account modeled after Old Testament "call visions" such as what we find in Ezekiel 1-2 and Daniel 10.

Acts 26:13
About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Compare this to Ezekiel's vision.

Ez. 1:4
"I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal"

Ez. 1:28
"Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking."

Ez. 2:1
"He said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you."

Ez. 2:3-4
'He said: “Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have been in revolt against me to this very day. 4 The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.’

So here we have the shared common themes of a "bright light," "falling down and hearing a voice," then being told to "stand on your feet" in the same verbatim Greek στῆθι �πὶ τοὺς πόδας σου - Acts 26:16, Ez. 2:1 and being ordered to conduct missionary work. Almost the exact same sequence is found in Daniel 10 as well so these three accounts are sufficient to establish the existence of a shared literary theme.

The "accompanying companions" theme is also in Daniel.

Daniel 10:7
I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision; those who were with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they fled and hid themselves.

Acts 9:7
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.

The paradigm here is an Old Testament "call vision" where a prophet figure is called upon by God and chosen to become a missionary and ordered to carry out a specific mission. We see similar stories in Job 4:12-16, Isa 6, Dan. 10:4-21, Ezek. 1:1-3:15, Amos 7.1-9:10, 1 Enoch 14, 4 Ezra 3:1-9, 25. So if Luke wanted to compose a fictional account about Paul and since he had access to the Septuagint, this establishes the plausibility for borrowing.

The sequence shared between the Ezekiel vision and Paul's Damascus Road vision is as follows:

1. It's a "call vision"
2. It involves a bright light
3. The person falls down
4. He hears a voice
5. And is told to "stand up on his feet" in the same verbatim Greek.
6. Is told to carry out a specific theological mission

Due to the amount of similarity, and the fact that there is no independent corroboration of this event, it's equally likely that Luke was just modeling Paul's experience after Old Testament "call visions" as it is that he was recording what actually happened to Paul. Therefore, the story by itself can't serve as evidence for its own historicity.

Apologists will say "but the similarities are there because that is just how God appeared to people" which, of course, just begs the question against the equally likely "call vision" literary theme hypothesis.

There's also the likely plagiarized scene where Jesus says "why must you kick against the goads?" which is found in Euripedes Bacchae in the exact same context - a persecuted god appears to his persecutor, but that's a whole other can of worms!

[AgnosticBoy]

All empirical evidence indicates that the dead are no longer capable of communicating with the living. Paul seemed to believe that he had a face to face meeting with Jesus, who had been executed by the Romans some few years earlier. All empirical evidence, what I have referred to as common experience, common knowledge, and common sense, indicates that it is physically impossible for an individual to have a face to face meeting with a dead person. Such a claim is the very definition of an hallucination. An hallucination which, in Paul's case, can rather easily be explained by the information provided by Acts, which indicates that Paul experienced some sort of physical collapse, and that Paul was experiencing severe dehydration at the time.

My disagreement is on the nature of the evidence. I know what the current evidence says but that evidence has limitations. It only applies to 'natural' processes. It only applies to what's been observed SO FAR. Sure, we can use inductive logic to generalize to all cases but inductive inferences aren't about proof, but rather about probability (all of which are subject to change based on NEW observations and evidence).

Paul's claims were not scientifically tested.

Neither you or I were there so there is no empirical evidence to be had here beyond what Luke wrote.

In terms of logic, your argument is nothing more than an argument from ignorance.

The author of Acts was not present either. The source for the story in Acts is Paul himself. And Paul was the afflicted person.

Basically, none of us were there except Paul. So none of us have empirically testable evidence in Paul's case.

Rather than imposing a natural explanation for the resurrection, I'd rather offer a better conclusion:

"I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing in it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it."
- Thomas Huxley