Wednesday, April 1, 2020

The Debate as to What Paul's Companions Heard, if anything (Acts 9:7 and 22:9)



And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. (Acts 9:7)

And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. (Acts 22:9)

Commenting on the question as to whether Paul’s companions heard the voice of Jesus, Robert Bowman wrote:

 . . . critics often point to discrepancies in the three accounts [of Paul’s conversion] in Acts. In particular, Luke’s statement that the men traveling with Paul “heard the voice” (Acts 9:7) appears to contradict Paul’s account quoted later, in which he says that the men with him “did not hear the voice of the one speaking to me” (Acts 22:9). Even I we granted that these texts were genuinely contradictory, no serious scholar seems to think that the apparent discrepancy calls the event itself into question. Even skeptics typically bring up the discrepancy as a problem for biblical inerrancy, not for the historicity of Paul’s vision (E.g. Dan Barker, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of American’s Leading Atheists, Foreword by Richard Dawkins (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 2008), 243-50. I have found some Muslim blogs and websites claiming that the discrepancies in Acts proves that Paul was a deceiver. The argument is hardly worth mentioning, let alone refuting).

Not only is the apparent discrepancy between Acts 9:7 and 22:9 not relevant to the historicity of the risen Jesus’ appearance to Paul, it is probably not a contradiction in substance. Most likely, Acts 9:7 means that Paul’s companions heard the sound of Christ’s voice while 22:9 means that they were not able to hear the specific words that Christ said. This distinction neatly parallels the distinction the two texts make with regard to what Paul’s companions saw: they saw the light (22:9) but did not see the person whom Paul saw in the light (9:7). Thus, both the sound and the light were indistinct or unidentifiable for Paul’s companions but were perceived and understood by Paul as the voice and appearance of a figure who identified himself as Jesus. The inherent ambiguity and range of connotations of the word for hear in Greek, English, or any other language makes this interpretation eminently plausible. We have all had occasions, for example, when we could “hear” someone speaking but we could not “hear” their words well enough to understand what was said (This interpretation does not depend on the contested grammatical argument based on the difference case readings of the Greek noun translated “voice” in Acts 9:7 and 22:9. For a thorough discussion of the issues, see Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Heard but Not Understood? Acts 9:7 and 22:9 and Differing Views of Biblical Inerrancy,” paper presented at the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting, Providence, RI, November 15, 2017, online at https://independent.academia.edu/RobBowman). (Robert M. Bowman Jr., Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism [Tampa, Fla.: DeWard Publishing Company, 2020], 122-23)

Bowman has a habit of presenting any pet theory he has to salvage his beliefs as “plausible” and other terms, even if they are a stretch and ultimately boils down to him being forced into defending a doctrine/dogma (in this instance, his understanding of biblical inerrancy). This is seen in the paper the references (available online here), including the following (again, ask yourself: if this was a purported discrepancy in the Book of Mormon, would Bowman allow a LDS apologist to make such arguments and confident conclusions, and ask one to “suppose” things that were to be proven, etc, let alone accept such argumentation as compelling?):

Certainly, at least in this English translation, these statements in Acts 9:7 and 22:9 constitute a verbal contradiction. Since the Greek words translated “heard” and “voice” are the same words in both texts, they constitute (at least on the level of individual words) a verbal contradiction in Greek as well. (p. 11)

In the end, literary explanations for the apparent discrepancy between Acts 9:7 and 22:9 seem to fall short of actually explaining the difference. Readers of Scripture need not be closed to the possibility of explanations for apparent discrepancies that appeal to the authors’ literary purposes, but the interpretations offered must still give a coherent explanation. In this particular instance, the proposed literary explanations do not seem genuinely explanatory. (p. 16)

The most commonly given explanation for the apparent discrepancy regarding what Paul’s companions heard is that they heard (9:7) but did not understand (22:9) the voice of Christ who spoke to Paul.43 . . . Long before anyone had proposed that the differences in cases had anything to do with the matter, Calvin had suggested that Paul’s companions heard the sound but did not understand the words, as noted previously.70 This explanation of hearing but not understanding has been advocated by many of the same grammarians who disputed the grammatical argument. A. T. Robertson, for example, explains that rather than thinking that Luke has flatly contradicted himself, it is quite natural to understand Acts 9:7 to mean that Paul’s companions heard the sound of Christ’s voice but could not understand it. Such a distinction is “possible and even probable here” even though it is not a grammatically “necessary” distinction that can be assumed elsewhere.71 Richard Young concludes, “Whether the distinction is valid must be decided on an individual basis and on the sense of the context. It does seem to be valid for Acts 9:7 and 22:9.”72 Wallace argues, “It is still most reasonable to conclude that these accounts are not presenting contradictory views about what Paul’s companions heard.” He suggests that “both ἀκούω and φωνή carried different nuances in each source” Luke had used for his accounts. “Hence, what looks like a contradiction is in reality evidence of Luke’s reticence to drastically alter the traditions as handed down to him.”73 Although the suggestion of different nuances in the parallel accounts is a reasonable one, it need not be made dependent on the notion of separate sources, as explained earlier . . . Although the grammatical argument for understanding Acts 22:9 to mean that Paul’s companions heard but did not understand falls short, there are contextual reasons for accepting this explanation.

1. There is a reasonable, general presumption that a literate, careful author more than likely is not contradicting himself in the same book when recounting something more than once. The point is not that an author can never contradict himself but that the burden of proof in an instance such as this is on the one alleging a definite contradiction. Some allegations of contradiction are simply more credible than others, even independent of the specifics. All other things being equal, that two authors contradict each other is quite possible. That an author contradicts himself in books written years apart is possible though somewhat surprising. That an author contradicts himself within the same book is possible but very surprising.74 Stated in this way, the argument is not “circular,” as Peter Enns alleges.75 Finally, the claim that an author who demonstrates high literate skill and care contradicts himself within the same book is possible but a priori so unlikely that the claimed contradiction bears the burden of proof. To put the matter the other way around, if a plausible explanation is available that would clear up the discrepancy, it should be preferred in such cases to the claim that the author has clumsily contradicted himself. Since Luke was clearly a consummate author,76 the burden of proof is on those who assert that Acts 9:7 must be understood as a clear contradiction of 22:9.

2. Suppose Acts 9:7 means that Paul’s companions heard the sound of Christ’s voice while 22:9 means that they were not able to hear the specific words that Christ said. This distinction would neatly parallel the distinction the two texts make with regard to what Paul’s companions saw: they saw the light (22:9) but did not see the person whom Paul saw in the light (9:7). Thus both the sound and the light were indistinct or unidentifiable for Paul’s companions but were perceived and understood by Paul as the voice and appearance of a figure who identified himself as Jesus.77 . . . . . . These four considerations would seem sufficient to conclude in favor of this explanation of the apparent discrepancy. (pp. 17, 24, 25, 26)

Notes for the Above

43 Bradley Chance suggests a variation of this explanation: the companions “heard a voice” but “did not hear the voice of the living Lord who revealed himself to Paul”; Chance, Acts, 407. Chance seems to be suggesting that Acts 22:9 means that the companions heard what Christ said but did not recognize that the voice was in fact Christ speaking. Had this been Paul’s meaning, one would have expected Luke to write “did not hear the one who was speaking” rather than “did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking.” A similar dubious explanation is given by Daniel Marguerat, The First Christian Historian: Writing the ‘Acts of the Apostles’, trans. Ken McKinney, Gregory J. Laughery, and Richard Bauckham; SNTSMS 121 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 192 n. 37.  
70 It is therefore somewhat misleading to say that in proposing this explanation Calvin had “anticipated” the grammatical argument, per Vanhoozer, “Augustinian Inerrancy,” 229.
71 Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 3:117-18.
72 Young, Intermediate New Testament Greek, 40.
73 Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 134 n. 168.  
74 So also Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 390. Barker misses this point, which undermines most of his argumentation. According to Barker, nothing in the context of Acts 22:9 indicates that ἀκούω means anything other than “hear.” But of course, Acts 9:7 is in the context of Acts 22:9, since it is in the same book and is about the same incident!
75 Enns, “Response to R. Albert Mohler Jr.,” 62.
76 See especially Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Volume 1, 166-220, though all of his 600-page introduction is relevant.
77 Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, 382; Peterson, Acts, 599.  



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