KrisK10

Hi folks,

Hoping someone can help me out with something.

There are some who claim the New Testament differentiates between “extra-mental” appearances by Jesus at and before Paul’s conversion appearance (“extra-mental” meaning the presence of real space/time continuum elements that anyone present could see/hear) and a “mental” appearance by Jesus for all appearances AFTER Paul’s conversion (a “mental” appearance being only in the mind of the percipient, but still sent from God).

In the NT, there are five clear appearances of Jesus after Paul’s conversion. They are to Paul himself (twice), Ananias, Stephen, and John. It seems pretty credible to me that the first three are intended as “mental” appearances (Acts 22:17-21; 18:9; Acts 9:10-11). But the fourth and fifth seem like they could go either way or actually favor an extra-mental appearance being intended. Here are the two appearances in question; I'm curious what people think -- are these two appearance accounts intended as "extra-mental" or just "mental" appearances of Jesus?

Appearance to Stephen:

“When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he [Stephen] gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him.” (Acts 7:55-57)

It seems to me that although Luke could intend here an appearance that was only in Stephen’s mind, it is just as likely that Luke intends a normal space/time continuum event that anyone could have seen. In fact, the way Luke describes the scene, it appears the reason the others did not see what Stephen saw was because they refused to listen to him and were too busy trying to kill him to look up.




Appearance to John:

I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest…. (Rev 1:9-18).

This appearance too could easily be intended as a normal space/time continuum event that anyone could have seen. The reason nobody else saw the vision is simply because John is alone.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer!

Kris

spin

Can you think of any way to test the theory in your post?


spin

Toto

I think that the appearance to Stephen has to count as mental - unless you think that everyone can just look up and see god's throne in the sky.

And we all suspect that John of Patmos was on drugs.

I think that when people talk about the "extra-mental appearances" of Jesus, they mean the post-resurrection scenes in the gospels, especially Luke, when Jesus appears to his disciples, eats fish, shows his wounds, and leaves instructions. These would have stopped after the Ascension, well before the appearance to Saul on the road to Damascus (or to Paul wherever he was.)

KrisK10

My question was about the intent of the scenes in Acts and Revelation (extra-mental vs. just mental), not whether those scenes actually occurred. As to my question being testable, probably not since we do not have the authors of these scenes present to ask them what they intended. However, I do think we can look at the literary evidence itself and reasonably say that one or the other was intended, or that it could be either. It looks to me like it could easily be either, in which case it is incorrect for anyone to say that they are intend as only "mental" events (i.e. only in the mind of the percipient). I'm curious if anyone else agrees with me, or if there is something I'm missing in the literary evidence here that clearly indicates that these two scenes were only in the mind of the percipient.

Kris

2-J

I think there is good reason for saying that the way those things are described by the author of Acts (re: Stephen ) and John, gives no evidence that these things might have occurred in the space-time continuum.

Consider an appearance that you claim was clearly only in the mind of Paul:-

Now, in this passage we are told that "a light from heaven flashed around him". Imagine if there was nobody with Paul at that time. By your logic, it would seem that we must assume that there really was a flash of physical light. After all it is described in as concrete terms as the things in the Stephen episode and revelation, add to this on the face of it we are simply told there was a flash of light so just as in the case of Stephen and John which are similarly pithy, it would be natural to assume a physical event occurred.

Of course we know that the flash of light was private to Paul and thus not a publicly observable event (however, as a tangent, why couldn't there really have been a flash of light, and it was just a (further) miracle that stopped the others from seeing it? but nevermind). But the only reason we know that is because we are told that others were in the vicinity and should have been able to observe it, but didn't. There is nothing in the description itself that differs substantially from the Stephen episode and John.

So just as we would not be sure of whether the flash of light physically happened had Paul been alone, neither can we be sure that the appearances to John and Stephen physically happened, since we are not told that anyone was in a position to observe these events but did not see them.

As a final note, as a gut feeling I always thought that both the Stephen event and the John event were intended to be private religious experiences. But the fact that we cannot tell whether they are physical or not from the bible is pretty indisputable.

KrisK10

2-J,

I never referred to the appearance example you gave (it's not a post-Pauline-conversion appearance). But thanks for your agreement with me that we cannot tell from the literary evidence whether the appearances to Stephen or John were intended as physical or not.

Kris

2-J

I misread the reference there... sorry.. but yeah, I think the question you posed is legitimate and there's a clear answer to it.

Doug Shaver

I've seen that hypothesis presented by only one apologist, and that's William Lane Craig. So far as I can tell, it's just something he invented.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...s/visions.html

KrisK10

Thanks for the comment Doug. Actually, N.T. Wright joins Craig in the idea that all post-Pauline-conversion appearances of Jesus in the NT are intended as having occurred only in the mind of the percipient. There are only 5 such appearances as far as I can tell and, as noted in my opening post, 3 do seem intended as only in the mind of the percipient. The Stephen and John appearances seem key however in showing that this line of thinking is just what you said, "invented", because those two appearances could just as easily be intended as extra-mental events.

Just curious, if Craig's and Wright's argument is groundless, what do folks here think Paul meant when he said that Jesus appeared to him "last of all" (1 Cor 15:8)?

Kris

Toto

Craig appears to be relying on sources like those cited by Visions of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) (The Catholic Encyclopedia and the Lutheran Encyclopedia) or Christian Philosophical Theology (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Stephen T. Davies (both on googlebooks.) The term "mental" may be Craig's invention, but if you search for "objective visions" and "subjective visions" you will find his sources.