Resolving a Bible Difficulty: What Happened at Paul’s Conversion?

pauls-conversionThe book of Acts records St. Paul’s conversion in the following terms:

Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him.

And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

And he said, “Who are you, Lord?”

And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.

Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus [Acts 9:3-8].

There are several interesting things here.

 

No Horse!

One is that there is no mention of St. Paul riding on a horse. You frequently hear people recounting how Paul was knocked off his horse at the time of his conversion, but this is an image that comes from art—not the Bible.

He isn’t likely to have been riding a horse, for at the time horses were more commonly used in warfare—such as for drawing chariots. They were not commonly ridden.

The passage doesn’t mention Paul riding any animal. He was likely travelling on foot, as suggested when the text simply says that he fell to the ground when the heavenly light flashed around him.

It’s also suggested by Jesus telling him to “rise and enter the city” (no mention of getting back on an animal) and by him being “led by the hand” into Damascus by his companions.

If he’d been riding on a beast (e.g., an ass), they presumably would have put him back on the animal and then led the beast—not taken Paul by the hand to guide him.

 

A Bible Difficulty?

Many people have commented on a Bible difficulty that arises from this passage when it says:

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one [Acts 9:7].

This is worthy of comment because, later in the book when Paul is recounting his conversion, he says:

Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me [Acts 22:9].

 

What did they see? What did they hear?

The difficulty that needs to be solved concerns what the men with Paul saw and heard.

The first is not difficult, for the two passages don’t contain any apparent discrepancy.

The first says that they didn’t see anyone and the second says that they did see light. There is no contradiction because one can easily see light without seeing a person.

What the men heard presents more of a difficulty, because the first passage says they were “hearing the voice” while the second says that they “did not hear the voice.”

That looks like a contradiction.

Is it?

 

Greek to You and Me

Whenever we encounter something that looks like a contradiction, it’s wise to check the original language, which in this case is Greek.

Examining the two passages, we find that both of them use the same two terms: akouō (hear) and phōnē (voice).

This means that we can’t solve the dilemma by appealing to the fact that the passages are using different terms, because they aren’t. They both use the same verb for hearing and the same noun for what is being heard.

That doesn’t mean we can’t resolve the discrepancy, though, because these terms have more than one meaning in Greek.

  • Akouō can mean hear, listen, understand, obey, know, and other things.
  • Phōnē can mean sound, tone, voice, cry, solemn declaration, etc.

Since we have a single author (Luke) writing both passages in a single book (Acts), a logical inference is that Luke probably meant the terms to be taken in different senses.

Are there two different senses in which the terms can be taken that would make sense of the passages?

You bet.

 

The Likely Solution

The most likely solution is that in the first passage, akouō is to be taken to mean “hear” and phōnē is to be taken to mean “sound,” while in the second passage, akouō is to be taken to mean “understand” and phōnē is to be taken to mean “voice.”

On this reading, Acts 9:7 says that the men were hearing a sound but didn’t see anyone while Acts 22:9 says that they saw light but did not understand the voice.

This would parallel John 12:28-29, where the Father speaks to Jesus from heaven and some in the crowd perceive it as thunder: They heard a noise, but they didn’t perceive it as an intelligible voice—the clearer perception being reserved for those God wanted to have it.

This appears to be the most probable solution. Thus some translations render the two passages like this:

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

My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me (Acts 22:9, NIV).

These translations are perfectly acceptable, as “hear” and “understand” are common meanings for akouō, while “sound” and “voice” are common meanings for phōnē.

 

Be Cautious Beyond This Point

While we have identified the probable solution, we should be careful not to press it too far.

Some have proposed that there is a feature in the Greek that makes the solution even more certain. According to some older grammars and commentaries, the verb akouō’s meaning changes in a way that is relevant here depending on the grammatical form of the noun that follows it.

In Greek, nouns take different forms, known as “cases,” depending on the role they play in a sentence (the same is true of nouns in Latin, German, Russian, and many other languages).

Two of these cases that Greek uses are known as the genitive and the accusative.

According to some, when akouō is followed by a noun in the genitive case, it stresses the hearing of the sound but not the understanding of it.

By contrast, these individuals hold, if akouō is followed by a noun in the accusative case, it highlights the understanding of the sound.

It so happens that in Acts 9:7 the noun phōnē is in the genitive case, and in 22:9 it is in the accusative.

This is then taken as evidence confirming the solution proposed above: In the first passage the companions are said to hear the sound while in the second they are said not to understand it.

The problem is that these claims are not at all clear from the way the verb is used in New Testament Greek.

Daniel Wallace, one of the foremost contemporary scholars of New Testament Greek, writes:

[I]t is doubtful that this is where the difference lay between the two cases used with akouō in Hellenistic Greek: the NT (including the more literary writers) is filled with examples of akouō + genitive indicating understanding (Matt 2:9; John 5:25; 18:37; Acts 3:23; 11:7; Rev 3:20; 6:3, 5; 8:13; 11:12; 14:13; 16:1, 5, 7; 21:3) as well as instances of akouō + accusative where little or no comprehension takes place (explicitly so in Matt 13:19; Mark 13:7/Matt 24:6/Luke 21:9; Acts 5:24; 1 Cor 11:18; Eph 3:2; Col 1:4; Phlm 5; Jas 5:11; Rev 14:2). The exceptions, in fact, are seemingly more numerous than the rule!

Thus, regardless of how one works through the accounts of Paul’s conversion, an appeal to different cases probably ought not form any part of the solution [Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 133-134].

We should thus be cautious of case-based arguments concerning the solution to this difficulty.

This does not mean, however, that we haven’t identified the correct solution. The most likely solution remains that the terms are simply being used in different senses in the two passages.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

One thought on “Resolving a Bible Difficulty: What Happened at Paul’s Conversion?”

  1. COMMENTARY-Resolving a Bible Difficulty(What Happened at Saul’s conversion?)

    Hi Jimmy!
    a.)Let me beg to begin with a small observation-What happened at Saul’s conversion not Paul’s conversion?
    -It maybe alluded that what happened at Saul’s conversion was what can said to be,”An Evolutionary self”,which may be as well said to be not the timeless,changeless,”self absolute” spoken of in the great traditions,nor is it the conventional ego self that most of us live in every day,but it is the creative force of the universe alive within us,the human face of the impulse of evolution itself.
    b.)Before we move to the two contentious passages(Acts9.7 and Acts22.9)let’s first agree on one thing as follows;The two reporters,i.e Dr.Luke and Saint Paul are two distinct in nature and on different plane of consciousness.
    It could be also alluded that maybe Dr.Luke was reporting from the information he was able to gather,while Saint Paul was reporting from the vantage plane of the first person singular,about himself / life experience.
    c.)Back to the contentious texts ? passages:-i.e,
    i.)”……hearing the voice but seeing no one”-Acts9.7
    ii.)”……Who were with me indeed saw the Light and were afraid,but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke..”-Acts22.9
    Let us look at something here in a little while before embarking on our subject as shown above-The Light.
    We learn that when God first created,He spoke and spiritual light came into being(Gen1.3)
    We also learn that this light was not just a natural light(photons)but it was a spiritual substance that cannot be seen,or measured in the physical world,and the other light(Natural)is only a mere natural attribute of the formation of stars and sun,while the original spiritual light contains the substance of time,space and energy.

    SIMILARITY:
    In both two passages,we may allude that both of the five senses of man were in use,i.e that of ear for hearing the noise and eye / sight for it’s blindness to the one who spoke.(Acts9.7),while in the second passage,that of the eye / sight for seeing the Light and ear for their deafness to the one who spoke. (Acts22.9)

    ANALYSIS OF THE TWO PASSAGES:
    i)It could be generally agreed that there was some kind of communication among the these people who were journeying with Saul to Damascus,and the mode of communication could have been even through telepathy.
    ii.)To try to reconcile the two passages within the context of communication is that there was indeed a communication which took place but maybe it’s interpretation mode is what varies depending on the reporters’ plane of spirituality(i.e Dr.Luke and Saint Paul)
    iii.)We learn that in order to understand spiritual concepts,we need to understand that there is also psychological time,where events can seem short or long based on our interest,Psychological space,where distance can seem near or far based on our awareness,and Psychological movement / velocity where something else seems to be moving even if another object of our attention is the one that moves backwards / forwards,or the reverse where something else seems to be moving.

    CONCLUSION:
    1.)Saul’s encounter with Christ(The Light-Life),restored him from his dead consciousness and unbelief to life.
    2.)The encounter’s effect was felt among his entourage to Damascus,who heard the noise in the first passage(Acts9.7) but did not perceive it as an intelligible voice due to their inactive plane of spirituality.
    3.From the second passage(Acts22.9)maybe Paul meant their seeing meant their consciousness was enlightened by the heavenly message / tidings,but were unable to perceive the message due to their spiritual insensitivity.i.e,”Even now we have a measure of the powers of the age to come(Hebrews6.5)
    N / B-Consciousness is like the propulsion or space aspect and feelings are like the time aspect,and it is possible for a spiritual experience to last only one earth minute.
    4.Our understanding is sometimes likened to “eye” because the soul is the receiving and processing centre for thoughts in the same manner as the physical eye is the receiving and processing centre for physical light(Eph1.17-18)
    5.)The source of all thoughts is in the realm of the spirit world,which our spirits are in contact with and there is a divine flow of wisdom energy that flows from God and is transmitted to us through the Holt spirit and ministering spirits.
    This flow is not in “a known human language” which our soul has acquired but the essence of thought(which is like a spiritual Light-the spirit of wisdom and revelation produces “Light” in the understanding(Eph1.17-18) and our thoughts converts this thought flow into human language in our minds and we experience thinking and the thought process.

    Best wishes for an inspired Weekends.
    God’s blessings and Love,
    Maurice.

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