4.17 Accusation: Epiphany theory

Published by 1c15 on 3rd December 20193rd December 2019

An epiphany is a sudden perception of reality caused by an intuitive breakthrough. For example suppose you were brought up in a family with atheist parents and have been an atheist since childhood. One night you’re looking up at the stars and say to yourself how could all of this be here by chance? There must be a God! Irrespective of the soundness of your reasoning or the truth of your conclusion you have experienced and epiphany.

Paul has already started his aggressive persecution of Christians. He began persecuting Christians in Jerusalem, then he went to the high priest asking for and receiving permission to arrest Christians in Damascus. Paul would have talked with his companions on the road to Damascus that those hung on a tree are cursed by God and that he will exalt the Messiah not crucify him. You might say Paul had an epiphany and suddenly understood what Christians meant when they say the Messiah became cursed by God for us in doing so paid the penalty for our sins. The messianic prophecy from Isaiah 53 of a suffering messiah now make sense to him. The theory goes that as a result of this epiphany Paul is now convinced that Christianity is true and converts.

What about the details of Paul’s experience reported by Luke in Acts such as the bright light and the voice from heaven? Are these are metaphors for the epiphany? Someone might say I now see the light or a light came on in my mind. The New Testament uses the metaphor of light many times, Jesus himself said I am the light of the world. The word light in Jewish literature means wisdom, knowledge, insight of both physical and spiritual life.

Epiphany theory however has a range of difficulties.

1. Even if all of these conjectures were true only accounts for the appearance to Paul. What about the disciples or the appearance to James?

If a critic desired to pursue this further by suggesting that the disciples and James also experienced epiphanies and that the genre of the accounts of the appearances to them allows this, we might respond that (1) The sermon summaries in Acts (embedded in Acts 1–5, 10, 13, 17), which predate its writing, strongly suggest a literal interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection. (2) Paul and all the witnesses speak of a bodily resurrection. The Jews did not expect a resurrection of the body until the last day. Assumption into heaven, as Christians believe happens at the moment of a believer’s death, would have most likely been the claim. (3) This is essentially similar to the objections regarding nonhistorical genre, which we addressed previously.

2. An epiphany experience by Paul does not account for the empty tomb. Jesus’ body should still have been lying there.

See the evidence articles

3. Christianity’s critics responded to a literal interpretation of Jesus’s Resurrection rather than to an epiphany implying this is what the Witnesses were proclaiming. 

The Jewish leaders claimed that the disciples stole the body. The accounts of the bright light and the voice do not come from the early writings of Paul rather they come from Acts, which scholars date after the writing of Matthew Mark and Luke.

4. Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus occurred after Jesus’s ascension, which could account for the difference in the glorified nature that Christ showed to Paul from What the disciples experienced.

If the critic claims that even though Acts is written after Paul’s letters, Luke received his information from Paul and, therefore, it is earlier than what Luke reported concerning the claims of the disciples, we might reply: (1) Luke also reports Paul’s sermon in Acts 13, the content of which strongly implies a bodily resurrection of Jesus (vv. 35–36). (2) Since Luke was written prior to his sequel Acts where we find Paul’s words pertaining to Jesus’ appearance to him, how can the critic know that Paul’s testimony recorded in Acts is earlier than the reports of the disciples recorded in Luke’s earlier gospel?

Summary 

So we conclude, no psychological phenomena such as hallucinations, delusions, visions, conversion disorder grief, guilt, epiphany or Paul’s lust for power can account for all of our five facts which is a serious problem stand in the way of these theories.

Structured response

1. It does not account for Jesus’ appearance to James
2. It does not account for the empty tomb at all
3. Critics of Christianity claim literal body, never appealed to epiphany as it didn’t make sense (they assumed a physical body existed and was stolen)
4. Paul’s experience of Jesus happened post-ascension which explains the glorified experience

Sources for ‘Epiphany’

• Matthew 4: 16; 5: 14; Mark 4: 22; Luke 2: 32; 16: 8; John 1: 4–9; 3: 19–21; 5: 35; 9: 5; 12: 35–36, 46; Romans 2: 19; 13: 12; 1 Corinthians 4: 5; 2 Corinthians 4: 4, 6; 11: 14; Ephesians 5: 8–9, 13; Colossians 1: 12; 1 Thessalonians 5: 5; 2 Timothy 1: 10; 1 John 1: 5, 7; 2: 8–10; Revelation 18: 23. 
• John 8: 12; 9: 5. 
• Light literature – See Tobit 10: 5; 14: 10; Wisdom 7: 10, 26, 29 (where wisdom is said to be brighter than the sun); 18: 4; Ecclesiasticus 22: 11; 24: 27, 32; 50: 29; Baruch 3: 14; 4: 2. Among numerous occurrences in Philo are On the Creation 31, 33, 55; Allegorical Interpretation I 17, 18; Allegorical Interpretation III 45, 167; On the Cherubim 62; On the Unchangeableness of God 3, 135; On Husbandry 162.
• Multiple people heard the voice — Acts 9: 7; 22: 9; 26: 13–14.