Paul's Christophany

What did Paul experience on the Damascus Road? Was it psychological vision of Jesus or a physical Christophany? We can't say for sure, but here are some considerations. This is my side of a recent conversation on the topic:

It's important to distinguish "heaven" in the atmospheric/astronomical sense of the "sky" from heaven in the theological sense of where God, the saints, and angels reside.

In the Ascension account he levitates above ground a certain distance in midair, then disappears into the Shekinah cloud.

Yes, he left in some sense and he could return in some sense, short of the Parousia.

I agree with you that the Christophany to Paul isn't the same as the Lk 20; Jn 20-21 incidents. That said, there's still a categorical difference between "heaven" in the sense of "sky" and "heaven" in the sense of where God, saints, and angels reside. The sky is the location of sun, moon, stars, solar/lunar eclipses, rain, hail, meteor showers, &c. And it extends down to the air, where birds, bats, insects fly, and some seeds are blown by the wind. By contrast, there are no meteorological events in heaven in the sense of God's abode. So Jesus could appear to Paul from the sky (overhead) without appearing to him from heaven (in the theological sense). In a way it's similar to the Transfiguration, which has the Shekinah, but the location is in the low atmosphere.

I'd add that Paul's traveling companions could be facing in a different direction than Paul in relation to Jesus, which accounts for why they didn't see the same thing. Or Paul could be further along the road, over a hill, or some other physical obstacle, that blocked the view with respect to his traveling companions.

I never suggested that Jesus left footprints. The upper room isn't directly comparable because an indoor setting presents fewer opportunities for different spatial configurations and visual obstacles than an outdoor setting. Finally, there's a well-documented collection of Christophanies in church history https://www.amazon.com/Visions-Jesus-Direct-Encounters-Testament/dp/0195126696. This is also instrumental in the conversion of some Jews. And it's a source of revival in the contemporary Muslim world. Of course, these could all be psychological visions. But that's one of the interpretive issues.

It's possible that Paul's experience was a psychological vision, but his traveling companions also experienced something, albeit different, which suggests something more than a psychological vision.

At the Transfiguration there was some other entity floating in the sky above the heads of the disciples: the Shekinah cloud. And the Father may have been speaking from within the Shekinah since that sometimes functions as a chariot theophany for God's portable throne.

Shekinah clouds aren't normal natural phenomenon in the first place. They are preternatural phenomena. God making emblematic use of natural media in theophanies. There are different kinds of theophanies, some using overlapping media, viz. incandescent clouds, fire, thunderstorms, chariots. To say "It is not scientifically explanatory, in natural terms, of the sound that they heard. Nor is such an explanation necessary. There is, for example, no mention of any such cloud in John 12, nor do clouds normally produce or convey words. Nor does the Father need a Shekinah cloud in order to produce auditory sound. It's not like a cloud is God's voice box," completely misses the point. God doesn't need the chariot theophany in Ezekiel 1. But the value lies on the theological symbolism of these physical manifestations.

We already have precedent in the Ascension account for Jesus floating in midair, visible to observers. So there's no antecedent objection to a similar event on the Damascus Road.

He "returned" in the Rev 1 Christophany. Indeed, Revelation refers to Jesus threatening to return to remove the lampstand of some waning churches in Asia Minor. But that's not the Parousia. There's a difference between the once-for-all-time Second Coming of Christ and Jesus appearing to individuals in the course of church history.

Jewish visions of Jesus

The video also has an interesting anecdote by another commenter:

Open Eyes

A few of you asked me what exactly I saw that made me believe in the Messiah Jesus. I was a Marine, and deployed to Iraq 4 times, and was struggling with PTSD really bad, I was loosing more of my friends to suicide than to combat, something you don't hear on the news. One night I was having a particularly difficult night, I finally fell asleep and had a vision, not a dream. I was in space, standing on a sheet of crystal, or glass....I was looking at all of the galexies and the earth, sun, moon, stars, standing right there next to me was Jesus Christ....My soul knew who He was, He didn't say anything verbally it was all telepathic, and He never looked at me, just looked straight ahead, He said telepathically " I created everything that I am showing you, and I had you In my plan from eternity past"....that changed my life.......He had dark short curly hair, wore a very bright white robe that went down to His feet, and he had a Gold sash.....I will NEVER forget that

Edit: Open Eyes' testimony on video. More "I met Messiah" testimonies from Jews.

Jesus sighted

Tim Sledge

@Goodbye_Jesus

Christians assert Jesus was crucified, rose from the dead 3 days later, appeared to some of his followers over a 40-day period, then disappeared in the clouds.

That was 2,000 years ago & Jesus hasn't been seen or heard from since.

But he's coming back any day now. #HeIsNotRisen

https://twitter.com/Goodbye_Jesus/status/1250068066790236161

I don't normally comment on Sledge. I only became aware of him when Jeff Lowder began retweeting him. Sledge is an apostate Baptist minister who's laboring to parlay his apostasy into a career. He repeats all the canned objections to Christianity. 

Unfortunately for him, the market niche for apostates is very tight. Bart Ehrman is the star attraction. Other wannabes are fighting for crumbs.

What I'd point out is that there are many reported Christophanies throughout church history right up to the present. That includes a collection published by Oxford University Press:

https://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/visions-of-jesus/

In addition, the Muslim world is undergoing a quiet Christian revival due to reported dreams and visions of Jesus. This has been documented in books by Tom Doyle and David Garrison, among others. 

My point is not to vouch for every reported Christophany. But there's lots of prima facie evidence that Jesus has been seen and heard in the intervening 2000 years. And we'd expect Christophanies to be underreported since it's not like there's a team of researchers in every generation going door-to-door to interview people.  

The world next door

Because much of what the Bible describes is indetectable to natural perception, that can lend Christianity an air of unreality. The Bible describes heaven. A realm of souls and spirits. The Bible describes the world to come. A future reality that lies out of sight.

But we're ordinarily immersed in the physical, sensible world of the present, with many traces of the past. The living are sealed away in this world, like a snowglobe.

There are, however, many exceptions. And they range along a continuum. Exceptions where the supernatural breaks into our mundane existence. At one end of the continuum, an unmistakable answer to prayer or a special providence.

Further along, God speaking to a Christian in an audible voice. Or an angelic apparition. Or a Christophany. We normally experience a clockwork universe, but some Christians, or Christians sometimes, experience something reaching in from outside the clockwork universe. And this can include the activity of evil spirits.

Canonical examples include revelatory dreams and visions, where seers perceive heaven or the world to come.

However, even if we set aside the supernatural examples where there's crossover traffic, dreams are a useful reminder that our perception of reality is very compartmentalized, and what appears to be real or unreal is dramatically variable.

You can have a very vivid, tangible, detailed dream that seems to be just a real as waking experience. It can be like stepping right into another world. The world next door. It was there all along, but you can't be simultaneously conscious of both. Indeed, for the dreamer, the dreamscape seems more real because that's what he's perceiving at the time. The world outside the dream is indetectable. So there's a reversal. He's immersed in the dreamscape. A different snowglobe, sealed off from the waking world.

Of course, ordinary dreams are imaginary, although they may tap into something larger than individual human minds. The point, though, is that dreams illustrate how easy it would be for our mundane world to coexist with a supernatural realm. How what may seem to have an air of unreality is right on the other side. How easy it would be to slide back and forth between them. In that respect, dreams have great emblematic value.

John's Gospel and the Apocalypse

Due to stylistic differences, some otherwise conservative scholars think the Apocalypse has a different author than the John and 1-3 John. Some conservatives defend common authorship by saying they were written at different times of life. I don't find that terribly convincing. Another argument defending common authorship appeals to genre differences. I think there's something to that, although it's too generic. 

In defense of common authorship, Revelation, John, and 1-3 share some striking parallels. In addition, it's a more economical explanation for why early Christians acknowledged all of them as canonical and Scriptural if they share common apostolic authorship; if it's the same John in both cases rather than the apostle John and some other John, a prophet whose background was oddly forgotten by the early church. We have his book, but everything else about him has disappeared from history without a trace. Seems unlikely. Not that that can't happen to an author (who wrote Beowulf?) but early Christians would take an interest in the pedigree of the author. Why acknowledge him as a Christian prophet, speaking to and for the universal church?

I'd like to draw a distinction between inspiration and revelation. Although they can be used synonymously, it's helpful to distinguish them. When the terms are used in a more technical or specialized sense, inspiration doesn't infuse the writer with new factual information. Everything an inspired writer says may be based on naturally obtainable information. His own observation, investigation, and memory. The main thing inspiration does is to protect from error as well as providing verbal guidance. 

And the whole process may be subliminal. I don't mean the process of remembering and composing the text is unconscious, but the divine direction behind the process operates at a subliminal level. 

For the most part it takes place in a normal state of mind. The writer is aware of his body and physical surroundings. Nothing out of the ordinary in that regard. An exception might be recording long speeches. Perhaps that operates more like automatic writing, since we don't naturally have verbatim recall of long speeches.  

In direct visionary revelation, by contrast, the mind of the seer is infused with new information. A supernatural source of information. The process is conscious. The Spirit takes control of his mind and plays a movie in his head. It's like a structured lucid dream, only the content is controlled by the Spirit rather than the seer (or dreamer). So it takes place in an altered state of consciousness.  

The human mind isn't blanked out. Rather, is like an immersive spectator. His empirical surroundings are screened out. Simulated sensory perception replace physical sensory perception. 

John's Gospel originates in past observation and memory. By contrast, the Apocalypse originates in a psychological experience that lifts him out of himself.

Under the circumstances, it's not surprising that the Apocalypse is written in a rapturous, ecstatic style, in contrast to the sedate prose of the Gospel. It's hard to come back down to earth after that. Their stylistic difference mirrors their radically different points of origin. 

Jesus outside the NT

This post is a new way of making an old point. Unbelievers often ask if there's any evidence for Jesus outside the NT. There are standard monographs on that topic, like F. F. Bruce's classic Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament.

The assumption behind the question is that we should discount the witness of the NT because that's Christian, so that's a biased source. That, however, is confused. It's not surprising if eyewitnesses to the miracles of Jesus become Christian. So the question amounts to the demand for witnesses who saw Jesus perform miracles and rise from the dead, but refuse to believe in Jesus! 

However, I'd like to make a different point. The unstated assumption in demanding evidence for Jesus outside the NT is independent documentary evidence.

But that's not the only kind of evidence for Jesus outside the OT. Jesus isn't just a figure from the past. According to the NT, he is God Incarnate, with an immortal body. 

So there's evidence for Jesus outside the NT throughout church history. For instance, when Christians pray to Jesus, and their prayers are answered, that's evidence for Jesus outside the NT. That's evidence that Jesus is the living Lord. Jesus granted their prayer request. 

A more dramatic example concerns Christophanies. Revelatory dreams and visions of Jesus during the course of church history. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should credit every reported Christophany. But if enough individuals, in a sober state of mind, with no incentive to deceive, report the same sort of experience, that's prima facie evidence for the reality of what they report. We should sift their reports, the same way we evaluate testimonial evidence generally, but credible reports of Christophanies up to our own time constitute evidence for Jesus outside the NT. 

So the actual evidence for Jesus outside the NT is far broader than the handful of ancient documents which are constantly cited. This is a neglected line of evidence because Christian apologetics can get stuck in the rut of stereotypical arguments. Christian apologists influence each other, which leads to an insular, formulaic set of endlessly repeated arguments. They may be good arguments as they go, but it can have a blinkering effect on the apologetic imagination.  

The imagery of Revelation

The following is an excerpt from Richard Bauckham's The Theology of the Book of Revelation (pp 17-22). I don't necessarily agree with everything.

The Revelation maze

To my knowledge, premils think Revelation has a linear plot while many modern-day amils think Revelation has a cyclical plot, although 19-22 break the cycle with a definitive denouement. 

Linear and cyclical are both spatial metaphors. Ways to structure time figuratively. 

Here's an alternative to a linear or cyclical plot alike: suppose Revelation is like a maze. In terms of John's experience, it's like an extended dream in which the scenes keep shifting. An immersive experience in which he's an observer in the visionary world. Dreams can be like a maze, where the dreamer is seeking a destination or looking for a way out. A maze has an entrance and an exit. And it's possible to make progress from one end to the other. But there's a certain amount of backtracking. Entry points with no outlet. 

Real life has blind alleys, wrong turns, and dead-ends. You see the same thing coming and going. Backing out. Turning around. 

Suppose John's experience is like working his way through a maze. Take the binding of Satan. He's unbound, then he's bound, then he's unbound. In the vision, John is traveling in one direction. He sees Satan bound and unbound because John is moving forwards and backwards. The vision hits a wall, and he has to turn around and look for another way out. That leads to repeated sightings. In a maze, Satan may be both bound and unbound. It's not a matter of when but where. In a maze, retracing your steps or walking in circles is analogous to moving backward in time or temporal loops. 

Bell, Book, and Candle updated

Patrick Chan and I have updated the bibliography for this post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/02/bell-book-candle.html

In addition, he fixed the dead links on the old post.

Balaam the seer

In the past I've explored the possibility that the talking donkey episode (Num12) is a vision:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/07/balaams-vision.html

That interpretation goes back to Maimonides. As I think about it, there's an additional argument for that interpretation. The reason Balak hires Balaam to hex Israel is due to Balaam's reputation as a seer. It would therefore make ironic sense for Yahweh to give Balaam a humiliating satirical vision. Here's a renown heathen diviner, but in the vision he's outwitted by a talking mule! Reputed to be a seer and visionary, but the only vision he's granted is a scene that casts him in the role of a blind blithering fool. That's poetic justice. Turning Balaam's "gift" against him.  

Invisible friends

Atheists mock Christian belief in their "invisible friend". 

i) Jesus is visible, not invisible. God Incarnate is visible. He was seen (heard, and touched) by thousands of observers in 1C Palestine.

ii) And that's not just a thing of the past. Consider many reported Christophanies in modern times:

https://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/visions-of-jesus/

iii) But suppose Jesus is invisible. Charlemagne is invisible. I never saw him. Never met him. There are no photographs of Charlemagne. Does that mean Charlemagne is a figment of the imagination? 

iv) Consider an anonymous benefactor. Take someone who endows a college scholarship. Although that's an invisible friend, it's not an imaginary friend.

Cult of Mary

In my debates with Ehrman, when he has raised the topic of Marian apparitions, I have responded that I do not doubt that the percipients saw something. What they saw is what I question. Elliot Miller and Kenneth Samples coauthored the book The Cult of the Virgin: Catholic Mariology and the Apparitions of Mary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992). In this book, they discuss the three major accounts of Marian apparitions: Lourdes, France; Fatima, Portugal; and Medjugorje, Croatia. I know Samples personally. He has interviewed several of the seers to whom Mary has appeared in Medjugorje. Although Samples is a Christian whose Protestant theology does not incline him to believe that Mary has appeared to others, he is convinced that these seers have seen a spirit being. In fact, I had an opportunity to inquire further of Samples on the matter. He told me that several of the seers in Medjugorje continued to have visions of Mary. In fact, he was with one of the seers while he was experiencing such a vision, although no one else in the room saw her. Samples told me he asked the seer if Mary had ever spoken to him. The seer said she had, recommending a specific book which the seer was to read. When Samples looked up the title of the book, it was occultic. This led him to believe that a demonic spirit is what is appearing to the seers.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/appearances-of-mary-and-jesus-resurrection-appearances

Marian apparitions

In Catholicism, there are different kinds of visions and apparitions, including Christophanies and angelic apparitions. Jesus is said to appear to famous Catholic mystics. 

Reputed Marian apparitions occupy a central place in Catholic piety. But that raises question: What niche do Marian apparitions fill that isn't already covered by Christophanies and angelic apparitions? If, according to Catholicism, Jesus can and sometimes does appear to people, aren't Marian apparitions inferior and superfluous? What distinctive purpose do Marian apparitions serve if some people have visions of Jesus?

It might be countered that God often works through intermediaries. But isn't that a function of angels? If it's a question of supernatural emissaries, angels already play that role.

Catholics say Mary points people to Jesus. But even if that were the case, why are most reputed apparitions visions of Mary rather than, say, visions of St. John the Evangelist? Isn't St. John the Baptist well-positioned to point people to Jesus? Why aren't there more Catholic reports of St. John appearing to people? "I'm the Beloved Disciple. I was the closest confidant of Jesus. I was an eyewitness to more of his ministry than anyone else". 

Moreover, angelic apparitions or apostolic apparitions wouldn't draw attention to themselves in the way Marian apparitions do. People know that angels are merely creatures, and apostles are merely emissaries. 

By contrast, reputed Marian apparitions draw attention to herself. She (allegedly) tells San Juan Diego to build a shrine to her–not to her Son.

She (allegedly) introduces herself to Bernadette as the Lady of the Immaculate Conception, and to Lúcia, Francisco, and Jacinta as the Lady of the Rosary. That draws attention away from Jesus. 

It's striking that the catalyst for Christian revival in the Muslim world is dreams and visions of Jesus rather than Mary. And that makes sense. Between visions of Jesus and visions of angels, there's no niche for visions of Mary. 

Take up your cross

From an American physician working with refugees in Greece:

One man I saw this week was openly wearing a prominent silver and gold cross around his neck. I didn't notice it at first, but as I was listening to his heart with my stethoscope the bright golden object swinging in front of me was suddenly hard to miss.

Realizing I wasn't in America, where crosses are so ubiquitous they've become a little trite to me, I exclaimed, "You're wearing a cross!"

"Yes," he nodded.

I pondered the implications of wearing that specific symbol in the Islamic world. A cross is better described as cross-hairs for a man like him. Yet he wore the symbol proudly, unapologetically. Should our roles be reversed, would I have the same courage?

"You are a Christian then." I said, continuing in my new role of Dr. Redundant.

"Yes." He nodded again, smiling.

Through my translator, I learned that a few months ago in Iran he was awoken in the night by the figure of a man calling him to follow Christ. He said he was convinced that the man speaking to him was Jesus, the Son of God. He knew almost nothing of the Christian faith, as he was raised a Muslim.

Still, upon waking the next day, my patient committed himself for following Christ. He felt he had to do this. It was an inner compulsion; he had been called to a new faith, a new life, no matter the cost to him.

But it was indeed a 'costly' decision. Read anything about the Islamic regime of Iran (I recommend the the wonderful autobiography Persepolis as a cursory intro if interested), and you will know that the government of Iran is itself a religious organization. Along with typical functions of any secular government, like providing running water, working roads, electricity and health care (which in many instances, the Iranian government does quite well), it also enforces a highly conservative interpretation of Shia Islam.

How do they enforce such a thing, you ask? How do you get a nation of 77.5 million people to follow extremely strict religious rules? How can you enforce an entire nation to put every woman in robes and headcoverings, to allow no music, no dancing and to enforce frequent observance of Islamic practices like 5x daily prayer?

With "religious police" of course!

[...]

Some version of the above rushed through my mind as I stared at the cross hanging from my patient's neck. An Iranian, 4 months in Greece, wearing a bright silver and gold cross. Wow.

As it turns out, the father of this man was a member of this religious police force. This patient had chosen to convert from Islam to Christianity as the son of a man who is tasked with enforcing and promulgating Islam in the country. More irony.

Imagine the shame on their family for such an act! Aside from endangering himself, my patient was possibly even endangering his own father (and mother).

Many immigrants come to Europe because they think it is rich, with jobs and money flowing like wine at a wedding party. Increasingly, they are finding that Europe is no utopia. Millions are unemployed. Millions are poor. Upward mobility is rare.

But one reality of Europe is that it does remain a place where you can follow a religion in nearly any any way you choose, to include no religion at all. Say what you will about the EU, but it remains a place of tremendous religious freedom, rivaled perhaps by only the U.S.

So it is understandable that this man left Iran. But it is still amazing that he was willing to do it. He left with nothing. No family, no friends. He slunk away in the night, alone. As the son of an important man, his life had no doubt been comfortable and safe. He upended all of that.

My patient arrived at the Pireaus Port of Athens after crossing the Agean Sea from Turkey. He arrived nearly destitute, having given most of his money to a trafficker to get him to Greece. I think he slept on the concrete sidewalk the first night.

The next morning, he says he prayed that the God of his new faith would spare him, and shortly thereafter was approached by members of a Christian church in Athens who offered him a bottle of water. It was through this church that I met him.

Greek authorities soon placed this man in the Elliniko refugee camp, where he made no secret of his faith, sharing it with any around him who would listen. Not long after his arrival, a riot broke out in the camp with Muslims targeting Christians.

The violence carried on for quite some time, as Greek police made no move to stop it, one even pointing out that if some of the refugees died, "there will be fewer of them for us to deal with." My patient was beaten severely in the melee.

It is inhumane, of course, for anyone to think as these police did. But their attitude is understandable nonetheless. Would you wade into the middle of that mess?

Somewhere in this story, my patient picked up his cross. I don't know if it was in Iran or somewhere in Athens. But he wears it daily. It is not merely jewelry to him, given at some Christmas party. It wasn't bought from one of the ubiquitous Christian Book Stores in America, with every possible permutation of "cross trinkets" available for sale. It was bought for a price; worn for a higher one.

Seers, angels, and talking donkeys

In Scripture, angels sometimes appear to people when they're awake, but at other times in a dream or vision. That raises the question of whether Balaam's encounter with the angel and the talking donkey (Num 22:21-35) was a vision. An additional consideration is Balaam's identity was a seer. If you combine the fact that angelic apparitions sometimes occur in dreams and visions with the additional fact that Balaam was a seer, it may well be the case that his surreal experience was visionary in nature–like the talking eagle in Rev 8:13. 

We wouldn't necessarily need an explicit textual clue that the scene was visionary, since the fact that he was a seer, combined with the fact that angelic apparitions sometimes take place in dreams and visions, already clue the reader to that interpretive option. 

Three women in a vision

The following is a transcribed testimony from a female Iranian Christian named Nastaran Farahani. It's taken from a TGC panel discussion on the persecuted church titled "On the Persecuted Church: Panel with Nancy Guthrie, Mindy Belz, Don Carson, K. A. Ellis, Nastaran Farahani". Her testimony starts at about the 7 min 20 sec mark.

One day, while I was taking a shower, I heard someone was talking to me, telling me "repent!"

The voice told me "I'm going to wash you of your sin".

At that time I didn't know what that voice was, and what was the meaning of those words.

But after a while, my sister, she came to Iran from Holland, for visiting. I realized that she has a Bible for me.

One lady she came to her [Nastaran's sister] and she told her that God gave her a vision that she saw three women sitting on a bed and all trust in Christ. So she told her, "you have to go to Iran and visit them".

Another woman came to her and gave her a ticket.

So she came to Iran for a visit. And when she got home to our family, she opened her bag and brought out a Bible, and said "I believe in Jesus".

And all my family started to cry.

And I told her "I believe in Jesus! I know Jesus! I do not know how, but I know him. I do not have any question".

[Nancy Guthrie:] "...How did they [the rest of Nastaran's family] respond to this word of Jesus?"

They just cried.

Within one month, my mom converted.

And within two months, my father had a dream or vision, and he converted to Christ.

We started to go to the church. At that time the building church was open in Iran. But after persecution coming to the church, we decided to gather at home and start the house churches.

There's more to her testimony. Indeed, the entire panel discussion is worth listening to.

Premonitions

In this post I've going to give some examples of what I consider to be credible premonitions or premonitory dreams. Scripture records a number of revelatory or premonitory dreams. Some happen to believers and some to unbelievers. And, of course, we have the programmatic promise in Acts 2:17-18. So it's not surprising if some people have premonitory dreams today. 

Premonitions can happen apart from dreams. In addition, dreams can intersect with crisis apparitions, where a dead relative appears to the dreamer. By the same token, apparitions can happen within dreams or apart from dreams. 

What's the purpose of premonitory dreams? The most direct function is to warn or prepare the dreamer for an impending crisis. But suppose  it doesn't seem to serve any purpose?

Of course, that could be evidence that it's not premonitory. Just coincidence. However, it might still be premonitory. The purpose would simply be to give the dreamer evidence that there's more to reality than meets the eye. That this physical world is not all there is. Uncanny things happen that don't fit into the tight confines of naturalism. That can be an encouragement to Christians. Likewise, it can give unbelievers reason to reconsider their naturalism. 

I'll begin with a few accounts I find plausible, but a bit doubtful:

i) I've read that Loretta Lynn has premonitions. Something she inherited from her mother. It's possible those are tall tales. However, I don't see what she has to gain by it. She didn't make her fame and fortune as a reputed psychic. According to Kurt Koch, mediumistic magic is hereditary. 

ii) Many years ago I heard a UMC minister share a personal anecdote at a Bible study. He said he was a coal miner's son. He said his mother dreamt about a room she'd never seen before. It may have been a college dorm. Later, she went to the place she dreamt about, and it looked exactly like the dream.

What's striking about this anecdote is that he himself is politically and theologically liberal, so he's not predisposed to believe things like that. However, I'm somewhat hesitant about the account. It's not something that happened to him, but something his mother related to him. So he can't vouch for the experience. And I heard it just once, many years ago, so my recollection might be a little off. 

iii) In the late 80s (I think), a friend took me to his church. We didn't go for the service. Instead, We went upstairs to listen to a talk by a retired missionary. It was a small group gathering.

She was an older woman. She was the daughter of missionaries. She grew up on the mission field.

She married a Christian who was gung-ho about going into missions. Ironically, she was far less enthusiastic than he was. She knew from personal experience that foreign missions was very hard. 

But she was dutiful, so she agreed to return to the mission field with her new husband–even though she really didn't want to resume that life.

While they were there, one day her daughter told her that she (her daughter) had a death premonition. And, in fact, her daughter died two weeks later. 

At that point the missionary told us, "What can you say? It's God's will." She kind of shrugged. 

The missionary described how hard it was to get in touch with her relatives back home. The missionaries were in a backwater (in Africa, or maybe Latin America) with poor telephone communications. And when she did get hold of her parents, they were in total shock, since the death of their granddaughter (just a teenager at the time) was completely unexpected.

Aside from the premonition, what came through was her faithful submission to the will of God, despite a very difficult life. A life of hardship and wrenching disappointment.

It's possible that the story of the premonition was something she just made up, but I don't know what would motivate her to do that. She wasn't famous. She was just sharing her life-story with a handful of people in church. Not even in the main sanctuary. 

It wasn't a story about miraculous deliverance. It didn't have a happy ending. It wasn't: "God spoke to me! God gave me a vision! Now send me a 'seed faith' offering to make it happen."

My main hesitation is that I heard it just once, many years ago, so I'm fuzzy on the details. 

Now I'll move on to stronger examples. #1 is a dream I myself had, back in 2010. #'s 2-4 are anecdotes that Christian friends have shared with me (which I reproduce with their permission). These have been anonymized to protect the confidentiality of the source. I hasten to add that none of them is charismatic. #'s 5-9 are already in the public domain. Rauser is a Christian philosopher. Ruskin was a Victorian art critic and social commentator. Crespin was an opera diva. The rest are self-explanatory. 

Dreams of Jesus

I'd like to comment on this post by atheist philosophy prof. Eric Sotnak:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/10/18/dream-a-little-dream-of-me/

To put this in context, Sotnak mentions this claim:

Leventhal, professor of church missions and ministries and director of the graduate school of ministry program at Southern Evangelical Seminary, told those gathered at SES' 23rd annual National Conference on Christian apologetics in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday that Jesus even appeared to people during the Holocaust.
As an example, Leventhal shared the testimony of a Jewish man named Joseph who during the Holocaust was forced to work in a Nazi labor camp. 

Joseph had sworn vengeance against his Lutheran neighbors who refused to help him and his family. 

"He made a vow, a vow of only one thing: He would never stop hating his so-called Christian neighbors. He would always hate their Christian God; their Jesus would be his enemy as long as he lived," said Leventhal. 

"His hatred for Christians and their Jesus grew with each passing day until one dark evening in his bunk, a night that would change Joseph's life forever, Jesus appeared to Joseph." 

Quoting from Joseph's testimony, Leventhal recounted that on that night: "Jesus appeared to me. In the darkness of my hatred for Christians and their Jesus, Jesus appeared to me. I recognized Him in a split second, I knew who He was and His first words to me were 'Joseph, I love you. I died for you. You will survive.'" 

http://www.christianpost.com/news/jesus-still-appears-to-people-in-dreams-even-god-haters-christian-apologist-says-170855/

That's Sotnak's immediate frame of reference. Now for Sotnak's comments.

His claim isn’t that people have dreams in which Jesus figures as part of the dream, but rather that Jesus, himself, appears in the dream. I suspect that Leventhal does not think that every dream involving Jesus counts as an appearance of him, though...Leventhal claims that there have been cases where people have converted to Christianity as a result of dreaming of Jesus. This may be true (though one story he tells of such a conversion has the ring of legend, I think), but it is not clear why Leventhal thinks these are cases of genuine appearance.

Speaking for myself, I find the testimony credible. But I have a different plausibility structure than an atheist like Sotnak. He doesn't bother to explain why he thinks that story has a legendary ring. The Holocaust is a central research interest of Leventhal's, so it's reasonable to think he relies on good sources. Admittedly, it would be helpful to know the source of this particular anecdote. Perhaps he cited his source at the apologetics conference, referenced in the article. 

There is also something very strange about the whole idea of someone appearing in a dream. The whole notion treats dreams as having a real space within which actual existing things and people come and go.

I have no idea why Sotnak conceptualizes the relationship in those terms. Here's a different model: the character in the dream isn't Jesus directly; rather, the character represents or simulates Jesus. If Jesus wishes to communicate with someone in a dream, he produces a character who represents him. 

To take a comparison, when I see someone on TV, is that a real person? Strictly speaking, the electronic image isn't a real person. Rather, the image represents or simulates a real person. As a philosophy prof., Sotnak ought to be able to come up with models like that.  

There is also the question of how I would know that the person appearing was, in fact, Jesus. It won’t do to say, “well, it obviously was Jesus – after all, it looked like him.” 

That's a very good question. It's a question that charismatic Christians need to ponder, since many of them lack critical discernment. 

i) One possible explanation is subliminal telepathic communication. If Jesus is who he says he is, surely he has the ability to plant in the dreamer's subconscious the idea that this is Jesus. 

ii) Or in some cases a dream might be veridical because it contains information that the dreamer didn't know, which he can corroborate after he awakens. 

iii) However, it also depends on the purpose of the dream. Suppose the value of the dream isn't evidentiary. Rather, suppose the dream functions as a stimulus to prompt someone who's indifferent or antipathetic to Christianity to seriously consider it for the first time, and to do so in a receptive frame of mind. Suppose the dreamer undergoes Christian conversion as a result of that process. His warrant for Christian faith isn't the dream itself, but the whole process that precipitating incident set in motion. In that case, it isn't necessary to verify that Jesus appeared to the dreamer. 

iii) There's also the question about why someone would dream about Jesus in the first place. How often does Sotnak dream about Jesus? If that happens out of the blue, with no preparation, then that may require a special explanation. To take Leventhal's example, why would a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp, who hates Christians, have a dream like that?

Am I to think that Jesus didn’t appear to me as he likely would have looked in life, but rather as he is depicted in popular iconography (with strongly Caucasian features – perhaps with blue eyes?

i) To begin with, Sotnak seems to be pretty ignorant regarding artistic representations of Jesus. Sure, you have Aryan depictions. However, the Jesus in El Greco paintings is not a blue-eyed Jesus. Rather, he's a Spanish Jesus. Does the Jesus in Byzantine icons have blue eyes? What about Italian Renaissance paintings of Jesus? Unsurprisingly, they look…Italian! The iconography of Jesus varies from country to country. Artistic depictions of Jesus often take on the ethnic features of the country in question. Doesn't Sotnak know that? If not, shouldn't he bother to inform himself? For instance:

https://churchpop.com/2016/02/02/japanese-christian-art/

https://churchpop.com/2015/07/02/jesus-black-man-depictions/

https://churchpop.com/2015/06/15/if-jesus-had-been-korean-20-rare-paintings-of-the-life-of-christ/

ii) More to the point, what would be the point of Jesus appearing to someone in a dream if he was unrecognizable to the dreamer? If Jesus does appear to people in dreams and visions, we'd expect him to do so in culturally identifiable forms. Sotnak's disdain for Christianity blinds him from considering the implications of the claim on its own terms. Sure, he doesn't believe that Jesus really appears to anyone, but considered as a hypothetical proposition, if Jesus were to appear to someone, it would be counterproductive to look like he did in the 1C–in the event that would be unrecognizable to the dreamer. A philosophy prof. should be able to consider the internal logic of the position, even if he rejects the position. 

Then there is the question of why, if someone wanted to communicate with me, they would choose to attempt doing so in a dream, especially if we have reason to think they could do so in other, much less ambiguous ways. It is too easy to chalk a dream up to imagination. 

It's odd that a philosophy prof. is unable to consider obvious counterexamples. For instance, if a culture puts great stock in oneiromancy, it might make sense of Jesus to exploit that entrée. If dreams are significant to some people, God might use that medium. 

By analogy, if I were to find a note taped to my door that read: “You shall carve exactly six pumpkins this Halloween. Sincerely, Jesus” I would surmise that it had been written by a prankster.

But the problem with that analogy is that a prankster doesn't have access to our minds. That's quite different from the ability to insert yourself into somebody's dream. 

Weeping Madonnas

And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain (Rev 13:15).

I'm going to comment on this article:

http://www.tyndalehouse.com/Bulletin/60=2009/5%20O'Connell.pdf

O'Connell raises some good objections to the mass hallucinatory interpretation of the Resurrection accounts:

i) Even assuming that his examples are best construed as mass hallucinations, these usually involve a religious expectation. So that introduces an autosuggestive dynamic. But the resurrection of Jesus was contrary to the expectation of the disciples. 

ii) He also makes the point that in the cited cases, the vision never carries on a conversation with the recipient. 

However, his case against the hallucinatory interpretation of the Resurrection accounts is far weaker than it could be, due to many dubious assumptions in his analysis.

i) As he himself admits, some reported Marian sightings could be optical illusions. That's different from a hallucination.

ii) There's no a priori reason to treat visions of Jesus (or Mary) as hallucinations. That's a prejudicial classification. There's no reason to assume that Jesus would never appear to someone in a vision. At least, I don't think there is, and O'Connell never offers a supporting argument for his assumption. He just takes it for granted. 

iii) A possible objection is that no one knows what Jesus looks like. So modern-day visions of Jesus (or medieval visions) necessarily mimic customary iconography. However, I don't think that, of itself, is a strong objection. Precisely because no one knows what Jesus looks like, if Jesus did appear to someone, he'd have to assume a recognizable appearance based on cultural expectations.

iii) The very fact that ancient Jews (and Gentile) believed in ghosts and visions means they'd distinguish ghosts and visions from a resurrection. When the Gospels record Jesus predicting his resurrection from the dead, it must mean something other than returning from the grave as a ghost or vision, since there'd be nothing special about a postmortem appearance in that respect. Rather, it has to stand in contrast to ghosts and visions. And that's already the case in Matthew and Mark, even before we get to the accounts in Luke, John, and 1 Corinthians which explicitly stress the physicality of his resurrection.

iv) I'd add that this undercuts O'Connell's angelic interpretation of some Resurrection appearances. Moreover, his angelic interpretation suffers from parallelomania. In addition, the luminosity of Christ in Acts 9 is no more angelic than his luminosity at the Transfiguration. 

v) It's a mistake to assume that sightings of Jesus and sightings of Mary must have the same explanation. To begin with, I'm automatically dubious about weeping or bleeding madonnas where the statue or icon is in the custody of a church or monastery. That's not subject to round the clock public surveillance. Rather, that provides after hours opportunities for monks and priests to touch up the statue or icon. In other words, it's easy to stage. 

vi) However, I don't necessarily assume that all Marian sightings must either be hoaxes or hallucinations. Before getting to my own explanation, let's consider another alternative. Is is possible that Mary sometimes does appear to people? It might be argued that this would be an encouragement to faith. It might also be argued that this would be a divine accommodation to culture. If that's the only religious culture which some people are in a position to know, and if God wishes to contact them, then it will be through their cultural categories. Or so goes the argument. 

vii) Having said that, I don't think it's theologically tenable in the case of Marian sightings. If some reportedly weeping or bleeding or animated madonnas are genuine, that would inevitably foster the kind of superstitious idolatry and totemism which the Bible constantly condemns. So we'd have conflicting revelations. Biblical revelations which condemn the veneration of images, and revelatory images of Mary. These don't mesh. 

viii) In addition, this fosters a Mary-centered piety that makes her a rival to Jesus in pious devotion. Indeed, the theological interpretation of weeping or bleeding madonnas is that Mary shares in the Passion of Christ. But that's wholly unacceptable from a Biblical standpoint. 

I realize that Catholic apologists rationalize Marian devotion on the grounds that this supposedly redounds to devotion to Jesus. But other issues aside, if Jesus is the ultimate object of devotion, why not more reports of weeping, bleeding, or animated icons and statues of Jesus rather than Mary? Why not cut to the chase? 

ix) Furthermore, you have reports of weeping or bleeding madonnas in both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox settings. Yet these can't very well attest both theological traditions, inasmuch as these represent competing theological traditions.

x) In principle, there's a difference between a miracle that happens to Catholics, and a miracle that's inseparable from a Catholic theological paradigm. A reported miracle that, if authentic, inevitably lends credence to the theological tradition which sponsors it. 

A Catholic or Orthodox apologist might object that my interpretation of Scripture begs the question. They might accuse me of special pleading. But that won't work.

For one thing, we have to compare some religious claims to Biblical criteria. That's what the Biblical criteria is for. Take the classic criteria for a false prophet (Deut 13). And notice that this makes allowance for a bona fide miracle. 

Moreover, Catholics (and Orthodox) don't have a monopoly on reported miracles. You have Protestant parallels. So these can't be cited to uniquely evidence the claims of Rome. 

xi) In addition, we have an example of an animated statue in Rev 13:15. A statue that promotes veneration. Yet that's occultic. So there's biblical precedent for the possibility of phenomena analogous to weeping and bleeding madonnas, yet this doesn't imply that God caused the miracle. 

xii) It might be objected that attributing such phenomena to the dark side, if mistaken, borders on the unpardonable sin. However, we're not talking about Jesus, but Mary. Moreover, passages like Deut 13 and Gal 1:8 require us to make allowance for that explanation. And given conflicting evidence, we have no choice but to take sides. 

Donkeys and dream omens

The donkey is widely associated with divination. This association is observed in late-third-millennium Sumer (§2.5.1), early-second-millennium Egypt (§2.1.1.1.), late-second-millennium Ugarit (§2.2.1.3), second-first-millennium Mesopotamia (§2.4.2), and, I would suggest, at first-millennium Deir Alla (§2.2.2.1; cf. Num 22-24). The donkey is particularly common in dream omens (§§2.1.1.1, 2.2.1.3, 2.4.2, 2.5.1). K. Way, Donkeys in the Biblical World (Eisenbrauns 2011), 99.

This raises the question of whether Balaam saw and heard his donkey speaking in a vision. If you combine the fact that donkeys were common in dream omens with the further fact that Balaam was a seer, that makes sense. Indeed, the text credits him with visions, night visions, and/or prophetic dreams  (Num 22:20; 24; 24:3-4,15-17). 

That would parallel the angelic apparition. In Scripture, angels appear to people in dreams and visions. It would make sense if he was in a trance state at the time. 

That's a neglected interpretation option. It's important to understand an ancient text it its cultural context.