Atheist Dick Harfield on Paul's encounter with jesus

 

A PERSON'S QUESTION: What happened to the people who were in Paul’s entourage? Did they also see Jesus, and did any of them go blind, or was Paul travelling alone on the Damascus Road?


HARFIELD'S ANSWER: The author of Acts saw no reason to maintain consistency across the three accounts of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus so, although substantially similar, there are some interesting differences.

In each account in Acts, there was a blinding light:

• Paul saw the light in in the version at Acts 9:3-8, but Paul’s men did not.
• The whole entourage heard Jesus’ voice.
• At Acts 22:6-11, Paul’s men saw the light but did not hear Jesus’ voice.
• Paul’s men probably saw the light at Acts 26:13-19, as they fell down; we are not told if they heard Jesus’ voice.

In the account of Paul's conversion, Jesus is supposed to have remarked to Paul as he lay on the ground, "It hurts you to kick against the goad [or 'pricks']" (Acts 9:5, 26:14). This should give a good indication of how Paul would have felt, lying blinded and helpless on the ground. However, this is a quotation from the ancient play, the Bacchae, by Euripides, and there are other parallels with the play and at least one other use of the same play in Acts of the Apostles.

Paul never mentions this episode anywhere in his epistles, so it is probable he was never actually made blind. After all, he says that immediately after his conversion, he made his way directly to Arabia (Petrea) — not to Damascus at all.

MY RESPONSE TO HARFIELD'S ANSWER

The piece starts from a real observation: the three conversion accounts in Acts do differ, and scholars discuss this. But several of its specific claims are inaccurate, and its conclusions go further than the evidence allows. Point by point:

1. The witnesses (Acts 9, 22, 26)

The basic tension is real. Acts 9:7 says the companions heard the voice but saw no one. Acts 22:9 says they saw the light but did not hear the voice. Harmonisers often argue that the Greek verb in 22:9 means “did not understand.” Some translations, such as the NIV, render it that way. That reading is possible, but it is a rescue rather than the plain sense.

Two details are wrong, though:

• Acts 9 never says the men did not see the light. It says they saw no one, meaning no figure. The text is silent about whether they saw the light.
• Acts 26 is not “probably.” Verse 13 says outright that the light shone around Paul and those travelling with him, and verse 14 says they all fell.

The author also missed some stronger discrepancies:

• In Acts 9 the companions stand. In Acts 26 they all fall.
• Acts 26 mentions neither Paul’s blindness nor Ananias. Jesus gives the commission to the Gentiles directly, not through an intermediary.

2. “Kick against the goads”

• Wrong reference. The phrase appears in Acts 26:14 only. In Acts 9:5 it is a late scribal addition. It survives in the KJV through the Textus Receptus, but modern critical texts and translations omit it.
• Not a quotation from the Bacchae. It is a common Greek proverb. It appears in Pindar (Pythian 2), Aeschylus (Agamemnon and Prometheus Bound), and elsewhere in Euripides, as well as in the Bacchae (around line 795). So it cannot be pinned to one play.
• The Bacchae link is still defensible. Dennis MacDonald, John Moles and John Weaver have argued for deliberate echoes. Gamaliel’s warning about being found “fighting against God” (Acts 5:39) uses the same idea as theomachos in the play. The miraculous prison escapes, with doors opening and chains falling off (Acts 12 and 16), resemble Dionysus’ escape. So the literary-dependence point is a serious scholarly position, just stated too strongly here.
• The proverb is misread. It is not about pain or how Paul “felt lying blinded.” The image is an ox kicking the farmer’s goad, so it means futile resistance to a higher power. In Acts 26, where it appears, blindness isn’t even mentioned.

3. Paul’s silence and the Arabia claim

This is the weakest part.

• Paul does mention the event. His letters refer to his experience of the risen Christ several times: 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:8, and Galatians 1:12–16. 2 Corinthians 4:6 may echo light imagery. What he never gives is a narrative with details such as a road, a light or blindness. Arguing from that silence that he was “never made blind” is weak, because he rarely narrates biographical details anyway.
• Galatians contradicts the “not to Damascus at all” claim. Galatians 1:17 says Paul went into Arabia “and returned to Damascus.” Returning implies he was in or near Damascus when the event happened. 2 Corinthians 11:32–33 also places him in Damascus early on. The word “immediately” in Galatians 1:16 most naturally goes with “I did not consult with flesh and blood,” not with an itinerary.

There is a real Acts–Galatians tension here, and the author could have used it. Acts never mentions Arabia, and it brings Paul to Jerusalem fairly soon after Damascus. Galatians insists on about three years before his first Jerusalem visit, and only a short one. That discrepancy is well recognized, but it doesn’t support the claim that Paul bypassed Damascus.

4. “Saw no reason to maintain consistency”

This is one reading, but not the only one. Ancient historians routinely varied retellings to suit speaker and audience. Acts 22 is Paul speaking to a Jerusalem crowd, and Acts 26 is Paul speaking before Agrippa. Studies by Ronald Witherup and Daniel Marguerat treat the variation as deliberate literary craft. Even if you think it was deliberate, that doesn’t make the accounts historically reliable. But “careless” and “unconcerned” are not the only options.

Overall

The author is right that the accounts conflict and that Luke may draw on Greek literature. But the piece:

• misreads Acts 9 and Acts 26 on the light,
• cites a verse that is a later scribal addition,
• treats a common proverb as a quotation from one play,
• misunderstands what the proverb means,
• and draws a conclusion about Damascus that Galatians 1:17 directly undercuts.

A stronger version would rest on the textual discrepancies, the MacDonald-style literary parallels, and the real Acts–Galatians chronology problem.