QUESTION: Why do you suppose no one has had visions of Jesus since the Gospels? And why have there been visions of Mary instead? RESPONSE: Another good question. The answer is: people *do* have visions of Jesus (all the time)! I could have approached the topic in a number of ways in my book, but this is what I say there: ************************************************ Jesus’ Appearances in the Modern World And consider the modern appearances of Jesus. Some of these are documented by Phillip H. Wiebe, in his book Visions of Jesus: Direct Encounters from the New Testament to Today (My footnote says this: I should stress that Wiebe is not a religious fanatic on a mission. He is chair of the Philosophy Department at Trinity Western University and is a serious scholar. Still, at the end of the day, he thinks that something “transcendent” has led to some of the modern visions of Jesus he recounts. In other words, they – or some of them – are veridical.) Wiebe narrates twenty-eight case studies, which he examines from psychological, neuropsychological, mentalist, and other perspectives. Included is a vision of Jesus experienced by Hugh Montefiore, a well-known New Testament scholar at Cambridge University and later bishop of the Church of England, who converted to Christianity from Judaism at age sixteen because he had a vision in which Jesus appeared to him and told him to “follow me” – words that, at the time, the young Monefiore did not know were drawn from the New Testament. Of particular interest are instances in which Jesus is said to have appeared to entire groups of people, rather than just to an individual. No case is more intriguing than the last one Wiebe recounts in his study, that of Kenneth Logie, a preacher in a Pentecostal Holiness Church in Oakland California in the 1950s. There are two appearances worth detailing. The first occurred in … To see this and other posts in full go ehrmanblog.org/modern-appearances-of-jesus-for-members/ and join the blog by clicking the Register button!
Posted on: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 21:52:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015