Does voice hearing “explain” some of the most significant spiritual and religious experiences of the New Testament?Īs previously argued in Chapter 2, the complexities incurred by the existence of overlapping and diverse accounts of the phenomenon that might be offered are significant.

There is thus an important case to answer. 2 And, as will be discussed later in this chapter, there have been various attempts to “explain” the resurrection appearances of Jesus on the basis of bereavement-related hallucinations. (2014, p.5214) list “Paul on the road to Damascus”, amongst foundational religious figures, as having had “Culturally Meaningful” hallucinations. For example, Jesus and St Paul are listed by John Watkins in his book Hearing Voices (2008, p.30) amongst other “famous voice hearers”, 1 and Kauffman (2016) also lists them both as founders of religion who had “verifiable persistent non-drug-assisted hallucinations”. However, the voices that are identifiable are very significant and, as with the Old Testament, there have again been those who are quick and unhesitating in their identification of examples of voice hearing within its pages. In contrast to the Old Testament, the New Testament seems to offer many fewer examples of what might be understood as “voice hearing”.

Binding of isaac revelations chapter 2