Hearing the Word and Seeing the Light: Voice and Vision in Acts

Abstract

The theme of sight plays a central role throughout the book of Acts. While some scholars have identiﬁed this theme, especially with respect to visions, they typically overlook the intersection of sight and audition. This article argues that Luke pairs seeing with hearing and emphasizes the sense of hearing to an even greater degree. The article ﬁrst addresses sight and visions in Acts and then focuses on Stephen’s vision in Acts 7. This is the one vision in Acts that does not involve divinely bestowed words, yet it still betrays Luke’s preference for hearing – and speaking – God’s word. The article then explores key themes that emerge from Stephen’s vision regarding the visual and verbal modes of perception in Acts as a whole. Overall, Luke’s emphasis on the spoken ‘word’ reﬂects his reliance on Jewish scriptural traditions that likewise highlight listening as a key epistemological posture.

Keywords

Audition Luke senses sight perception visions

If the Jews could begin their most heartfelt prayer, ‘Hear, O Israel’, the Greek philosophers were in effect urging, ‘See, O Hellas’ (Jay 1993: 33).

It has become a cultural maxim in Western thought that the ancient Greeks were a visual culture, whereas the ancient Hebrews were an aural culture. As David Chidester (1992) recounts in his book Word and Light, discourse in the West often claims that the Greeks revered ‘the eye’, whereas the Jews revered ‘the word’, or speciﬁcally God’s word. For the Greeks, the divine existed within nature and was observable to the eye, whereas for the Jews, the divine existed beyond nature and was heard with the ear. Indeed, for both Greeks and Jews, seeing and hearing were distinct perceptual systems that had different – and often opposite – associations. Seeing was associated with agency, immanence and continuity, whereas hearing was associated with receptivity, transcendence and discontinuity. According to ancient optical and auditory theories, for example, the eye functioned as an active agent that formed a continuous bond with the object of sight, whereas the ear passively received sound from an external agent.¹ Yet while both Jews and Greeks distinguished between the senses of seeing and hearing, the Jews, unlike the Greeks, lifted up hearing as the primary way to obey the divine.² Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, this elevation of the ear within Judaism has found renewed interest among intellectuals who critique the domination of the eye in the West.³ Such critiques trace the rise of Western ocularcentricism from the Greeks to the inheritors of Greek Platonic thought – namely the Christians – and point to the Jewish preference for hearing God’s word as evidence for the possibility of valuing different epistemological modes.

Of course, characterizing Greek culture (and subsequent Christianity) as ‘visual’ and Jewish culture as ‘verbal’ is an overstatement. Greek culture was certainly ‘a culture of light’, as classicist Eleftheria Bernidaki-Aldous observes, but Greek authors also lauded the verbal, especially with respect to the spoken word.⁴ (Indeed, speech and aurality were often linked in ancient discourse, although some texts, such as Sir. 17.1-7, list speaking and hearing as two separate but related ‘senses’.)⁵ Moreover, Christian creedal debates at the Council of Nicaea eventually settled on the language of ‘Light from Light’ to describe the relationship between God and Jesus, but not all Christians privileged visual over verbal modes when discussing the human–divine relationship.⁶ And while many Jewish texts emphasize the importance of the verbal, encapsulated most famously in the Shema (Deut. 6.4-5), Jewish texts such as Isaiah, for instance, also frequently depict sight as a central metaphor for perceiving God.⁷ Biblical scholar Yael Avrahami (2012) has even argued that Jewish scripture as a whole is more visually oriented in that sight is the main sense in biblical epistemology, especially at the level of discourse.⁸ Furthermore, religious discourse more broadly features both seeing and hearing as the most prominent modes of sensory perception and often pairs these two senses together (insofar as we can discuss seeing and hearing in the ancient world as ‘senses’).⁹ Indeed, religious texts are often synesthetic, meaning that there is a sensory change – or a change in the typical way we recognize the world – when humans encounter the divine.¹⁰ In an effort to express divine–human encounters, authors sometimes invert or conﬂate different perceptual modes, claiming, for instance, that a person sees a sound or hears a light.

Yet while the association of the ‘visual’ Greeks and the ‘verbal’ Hebrews needs continued qualiﬁcation, this association should not be wholly discarded. Numerous Greek texts – especially Greek philosophical texts – typically rank sight at the top of a hierarchy of senses, a tradition that goes back to Plato himself.¹¹ And while sight may be the dominant sense in Jewish scripture conceptually and linguistically (per Avrahami 2012: 69-74), the posture of hearing remains key in scriptural texts when it comes to divine–human relations. Unlike Greek texts that often rank hearing below sight or disparage hearing altogether, Jewish scriptural texts repeatedly represent receptivity to the divine through the sense of hearing and do not identify sight as a superior sense.¹² Some texts, such as Deuteronomy, even lift up hearing – not seeing – as a primary sense.¹³

Within this larger debate, the book of Acts provides a pivotal place to unravel these intertwining threads concerning the visual and verbal. First, Acts narrates the outward expansion of the gospel within Greek culture and its reception among both Jews and Gentiles. Luke shapes his narrative to depict this outward expansion of the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1.8), and he also has an abiding interest in connecting the gospel to the world stage, a world stage that mainly falls within the Greek East. Secondly, scholars have often observed that sight is a prominent theme throughout Luke’s two volumes, especially Acts.¹⁴ Luke emphasizes the sense of sight in his gospel, characterizing Jesus as one who brings ‘sight to the blind’ (Lk. 4.18; cf. 7.18-23), and Luke’s emphasis on sight continues in Acts. In short, Acts provides a prime place to situate an early Christian text along the ‘audition versus vision’ spectrum. By doing so, we can evaluate widespread assumptions that label Judaism as logocentric and Gentile, or ‘Hellenistic’, Christianity as ocularcentric.¹⁵ Luke himself does not directly engage the ‘senses’ debate, but his narrative can enable us to see where his predispositions lie.

Given Luke’s emphasis on sight and the Gentile reception of the gospel, as well as the scholarly tendency to identify Luke himself as a Gentile, we might be tempted to think that Luke’s emphasis on sight derives from his larger Hellenistic milieu. In other words, Luke’s incorporation of the theme of sight evinces the so-called ocularcentricism of the wider Greek world. Yet while sight plays a central role in Acts, hearing also plays a central – if not greater – role. Unlike many of his Greek, or ‘Hellenized’, contemporaries, Luke does not rank the sense of sight above hearing.¹⁶ Instead, seeing and hearing are often wed together in Acts, with hearing – and its correlate speaking – emerging as the more prominent of the two. Luke is of course inﬂuenced by his surrounding Greek culture, but he is ultimately indebted to the tradition within Judaism that identiﬁes hearing as a primary way to perceive God and to follow God rightly.

To explore Luke’s reliance on hearing as a key epistemological posture toward the divine, this article will ﬁrst address the theme of sight in Acts, focusing especially on the theme of visions. Visions feature prominently throughout Luke’s second volume, yet with the exception of Stephen’s vision in Acts 7, all the visions in Acts are in fact auditory visions. That is to say, the visions primarily involve the reception of divine speech, not images. The next section will explore in detail the exception of Stephen’s vision and discuss how even this vision betrays Luke’s favoring of the verbal. After situating Stephen’s vision within its verbal context, the article will then explore how this analysis opens up key themes concerning the visual and verbal in Acts as a whole. Finally, the article concludes by reﬂecting on how Luke’s emphasis on hearing and proclaiming God’s word evinces his reliance on Jewish ‘verbal’ traditions and why Luke connects the verbal with the visual in the manner he does.

Sight and Visions in Acts

As scholars have often noted, sight language plays an important role throughout Luke’s two volumes.¹⁷ In both Luke and Acts (as well as in religious discourse more broadly), the metaphor of sight is linked to perceiving God in a manner that conveys agency.¹⁸ In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus speciﬁcally characterizes himself as one who brings ‘recovery of sight to the blind’ (Lk. 4.18), and he conﬁrms his identity as the coming one because he brings sight to the blind (7.21-22). Jesus reaches out to the physically blind (14.7-24; 18.35-43), and Jesus, along with other agents of God, is associated with light (1.77-79; 2.32; 16.8; cf. Acts 13.47; 26.23).¹⁹ Jesus also links light, blindness and the eye with morality (Lk. 6.39-42; 11.33-36) and reﬂects the theory of extramission – or the theory that the eye actively emits rays toward its object – when he describes the eye as ‘the lamp of the body’ (11.34).²⁰ During the passion narrative, Luke distinctly casts Jesus as both the subject and object of sight, as when Jesus’ gaze prompts Peter to weep (22.61) and when others actively gaze upon his cruciﬁed body (23.35, 48-49).²¹ ‘Seeing’ Jesus is also key during his transﬁguration and resurrection appearances, especially on the way to Emmaus when the disciples’ eyes ‘were kept from recognizing’ Jesus and are later ‘opened’ (24.16, 31).²²

In Acts, sight continues to play an important role in relation to active perception. Paul loses and recovers his sight in Acts 9, and he participates in the blinding of the Jewish prophet Bar-Jesus in Acts 13.²³ Peter says that being an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry is the requirement for Judas’ replacement (Acts 1.21-22), and other followers exercise their own piercing gazes akin to Jesus (3.4; 11.6; 13.9; 14.9; 23.1). Light (and sight) represents divine revelation, which is increasingly extended to the Gentiles (e.g., 13.47), and signs – which are actively performed – become a visible conﬁrmation of the divine (e.g., 2.22). Divinely bestowed visions also occur throughout the narrative of Acts and frequently direct the course of the gospel’s dispersion.²⁴

Of all these visual elements within Acts, which will be explored in more detail below, the inclusion of visions is especially noteworthy. In the New Testament, visions appear most frequently in the book of Acts, with the exception of the book of Revelation.²⁵ During Peter’s Pentecost speech, Luke prepares us for these numerous visions in Acts when Peter quotes the prophet Joel, saying, ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all ﬂesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams’ (2.17). Seeing visions signiﬁes the last days, according to Luke, and these words ﬁnd fulﬁllment in seven narrated visions that occur in Acts. Of these ‘visions’ or ‘dreams’, the ﬁrst vision appears to Stephen in Acts 7.²⁶ Paul then sees a vision on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, which he retells in Acts 22 and 26, and this vision intersects with the disciple Ananias’s vision in the same chapter.²⁷ In Acts 10, Peter and the Gentile Cornelius have intersecting visions, which Peter – like Paul – goes on to retell (11.1-18). Finally, Paul receives two more visions in Acts 16 and 18 respectively: one a ‘vision’ (ὅραμα) of a Macedonian man pleading with Paul (16.9), and the other a ‘vision’ (ὅραμα) of ‘the Lord’ that tells Paul to remain in Corinth (18.9). In addition to these seven direct visions, we also hear of three visions indirectly: Stephen recounts Moses’ vision in the wilderness (7.30-38), Jesus mentions that Paul is having a vision during Ananias’s own vision (9.12), and Paul describes an otherwise unmentioned vision when he ﬁrst retells his Damascus road experience (22.17-21). Furthermore, the numerous angelic appearances in Acts may qualify as visionary experiences since the angels typically ὤϕθη, or ‘appear’, which is the passive form of the verb ὁράω, ‘I see’.²⁸

Dreams and visions were a prominent motif in Greco-Roman literature, but dreams and visions also frequent Jewish scriptural texts, especially the Pentateuch and Jewish apocalyptic texts.²⁹ Luke is not hermetically sealed from Greco-Roman texts, and he is, of course, shaped and inﬂuenced by such texts. Yet as John Miller argues, Luke – in his depiction of divinely bestowed visions – is in fact mainly inﬂuenced by Jewish vision accounts, for Jewish texts assume the divine origin of visions as opposed to many Greco-Roman texts that evince suspicion concerning the divine origin of visions (2007: 21-63, esp. 62-63).³⁰ What is more, many of the visions in Acts also resemble visions – or more speciﬁcally theophanies – in Jewish texts in that they are predominantly auditory.³¹ As in theophanies, divine communication in Acts sometimes includes dramatic visual elements, such as light and ﬁre, but the visions themselves mainly occur at the aural level.³² Although auditory visions were common in Greco-Romans texts as well, Luke unapologetically records humans responding to visions in which they are directly addressed by the divine.³³

To be clear, some of these auditory visions in Acts contain striking visual elements that intersect with the verbal in key ways. Peter’s vision in Acts 10, for example, includes both an enigmatic image of a sheet-like object and a divine ‘voice’ (ϕωνή) that addresses Peter a total of three times (10.9-16; cf. 11.4-10). Peter is at ﬁrst puzzled by this vision (10.17), but after he hears Cornelius’s account of his own auditory vision (vv. 30-33), Peter then understands that his vision concerns the inclusion of ‘profane’ Gentiles (v. 34; cf. v. 28).³⁴ Thus, while Peter’s vision includes an evocative image, Peter only understands this image – and thus God’s will – by listening to God’s voice and by hearing the Gentile Cornelius. As with Peter, Paul’s vision in Acts 9 also contains dramatic visual elements. Jesus appears as a ‘light’ (ϕῶς) that temporarily blinds Paul (here Saul) (9.3; cf. 22.6; 26.23), and his restoration of sight signiﬁes his newfound ability to ‘see’ Jesus. Yet Jesus also appears as a ‘voice’ (ϕωνή) that addresses Saul by name and leaves his travelling companions ‘speechless’ (ἐνεοί) (9.7; cf. 22.7, 9; 26.14). Furthermore, the content of Saul’s ‘vision’ comprises Jesus’ speech (9.4-6; cf. 22.7-8, 10; 26.14-18). The disciple Ananias then receives a strictly auditory vision during which he is told – at least according to some manuscripts – that Saul is simultaneously having a vision of Ananias restoring his sight, even though Saul is blind and cannot see (9.12).³⁵ Jesus’ words prompt Ananias to restore Saul’s sight, and ‘immediately’ (εὐθέως) after he recovers Saul begins proclaiming the good news (9.19b-20). Saul’s turn from persecutor to proclaimer is now complete (7.58–8.3; 9.1-30), and his loss and recovery of sight mainly enables him to proclaim the good news for others to hear.³⁶ Saul now perceives God’s action in Jesus without impediment, and he proclaims the word as a result, even though this word – at least initially – falls on deaf ears (9.23-25, 29).

For the most part, however, visions in Acts primarily comprise divine speech, and many lack such vivid visual details entirely. Some visions brieﬂy describe the one delivering the divine discourse, as when Paul sees a man of Macedonia pleading with him, saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’ (16.9), and Cornelius sees an angel of God approaching him before the angel speaks (10.3; cf. 10.30; 11.13). Other visions lack even such descriptors and instead immediately plunge into direct discourse. For instance, Ananias’s vision is strictly auditory, as is Paul’s account of his trance-like encounter with Jesus in the Jerusalem temple (22.17-21) and his ﬁnal vision in Corinth (18.9-10). Paul’s two retellings of his Damascus road vision also increasingly focus on Jesus’ words (22.7-8, 10; 26.14-18), and angelic appearances almost always involve divinely delivered words.³⁷ Moreover, divine speech also sounds at key moments in Acts without any reference to a vision. ‘The Lord’ speaks to Paul in 23.11, and Paul recounts what an angel of the Lord says to him in 27.23-24.³⁸ The Spirit also speaks as a character in its own right, as when the Spirit commands the church in Antioch to ‘set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’ (13.2).³⁹ Indeed, the divine ‘voice’ (ϕωνή) reverberates at key moments in Luke–Acts, and this heavenly speech does not always manifest itself in visions.⁴⁰

Stephen’s Voice and Vision in Acts 7

Of all the visions in Acts, Stephen’s vision in Acts 7 is the most visually oriented since it lacks divine speech.⁴¹ In 7.55, Luke writes that Stephen ‘gazed [ἀτενίσας] into heaven and saw [εἶδεν] the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God’. Neither God nor Jesus speaks to Stephen, and Luke twice reiterates that Stephen beholds this heavenly presence by using the verbs ‘gaze’ (ἀτενίζω) and ‘see’ (ὁράω). Yet when Stephen’s vision is situated within its immediate context, it becomes clear that this vision ultimately furthers Luke’s abiding concern in speech and hearing. Stephen’s vision occurs directly after he delivers a lengthy speech – the longest speech in all of Acts – and it ultimately functions to conﬁrm Stephen’s innocence in the face of false charges. Indeed, Luke’s emphasis on ‘the verbal’ is evident prior to Stephen’s speech (6.8-15), in the speech itself (7.1-53) and in the aftermath of the speech wherein Stephen sees his vision (7.54–8.1). In each of these sections, the visual and verbal intertwine, but Luke lifts up the verbal, and more speciﬁcally hearing, as a key way to discern God’s will.

Prior to his speech, Stephen ﬁrst comes to the attention of his Jewish adversaries because he performs ‘great wonders and signs among the people’ (6.8). Stephen’s performance of these visual ‘signs’ (σημεῖα), however, leads the antagonists to ‘argue [συζητοῦντες] with him’ (v. 9). Stephen’s adversaries cannot withstand ‘the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke [ἐλάλει]’ (v. 10).⁴² And so the adversaries secretly instigate some men to claim they have ‘heard’ (ἀκηκόαμεν) Stephen speak ‘blasphemous words’ (ῥήματα βλάσϕημα) against Moses and God (v. 11), an accusation that false witnesses repeat before the Jewish council (vv. 13-14). Thus, while Stephen’s ‘signs’ may initially bring him into his opponents’ purview, Stephen’s Spirit-inspired speech results in his forceful seizure, as well as the duplicitous speech levied against him. Stephen’s adversaries do not listen to him, and they try to ﬁght Stephen’s words with words of their own.

Stephen’s words do not lead to genuine hearing, but they do lead to Stephen becoming the object of other people’s sight. After stirring up the people, elders, and scribes, the instigators – along with the crowds they have incited – seize Stephen and lead him to the council (6.12). The council then ‘gazes’ (ἀτενίσαντες) at Stephen and ‘sees’ (εἶδον) that his face is like the face of an angel (6.15). The council’s ‘gazing’ and ‘seeing’ in fact forms an inclusio with Stephen’s own ‘gazing’ and ‘seeing’ later in 7.55 since Luke uses the same verbs – ἀτενίζω and ὁράω – in both instances. Stephen, then, may be the passive object of sight prior to his speech, but he also actively exercises his sight after his speech. Ultimately, however, Stephen exits Acts as the object of other people’s sight when he is killed via stoning. Luke speciﬁcally notes that there are ‘witnesses [μάρτυρες]’ present at Stephen’s death (7.58), reminding us of those who witnessed Jesus’ death (Lk. 23.35, 48-49). Luke also singles out Paul, or Saul, as an onlooker who keeps watch over the coats of the witnesses and approves of their killing Stephen (Acts 7.58; 8.1). In the end, Stephen’s words result in his visual subjection and death; Stephen becomes the ﬁrst Christian ‘martyr’ (μάρτυς) – an object of spectacle – because he is someone who ‘testiﬁes’ (μαρτύρομαι).

Stephen’s speech itself (7.1-53) likewise points to the intersection of visual and verbal modes and the special import of the verbal. This emphasis is ﬁrst evident in Stephen’s retelling of a vision; namely, God’s appearance to Moses in the burning bush (Acts 7.30-38; cf. Exod. 3.1-10). At the outset, Stephen describes this theophany in strictly visual terms. He relates that an angel ‘appeared [ὤϕθη]’ to Moses in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, ‘in the ﬂame of a burning bush’ (Acts 7.30). When Moses ‘saw [ἰδὼν]’ this ﬁery manifestation of the divine presence, he was amazed at ‘the vision [τὸ ὅραμα]’ and moved forward ‘to look [κατανοῆσαι]’ (v. 31). At this point, though, the ‘voice [ϕωνὴ] of the Lord’ interrupts Moses’ approach, saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob’ (v. 32). Moses physically reacts to this voice with trembling and now does not dare ‘to look [κατανοῆσαι]’ (v. 32). ‘The Lord’ continues to speak to Moses using direct discourse (v. 33), and God’s ﬁnal words bring together the senses of sight and hearing: ‘I have surely seen [ἰδων εἶδον] the suffering of my people in Egypt, and I have heard [ἤκουσα] their groaning, and I have come down to release them’ (v. 34).⁴³ While the voice claims that God both sees and hears (and has ‘descended [κατέβην]’), Moses cannot look upon – or ‘see’ – God. Instead, God eventually bestows Moses with ‘living words [λόγια ζῶντα]’ (v. 38) – or the Law – to give to God’s people.

In Stephen’s retelling of this famous scriptural theophany, Luke primarily depicts God’s presence as a voice that directly addresses Moses (vv. 32-34). Although God both sees and hears, humans cannot behold God; although ﬁre accompanies divine speech, the divine itself cannot be seen. Luke’s repeated claim that it was an angel who ‘appeared’ to Moses (vv. 30, 35, 38) also suggests a reluctance to describe God’s visual appearance.⁴⁴ Indeed, Luke twice repeats that the visual manifestation in the bush was an angel (v. 30), or God working through an angel (v. 35). Luke even suggests that God was ‘with the angel who spoke to [Moses]’ (v. 38), even though the voice is explicitly identiﬁed as God’s elsewhere (vv. 31, 33).⁴⁵ Overall, Luke downplays the visual manifestation of God in this vision and instead lifts up God’s words and Moses’ response. According to Luke, humans are to hear God’s voice and respond.

Luke’s logocentric depiction of Moses’ vision in the Sinai wilderness provides a striking contrast to the depiction of this same event by Luke’s contemporary Philo of Alexandria.⁴⁶ The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria was deeply indebted to Platonism in his allegorical interpretations of scripture, and his account of the burning bush likewise evinces an indebtedness to the Platonic – and wider Greek philosophical – privileging of sight over hearing.⁴⁷ Like Luke, Philo depicts the wedding of voice and vision in the Sinai wilderness and contends that the divine cannot be beheld by usual human perception. Unlike Luke, Philo encapsulates the incident of the burning bush as ‘the miracle of sight [ὄψεως]’ (Mos. 1.66).⁴⁸ Philo even describes God’s voice as visible speech during Moses’ theophany atop Mount Sinai, to which the burning bush theophany acts as a prelude. According to Philo, humans cannot hear God’s voice, but they can paradoxically see God’s voice: ‘it is the case that the voice of men is audible, but the voice of God truly visible. Why so? Because whatever God says is not words but deeds, which are judged by the eyes rather than the ears’ (Decal. 47).⁴⁹ Throughout his writings, Philo evinces this preference for the sense of sight over the sense of hearing. Sight is ‘the queen of the senses’, Philo writes, and ranks above hearing, since sight is more active and hearing more ‘womanish’ and sluggish (Abr. 150).⁵⁰ Sight is also equated with wisdom and the intellect and is thus ‘the best of the senses’ (Opif. 53), and Jacob’s name-switch from ‘Jacob’ to ‘Israel’ symbolizes his transition from ‘hearing’ to ‘seeing’ in the ascent toward perfection of knowledge (Conf. 72).⁵¹ Philo consistently privileges sight in his writings, and this privileging is evident even in his accounts of Moses’ theophanies, the most synesthetic moments in all Philo’s writings.

Contra Philo, Luke presents God’s voice as something that is primarily heard, not seen.⁵² Divine speech here – and elsewhere in Acts – occurs in a vision, but divine speech is something one hears. Luke’s subtle preference for hearing over seeing in his account of the burning bush becomes even more explicit as Stephen continues his speech. After recounting Moses’ theophany, Stephen moves to a more direct distrust of the visual, namely through his critique of idolatry (7.39-43). As Stephen goes on to explain, human attempts to behold God by crafting visual images of the divine are misguided. Stephen reprimands the Israelites who made a calf ‘idol’ (εἴδωλον) and reveled in ‘the works of their hands’ (7.41; cf. 7.43), linking this idolatrous act to the Jerusalem temple, which is a ‘house made by human hands’ (7.48). Once again, Philo’s own account of this incident is instructive by way of comparison. According to Philo, the golden calf actually represents hearing – not seeing – because the calf was made from melted down, golden earrings (Post. 165-69). Philo writes: ‘The calf, you observe, is not made out of all the things with which women deck themselves, but only their earrings [Exod. 32.2], for the lawgiver is teaching us that no manufactured god is a God for sight and in reality, but for the ear to hear of’ (Post. 166).⁵³ As in his account of Moses’ Sinaitic theophanies, Philo adheres to his sensory hierarchy and claims that hearing is ultimately inferior to seeing. Luke, on the other hand, evinces no concern in preserving the hierarchy of sight in his critique of idolatry.

At the very end of his speech, Stephen concludes this critique of visual representations of the divine by lifting up the import of hearing God. Stephen begins his speech by saying, ‘Listen [ἀκούσατε] to me’ (7.2), and he ends his speech by condemning his Jewish audience’s inability to hear.⁵⁴ Directly after Stephen critiques the idolatry of ‘our’ ancestors (ﬁrst person plural), he dramatically turns to his Jewish hearers, addressing them with the second person plural: ‘You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears’ (7.51). These listeners have uncircumcised ‘ears [ὠσίν]’ – a reproach concerning Israel’s aural deﬁciency also found in Jer. 6.10 – and they are guilty, according to Stephen, of a myriad of crimes, including opposing the Holy Spirit, killing the ‘righteous one’, and not keeping the Law (vv. 51-53). Stephen’s third and ﬁnal accusation is especially pointed given his opponents’ initial charges against Stephen. The Jewish opponents accuse Stephen of not keeping Moses’ Law (6.11, 13-14), and Stephen in turn accuses them of not keeping the Law (7.53), or the ‘living words [λόγια ζῶντα]’ that Moses received and gave to God’s people (7.38).

In the immediate aftermath of this weighty accusation, Luke continues to paint Stephen’s opponents as ones who do not rightly hear God. ‘After hearing [ἀκούοντες] these things’, Stephen’s Jewish auditors react with anger: their hearts are enraged and they grind their teeth at Stephen (7.54). At this juncture, Stephen becomes ﬁlled with the Holy Spirit, and he gazes into heaven and sees his vision (7.55). As noted earlier, no divine voice accompanies this vision. Yet Stephen immediately communicates the content of this vision to his auditors by repeating the narrator’s words almost verbatim: ‘Behold! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right [hand] of God!’ (7.56) (// ‘he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right [hand] of God’ [7.55]).⁵⁵ In response to this declaration, however, his auditors ‘cover their ears [ὦτα]’ and rush forward to kill him (7.57-60). In short, Stephen’s narration of his vision results in his death; his hearers’ earlier response of anger now escalates to violence. By refusing to hear Stephen’s words, his Jewish listeners demonstrate once again their resistance to the Spirit. Unlike his hearers who are ‘always opposing the Holy Spirit’ (v. 51), Stephen is ‘ﬁlled with the Holy Spirit’ when he receives his vision (v. 55). Within the narrative logic of the story, Stephen’s vision functions as a divine conﬁrmation of his previous speech (7.1-53), but his listeners do not have ears to hear. Stephen’s vision becomes the basis of further proclamation, but his hearers actively refuse to hear his divinely instigated words.

The Visual and Verbal in Acts

The above discussion of Stephen’s voice and vision in Acts 7 provides a window into Luke’s larger interest in the verbal and its intersection with the visual. Indeed, all of the points highlighted in this key episode reﬂect larger tendencies in Acts as a whole. This section will now look at these tendencies in turn, starting with Luke’s understanding of witness and the relationship between signs, speech and spectacle. The section will then turn toward Luke’s critique of idolatry and its connection to the theme of bringing light to the Gentiles and the spreading of God’s word. Finally, it will conclude by discussing the key disposition of hearing and its intersection with speaking and seeing. Throughout this discussion, we shall see that Luke links the visual with the verbal, a linkage that largely derives from Jewish scripture – especially Isaiah – and that Luke ultimately highlights the centrality of the verbal, especially in terms of hearing and proclaiming God’s word.

As in Stephen’s speech, witnessing – or ‘testifying’ (μαρτύρομαι) – is often predicated on sight in Acts. In Acts 1, the risen Jesus ‘appears’ to the disciples for forty days (1.3), and Peter explains that Judas’s replacement must be ‘one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us … one of these must become a witness [μάρτυρα] with us to his resurrection’ (1.21-22). ‘Seeing’ Jesus becomes a prerequisite for speaking about him, and Luke continues to connect sight with testimony elsewhere in Acts. Luke, for instance, identiﬁes Peter and the other apostles as God-chosen ‘witnesses [μάρτυρες]’ to Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, who provide ‘testimony [μαρτύριον]’ to these events and reinforce that the prophets likewise testiﬁed to these events (2.32; 4.33; 10.39-43). Paul, who is appointed as a ‘witness [μάρτυς] to all the world’, also bases his testimony on what he has ‘seen and heard’ (22.15; cf. 26.16). Just as Luke begins his gospel by noting that he has relied on both ‘eyewitnesses [αὐτόπται] and ministers of the word [λόγου]’ (Lk. 1.2), so does Luke describe testimony as involving seeing, hearing and speaking.⁵⁶ Yet while sight often functions as a prelude to proclamation in Acts, the ultimate goal is testifying so that others can hear God’s word.

As with sight and testimony, visual ‘signs’ play a similarly supportive role in that they conﬁrm the verbal. In the ﬁrst half of Acts up until the turn to the Gentiles, the phrase ‘signs and wonders’ is a frequent refrain.⁵⁷ Leo O’Reilly observes that ‘signs’ (σημεῖα) in Acts – as in Jewish scriptural texts – primarily function to authenticate God’s word or to demonstrate the divine origin of that word (1987: 170-211). Although God’s ‘word’ often appears without reference to signs, signs are univocally paired with speech throughout Acts 1–15.⁵⁸ With respect to Stephen, for instance, his performance of signs occurs in tandem with his anger-inducing words. Others who perform signs, such as Peter, John, Philip, Barnabas and Paul, do so in the context of their preaching and proclamation.⁵⁹ Like the signs carried out by Moses in Exodus (which Luke mentions in Acts 7.36) or God’s salviﬁc signs in Deuteronomy, signs in Acts are miracles that verify a person’s prophetic credentials or lend credence to divine action.⁶⁰ Signs and ‘the word’ are complementary in Acts, and signs can also function as a verbum visible, or visible evidence that evinces God’s message (O’Reilly 1987: 200-207). But in Acts, miracles more broadly speaking cannot be understood apart from the preaching of the word that accompanies them.⁶¹ In other words, signs do not have any meaning apart from proclamation, for they serve to substantiate speech.

While speaking God’s word is often based on sight and sometimes paired with signs, Stephen’s story shows us that such speech can also lead to the speaker becoming the object of sight. Luke’s account of Stephen as the ﬁrst Christian ‘witness’, or ‘martyr’ (μάρτυς), demonstrates that testimony can lead to persecution, or spectacle. While Stephen’s death remains the ﬁrst and most detailed death in Acts, Luke suggests that other followers likewise become targets of public spectacle. Peter and other apostles become the object of sight when they are incarcerated (5.17-18; 12.3-5), and James, the brother of John, when he is killed (12.1-2). Paul likewise endures public persecution (9.16, 23-30; 14.19; 16.19-24, 37; 21.27-36), and he ironically becomes the object of ‘the gaze’ when he loses his power ‘to gaze’ in Acts 9.⁶² What is more, while in Ephesus, Paul’s travel companions are dragged into the city’s ‘theater’ (θέατρον) (19.29), a word that also means ‘spectacle’ and a frequent site of later Christian martyrdoms.⁶³ Just as Luke calls Jesus’ cruciﬁxion a ‘spectacle’ (θεωρία) (Lk. 23.48), so do Jesus’ followers become targets of the public gaze. Jesus warns his followers that those who testify may be persecuted (Lk. 21.12-19), and his foretelling comes to fruition in Acts. To be sure, those who are persecuted in Acts can also be the subject of sight, as when Stephen ‘gazes’ into heaven (Acts 7.55). Peter, John and Paul also demonstrate their perspicacious perception (3.4-7; 11.6; 13.9; 14.9; 23.1), and Paul mediates the blinding of the false prophet Bar-Jesus (13.9-12). But more often than not, Luke reiterates that those who testify may very well become the object of sight.

As we have witnessed, the visual and verbal interconnect in a manner that primarily points to God’s word in Acts. Luke, however, can also be harshly critical of visual modes of perception, a critique that is nowhere more apparent than in Luke’s persistent critique of idolatry. Luke’s condemnation of idols – or visual representations of the divine – ﬁrst sounds in Stephen’s speech, and this condemnation continues throughout Luke’s second volume.⁶⁴ After Acts 7, Luke’s admonitions against idolatry are directed solely toward Gentiles, suggesting that idolatry is a Greek, or ‘pagan’, problem.⁶⁵ When the Jerusalem council decides to include Gentiles, they stipulate that Gentiles must abstain from idol meat (15.20), a decision that is reiterated twice more in Acts (15.29; 21.25). When Paul arrives in Athens, he is deeply vexed ‘to see that the city was full of idols [κατείδωλον]’ (17.16), and he stresses that God ‘does not live in temples made by human hands’ (17.24). He goes on to explain that: ‘we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image [χαράγματι] formed by the art and imagination of humans’ (17.29). Instead, Paul explains, we are ‘to seek [ζητεῖν] for God, and perhaps grope [ψηλαϕήσειαν] for him and ﬁnd him’ (17.27). Unlike the many objects of worship that Paul ‘looked at carefully [ἀναθεωρῶν]’ when he arrived in Athens (17.23), God cannot be looked upon, but only ‘groped for’, an image that denotes the actions of a blind person (cf. Acts 13.11). Finally, during Paul’s stay in Ephesus, the silversmith Demetrius incites a riot by accusing Paul of saying that ‘gods made with hands are not gods’ (19.26). Demetrius warns that the artisans’ trade may fall into disrepute and that the goddess Artemis – whose statue fell from heaven as the town clerk clariﬁes (19.35) – will be scorned and deprived of her majesty (19.27).⁶⁶ Those who craft Artemis’s silver shrines violently resist Paul’s critique of idolatry, and according to Luke, these Gentile artisans underscore that visual representations of the divine are antithetical to faithfulness.

Luke’s critique of idols is typical of Jewish polemic and reﬂects a reliance on the Jewish prophetic tradition (e.g., Isa. 40.18-20; 44.9-20).⁶⁷ Luke’s critique of idols also more speciﬁcally reﬂects the theme of the ‘New Exodus’ – or the recasting of the Exodus tradition in light of Israel’s exile – as found in Isa. 40–55. According to David Pao (2000), Luke’s emphasis on the impotence of idols is one of four principal New Exodus themes that Luke draws from Isaiah and weaves throughout his second volume. The other three Isaianic New Exodus themes that Luke incorporates include the restoration of Israel, the inclusion of the Gentiles and the agency of God’s word, of which the latter two are especially important for our purposes. First, when Luke references Gentile salvation, he typically turns to Isaiah and draws from the sight and light imagery found therein, as when Paul says that he has been appointed ‘to be a light for the Gentiles’ (13.47; cf. Isa 49.6).⁶⁸ Secondly, as in Isa. 40–55, Luke depicts God’s ‘word’ (λόγος) as an independent agent that grows and accomplishes God’s purposes.⁶⁹ Throughout the second half of Acts in particular, ‘the word’ appears as the subject of verbs, taking on the characteristics of a powerful entity (e.g., 6.7; 12.24; 13.49; 19.20).⁷⁰ Luke’s critique of idolatry thus intersects with his wider reliance on Isa. 40–55 and the primacy of God’s word found therein, as well as the visual imagery associated with Gentile inclusion.

However, even more signiﬁcant than Luke’s reliance on Isaiah for his depiction of idolatry, light and God’s word is his emphasis on the import of hearing, an emphasis that occurs throughout the Lukan narrative (see Darr 1994: 87-107). Luke sets the stage for this key posture of hearing at the outset of Acts when he describes the birth of the church at Pentecost. To be sure, Luke does not shy away from describing the Spirit’s descent in visual terms. Using the passive form of ὁράω (‘I see’), Luke relates that the tongues of the Spirit ‘appeared [ὤϕθησαν]’ among the believers and that they appeared in the form of tongues ‘like ﬁre [ὡσεὶ πυρὸς]’ (2.3).⁷¹ At the same time, the Spirit’s descent is an event that mainly lifts up the import of hearing. The arrival of the Spirit is ﬁrst heralded by a ‘sound’ (ἦχος) from heaven that ﬁlls the entire house (2.2). At this juncture the Spirit manifests itself as ‘divided tongues [γλῶσσαι]’ (v. 3), an image that signiﬁes speech.⁷² These ﬂame-like divided tongues in turn miraculously enable followers ‘to speak [λαλεῖν] in other tongues [γλώσσαις]’ or different languages (v. 4). Devout Jews living in Jerusalem congregate in reaction to ‘this sound’, or ‘this voice [ϕωνῆς ταύτης]’ (v. 6), a singular term that may collectively reference both the sound from heaven and the resulting tongue speaking. The diaspora and Jerusalem Jews, however, do not marvel at this miracle of sound and speech, but at their ability to hear this speech: ‘How is it that we hear [ἀκούομεν], each of us, in our own native language? … we hear [ἀκούομεν] them speaking in our own tongues about God’s great deeds’ (vv. 8, 11; cf. v. 6).⁷³ In what Lukan scholars often term a reversal of Babel (Gen. 11.1-9), Luke gathers together the world’s diverse languages and depicts followers speaking, not a singular language, but multiple languages that myriad Jews are able to hear and understand. With the birth of the church, the Spirit enables receptive listening among God’s people. The descent of the Spirit inaugurates the key roles of speech and hearing; at Pentecost, divinely enabled speech and hearing further results in divinely enabled testimony.

From Acts 2 onward, hearing and testifying to God’s word forms a distinctive pattern in Luke’s narrative. Followers hear directives from the divine, often in the form of visions, and they proclaim ‘the word’ as a result.⁷⁴ The reaction to these words tends to be mixed: some people hear the word, but others reject it. What is more, those who are receptive to hearing God’s word gradually shift over the course of Acts. In Acts 2, Luke highlights the Jewish people’s ability to hear, for the approximately three thousand people converted that day are all Jews from ‘every nation under heaven’ (2.5).⁷⁵ A turn toward the Jewish people not hearing, however, begins with Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 when his Jewish hearers cover their ears. Soon after this active ear-covering on the part of the Jews, Gentile reception toward the good news ﬁrst arises in ch. 10, when the Gentile centurion Cornelius explains to Peter that he and his fellow Gentiles ‘are here before God to hear [ἀκοῦσαι] all the things that have been commanded to you by the Lord’ (10.33; cf. 10.22).⁷⁶ The Gentiles’ receptivity to hearing God’s word continues in ch. 13, when the Gentile proconsul Sergius Paulus wants ‘to hear the word of God [ἀκοῦσαι τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ]’ (13.7) and when the Gentiles of Pisidian Antioch respond with joy when they ‘hear [ἀκούοντα]’ that Paul and Barnabas are turning to the Gentiles (13.48).⁷⁷ From this point onward, Gentiles continue to ‘listen’ to Paul and his companions (e.g., 14.8-9; 16.25), and this openness through the sense of hearing reﬂects the larger turn toward the Gentiles in the narrative of Acts as a whole.

To be clear, Luke does not depict the Jewish people univocally ‘shutting their ears’.⁷⁸ Both Jews and Greeks in Asia ‘heard [ἀκοῦσαι] the word of the Lord’ (19.10), and Jews in Jerusalem ‘listened [ἤκουον]’ to Paul (at least until he mentions the Gentiles) (22.22). ‘King Agrippa’ – a Herodian Jew conversant with the Jewish faith (26.3) – wants ‘to hear [ἀκοῦσαι]’ Paul (25.22), even though he is ultimately not persuaded (26.29-32). And Jewish leaders in Rome want ‘to hear [ἀκοῦσαι]’ from Paul concerning ‘the sect’ of Christianity (28.22), even though their reaction is split (28.24-25). And while Paul’s ﬁnal ‘word’ (28.25) that the Gentiles ‘will listen [ἀκούσονται]’ (28.28) may suggest universal deafness among Jewish listeners, Paul continues to welcome ‘all [πάντας]’ who come to him while he evangelizes in prison (28.30-31). Overall, a trajectory can be traced regarding Jewish and Gentile ‘listening’ in Acts, but the point remains that the posture of listening itself remains key.

Indeed, for Luke, the most important characteristic of following Jesus involves forming a habitus of hearing. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus distinctly characterizes discipleship as ‘hearing and doing God’s word’ (Lk. 8.15, 21; 11.28), and both Jesus and God command followers to ‘listen’ (Lk. 8.8; 9.35, 44; 14.35; 16.29, 31; 18.6).⁷⁹ Whereas Luke depicts seeing in terms of agency, he depicts hearing in terms of receptivity, as when Jesus relates the receptivity (or lack thereof) of the word among the various types of soil in the parable of the sower (Lk. 8.4-15) or when he says, ‘Let these words sink into your ears!’ (Lk. 9.44; cf. 4.21; 7.1). In Acts, Jesus’ followers take up this mantle concerning the importance of receptivity and hearing the divine. Peter and John, for instance, differentiate between those who listen to God versus those they perceive as opposing God, saying, ‘if it is righteous before God for us to listen [ἀκούειν] to you [the Jewish religious leaders] rather than to God, you must judge’ (Acts 4.19). Peter also stresses the import of hearing Jesus when he quotes Moses to the Jews in Jerusalem: ‘you must listen [ἀκούσεσθε] to all that he [i.e., Jesus] tells you … everyone who does not listen [μὴ ἀκούσῃ] to that prophet will be utterly rooted out’ (Acts 3.22-23; cf. Deut. 18.15-20). For Luke, Jewish scripture points to Jesus, and perceiving this truth rests on receptivity to the word. Those ‘with ears to hear’ (Lk. 8.8; 14.35) will recognize that Jesus is the one about whom the scriptures foretold (e.g., Lk. 24.25-27, 44-47). Indeed, in both of Luke’s volumes, listening – or attuning our ears – is the key disposition of discipleship.

Conclusion

In this article, we have witnessed that both visual and verbal imagery play a key role throughout the book of Acts. Seeing and hearing are often paired together, and both senses play a signiﬁcant role in perceiving God.⁸⁰ We have also witnessed, however, that Luke tends to favor the verbal, both in terms of hearing and speaking God’s word.⁸¹ Even with the manifold visions in Acts, scenes that ostensibly focus on the eye, God’s word remains paramount. Stephen’s vision in Acts 7 particularly exempliﬁes this focus on the verbal when situated within its narrative context. Stephen sees his vision after delivering a speech in which he recounts Moses’ reception of the Law, critiques idolatry, and accuses his hearers of having ‘uncircumcised ears’. Moreover, Stephen delivers the speech because certain Jewish instigators could not withstand his words and publicly level false accusations against him. After his speech, Stephen’s audience still does not hear him, and when Stephen receives divine conﬁrmation of his words through a vision and relates this vision, the crowd responds by covering their ears and killing Stephen.

When looking at Acts as a whole, Stephen’s voice and vision in Acts 7 reﬂect larger patterns concerning the verbal and visual in Acts. As we ﬁnd in Stephen’s story, testimony – or speaking God’s word – is coupled with sight in Acts: testimony is often based on sight, conﬁrmed by signs, and can lead to spectacle. All three of these visual elements – whether they function as basis, conﬁrmation or result – revolve around the central facet of speaking God’s word. Speeches comprise a signiﬁcant portion of Acts, and while visions also feature prominently in Acts, they are primarily auditory visions in which divine speech demands a response. Indeed, the book of Acts in its entirety narrates the expansion of God’s word as it goes forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth and the varied responses to this word along the way. God’s ‘word’ even takes on the characteristics of an independent agent, and response to this word is repeatedly split: some receive the word, and others reject it. In light of Jewish rejection, God’s own light is increasingly extended to the Gentiles, and many (though not all!) Gentiles demonstrate receptivity to the word.

Stephen’s story also points to the critique of idolatry in Acts, a note ﬁrst sounded in Acts 7, but played throughout the remaining narrative. With this condemnation of idolatry, we ﬁnd the sharpest critique of visual perception in Acts. Visual representations of the divine are not acceptable because humans cannot look upon God, as Moses discovered in the wilderness of Sinai. Humans instead are to listen to God, either by listening to God’s chosen representatives (such as Moses) or to scripture (especially the Law and the prophets). Humans are also to listen directly to God’s voice when it dramatically intervenes into the earthly sphere, as it does throughout both of Luke’s volumes. In such instances, God can be synesthetically experienced since God’s voice often manifests itself in a vision, but even here, God remains one who is primarily heard. According to Luke, cultivating such hearing is the disposition of discipleship and signiﬁes receptivity to the divine.

In his narration of God’s word going out into the world, Luke evinces a logocentric orientation that is characteristic of many tradents within Judaism. Why, then, does Luke also include visual imagery to the degree that he does? There are several possibilities in response to this question. First, Luke’s reliance on sight imagery – and imagery related to light – derives directly from Jewish scripture, especially Isaiah. Luke’s dependence on Isaiah – to the point where it affects even the structure of Acts – has been well established, and the extension of light to the Gentiles and visual openness are prominent themes within Isaiah. Luke’s tendency to base proclamation on visual evidence is also consonant with a key theme that runs throughout Jewish scripture (Avrahami 2012: 238-48). Secondly, Luke, though mainly reliant on Jewish scripture, is still inﬂuenced by the visuality of his surrounding culture. This inﬂuence is most likely apparent in Luke’s depiction of testimony leading to spectacle. Luke’s identiﬁcation of Jesus’ cruciﬁxion as a ‘spectacle’ and the pattern of persecution that Jesus’ persecution establishes in Acts ﬁnds parallel in Greco-Roman accounts of public executions, as well as Jewish martyrological texts.⁸² Thus while Luke is sharply critical of Greek culture in his depiction of idolatry, he may also reﬂect the inﬂuence of Greek culture in his depiction of persecution.

Thirdly, and ﬁnally, Luke’s reliance on sight imagery may also be due to Luke’s conviction that God’s action in Jesus has introduced something new; namely, that God can be seen in Jesus. Like God, Jesus sees and hears God’s people.⁸³ As ‘Lord’ (κύριος), Jesus also enables sight and takes away sight; he enables speech and hearing and takes away speech and hearing.⁸⁴ Jesus, however, also becomes the object of sight. Jesus can see us, but we can also look back and see Jesus.⁸⁵ While on earth, Jesus’ presence points to an immediacy between humans and the divine – a connection between the subject and object of sight – that was not evident in the same way before. Some scriptural – and later rabbinic – texts posit a reciprocal, visual exchange between God and the people of Israel, but in these instances, ‘seeing’ God is not the same as seeing God in human ﬂesh.⁸⁶ This newfound ability to see God in Jesus may in part explain Luke’s tendency, for example, to predicate speech on sight. A follower who actually saw Jesus must take Judas’s place, thus providing continuity for those of us today who cannot ‘see’ Jesus in the same way. After the ascension, Jesus – like God – is experienced in the earthly realm as both a ‘voice’ (ϕωνή) and ‘light’ (ϕῶς), but the main way Jesus is now ‘seen’ is through speech: followers must proclaim Jesus as God’s Word.⁸⁷ Thus while Luke does not promulgate a preference for sight as found among many of his Greek contemporaries, his incorporation of the visual alongside the verbal may very well reﬂect a grappling with the paradox of the incarnation. As one who could be seen but is now primarily heard, Jesus points to the tension within ﬁrst-century Jewish Christianity regarding the implications of the Word made ﬂesh. For followers of ‘the Word’, Jesus embodies this sensory, epistemological tension by his very existence. Indeed, for such followers, Jesus is both seen and heard; he is both Word and Light.

Footnotes

1.

For a discussion of Greek optical and auditory theories, see Beare 1906: 9-130; : 2-8.

2.

Note, for example, that the Greek author Plutarch writes that the crocodile is a living representation of God since it is the only creature without a tongue. According to Plutarch, the ‘Divine Word has no need of a voice’ (Is. Os. 75).

3.

For an overview of the post-Enlightenment French intellectual tradition that critiques the primacy of the eye, see Jay 1993. See also Synnott 1991: 61-76. For a critique of ocularcentric approaches within biblical studies, see : 3-30.

4.

On how Greek culture was ‘a culture of light’, see Bernidaki-Aldous 1990. On how Greek culture was phonocentric, see : I, 6-56.

5.

On the linkage between speech and aurality, see Avrahami 2012: 84-93; : 25. When this article uses the term ‘verbal’ or the like, it typically has both the act of ‘speaking’ and the result of ‘hearing’ in view.

6.

For a discussion of the conﬂict between visual (represented by Athanasius) and verbal (represented by Arius) modes during the Council of Nicaea and its relationship to different understandings of the Trinity, see Chidester 1992: 43-50. For a discussion of various Christian ﬁgures, including Augustine, Bonaventure and Melanchthon, and their preference for different perceptual modes, see Chidester 1992: 53-128. See also the argument of twentieth-century Protestant theologian , who claims that Christianity is no less hostile to the primacy of sight than Judaism.

7.

On the prominent theme of sight in Isaiah, see : 79-93.

8.

Compare Avrahami’s argument to the now widely criticized .

9.

See Chidester 1992: 25. On the terminological difﬁculty regarding the senses when discussing the ancient world, see : 63-69.

10.

On synestheticism, see Avrahami 2012: 59-60; Chidester 1992: 14-24. On the interaction of seeing and hearing within larger cognitive processes, see .

11.

See, e.g., Aristotle, Sens. 437a-439a; Plato, Tim. 45b-47e. On the hierarchy of senses in Greek texts, see Avrahami 2012: 5-7; : 61-64.

12.

Even Avrahami concludes that sight – while central – is not superior in Jewish scripture (2012: 223-79). On how hearing God’s voice signiﬁes obedience in Jewish scripture and points to the asymmetrical relationship between God and humans, see : 134-35.

13.

On the aural orientation of Deuteronomy, see Avalos 2007: 47-60. On the elevation of hearing and the aniconicism in Deuteronomy, see Brettler 2008: 15-27, esp. 24-25; Carasik 1999: 257-76; Geller 1994: 103-39. See also, however, : 123-39, who argues that Deuteronomy lifts up the importance of mediated sensory experience; namely, the medium of Moses’ voice.

14.

See Culpepper 1994: 434-43; Hamm 1986: 63-72; 1990: 63-72; Hartsock 2008: 172-205; Moore 1992: 111-44; Røsæg 2006: 159-85. See also : 87-107. In this essay, Darr discusses the conjunction of seeing and hearing in Luke’s gospel.

15.

H. Waetjen, for example, argues that the adoption of Platonic concepts by Hellenistic Jewish authors such as John and Philo foretells a transition from audition to vision (2001: 265-86). However, note also that the well-known identiﬁcation of Judaism as logocentric arises well after the ﬁrst century ce. See, for example, D. Boyarin, who argues that the threat of Hellenic inﬂuences led to a more antiocular version of Judaism during the Middle Ages (: 532-50).

16.

Of course, the terms ‘Judaism’ and ‘Hellenism’ are overlapping, blurry categories, just as are the terms ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’. On the erroneous divide between ‘Judaism’ and ‘Hellenism’, see : 29-61.

17.

See citations in n. 14 above.

18.

On sight as a metaphor for perceiving God, see esp. : 434-43.

19.

On light and darkness in Luke–Acts, see : 100-101.

20.

On the theory of extramission in Lk. 11.34, see : 61-83.

21.

See : 229-30, 233-34.

22.

On the theme of sight on the way to Emmaus, see esp. : 69-155.

23.

On the role of sight in these episodes (and their gendered ramiﬁcations), see : 154-89.

24.

The above examples from Luke and Acts do not even begin to examine the inﬂuence of the role of sight at the linguistic level. For example, the verb ὁράω (‘I see’) appears over 65 times in Acts alone. Indeed, visuality permeates both Luke and Acts at this level, much as it permeates this article itself.

25.

On the visions in Acts, see Miller 2007. On the visions in Revelation, as well as their intersection with the larger Greco-Roman milieu of ‘spectacle’, see .

26.

In the Greco-Roman world, ‘visions’ and ‘dreams’ were formally equivalent. See : 8-9. While Stephen’s vision is not explicitly identiﬁed as a ‘vision’, it qualiﬁes as a vision since Stephen twice looks into heaven and sees images therein.

27.

In Acts 9, Luke also does not speciﬁcally identify Jesus’ appearance as a ‘vision’, but Paul later identiﬁes it as such when he calls this appearance a ‘heavenly vision [οὐρανίῳ ὀπτασίᾳ]’ (26.19; cf. 26.16). Ananias also identiﬁes Jesus as ‘the one who appeared [ὁ ὀϕθείς] to you [Saul]’, using the passive form of ὁράω (9.17).

28.

Angels appear in Acts 1.10-11; 5.19-20; 7.35, 38; 8.26 (cf. 8.29, 39); 10.3-7 (cf. 10.22, 30-32; 11.13-14); 12.7-11, 23; 27.23-24. See also Lk. 1.11-20, 26-38; 2.9-15; [22.43-44]; 24.4-7. However, angelic appearances may not always qualify as visions in Luke–Acts. In Lk. 1, the crowd assumes that the delayed Zechariah has seen a ‘vision’ (ὀπτασία) in the temple (1.22), and Luke hints that this assumption misconstrues the situation since the crowd ‘gets it wrong’ elsewhere in the birth narrative (1.59-63). In Acts 12, Peter also misconstrues the situation when an angel releases him from prison, for Luke tells us that, ‘he [Peter] did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision [ὅραμα]’ (12.9).

29.

See Hanson 1980: 1395-427; : 21-63.

30.

See also Miller 2008: 177-92. On the more positive valuation of dreams by pagans (and others) in late antiquity, see .

31.

Miller 2007: 11-13. Hanson identiﬁes three main types of dream-visions: audio-visual, auditory and visual (: 1409-412).

32.

See, e.g., Gen. 15.1-21; Exod. 3.1–4.17; 19.7-25; Deut. 4.5-24 (cf. Exod. 20.18-21).

33.

On auditory visions in Greco-Roman literature, see, e.g., Plutarch, Ages. 6; : 1411-12.

34.

On how Peter gradually ‘converts’ to this point of view, see Gaventa 1986: 107-22. On how Peter’s vision requires interpretation, see : 202-16.

35.

The words ‘in a dream [ἐν ὁράματι]’ in v. 12 may have been introduced as an explanatory gloss or omitted due to an ostensible redundancy with ἐν ὁράματι in v. 10. See : 319-20.

36.

For a discussion of Saul’s reversal from persecutor to proclaimer, see : 52-95.

37.

See Acts 1.10-11; 5.19-20; 7.35, 38; 8.26 (cf. 8.29, 39); 10.3-7 (cf. 10.22, 30-32; 11.13-14); 12.7-11, 23; 27.23-24; cf. Lk. 1.11-20, 26-38; 2.9-15; [22.43-44]; 24.4-7. Demons also speak in Acts (16.16-18; 19.15), and they respond to exorcisms with a ‘loud voice’ (8.7) (cf. Lk. 4.33, 41; 8.28, 30; 9.39; 11.24). While Satan and demons do not ‘appear’ like divine beings in Luke–Acts, Luke characterizes the content of their narrative appearances by their speech.

38.

Miller identiﬁes these incidents as visions (2007: 231-33), but Luke does not identify them as such or pair these divine words with images. Cf. : 10-14.

39.

See also Acts 8.29 (cf. 8.26); 10.19-20 (cf. 11.11-12); 15.28; 16.6; 21.4, 11. On the Spirit’s role as a character in Acts who speaks, see .

40.

In Luke, ‘a voice [ϕωνή] from heaven’ speaks directly to Jesus during his baptism (3.22), and a ‘voice’ (ϕωνή) issues forth from a cloud during Jesus’ transﬁguration (9.35). In Acts, Stephen recounts when the ‘voice [ϕωνή] of the Lord’ speaks directly to Moses (7.31). A divine ‘voice’ (ϕωνή) also accosts Paul on the Damascus road (9.4, 7; cf. 22.7, 9; 26.14) and speaks to Peter (10.13, 15; cf. 11.7, 9).

41.

The only other vision that lacks divine speech is Saul’s alleged vision in Acts 9.12. However, as noted above, the word ‘vision’ is lacking in some manuscripts, and Saul does not see this ‘vision’ with his eyes because he is blind. Furthermore, this vision is mediated through Jesus’ words; we only know about it because Jesus tells Ananias.

42.

I translate πνεῦμα as ‘Spirit’ in Acts 6.10 because it connects to Stephen’s later words concerning the Spirit during his speech (7.51) and parallels his being ﬁlled with the Spirit after his speech (7.55).

43.

This parallel between seeing and hearing often appears in scriptural descriptions of divine help. See, e.g., Deut. 26.7; Ps. 34.16. See further : 72.

44.

Indeed, in Acts 7.31, God’s voice simply materializes, or ‘came [ἐγένετο]’, whereas it is ‘the angel who appeared [τοῦ ὀϕθέντος]’ in v. 35. Compare this to Exod. 3.2; Philo, Mos. 1.66. Note, however, that Stephen says the following at the outset of his speech: ‘the God of glory appeared [ὤϕθη] to our ancestor Abraham … and said to him …’ (Acts 7.2-3).

45.

Note also that God speaks to Moses concerning the tabernacle in Acts 7.44 and that God speaks directly to Abraham in 7.3, 6-7. In these instances, however, God’s direct speech is not accompanied with the same striking visual components that we ﬁnd in the burning bush incident.

46.

In addition to Philo, Josephus also offers a brief synopsis of the burning bush incident (Ant. 2.264-68). Luke’s own account of this incident ﬁnds more afﬁnity with Josephus’s discussion than with Philo’s. Aside from Philo and Josephus, there is surprisingly little attention given to the burning bush in Jewish texts prior to or contemporaneous with Luke. On Philo’s account of the burning bush (and Josephus’s to a lesser degree), see : 221-32.

47.

See Fraade 2008: 247-68, esp. 258-59. See also : 546-50.

48.

Philo records the following: ‘a supremely divine image [ἄγαλμα] … announced things that were to come with a silence more articulate than a voice [ϕωνῆς] by means of the miracle of sight [ὄψεως]’ (Mos. 1.66) (author’s translation). He proceeds to explain, allegorically speaking, what the images of the bush, the ﬁre and the angel communicate (Mos. 1.67-70) and only then relates God’s speech (Mos. 1.71-84).

49.

Trans. from LCL 320, 1937. See also Philo, Decal. 32-49; Migr. 47-52; Mos. 2.213. Later rabbinic interpretations also pick up on the ocular elements at Sinai (found esp. in Exodus), although it is not to the same degree as Philo. See : 250-61.

50.

See also Philo, Abr. 60; Conf. 141; Contempl. Life 10-13; Decal. 35; Sacr. 78; Chidester 1992: 30-43; : 103-29.

51.

See also Philo, Ebr. 82; Migr. 39; Mut. 81-82; : 34.

52.

In Acts, the closest Luke comes to approximating Philo’s emphasis on seeing God’s words is in 22.17-18. Here Paul says: ‘I saw [ἰδεῖν] him [Jesus] speaking [λέγοντά] to me’. See also Lk. 8.18, where Jesus says: ‘Watch [βλέπετε] how you listen [ἀκούετε]!’

53.

Trans. from LCL 227, 1929. : 34-35, 37-38.

54.

As J. Green argues, when Jesus and his followers call for people to listen, they are not simply applying oratorical tricks of the trade, but calling for authentic hearing (2015: 126). On the ethical character of hearing in Luke, see : 87-107.

55.

Note, however, that Stephen still interprets the vision. He calls attention to his words by using the term ἰδού (‘behold!’), and he relates that he saw the heavens opened. He then does not relate that he saw God’s glory, and he goes on to call Jesus ‘the Son of Man’.

56.

For other instances of the verb μαρτύρομαι and its cognates in Acts, see 1.8, 22; 2.32, 40; 3.15; 4.33; 5.32; 6.3, 13; 7.44, 58; 8.25; 10.22, 39, 41, 42, 43; 13.22, 31; 14.3; 15.8; 16.2; 18.5; 20.21, 23, 24, 26; 22.5, 12, 15, 18, 20; 23.11 [twice]; 26.5, 16, 22; 28.18, 23.

57.

For this phrase and variations thereof in Acts, see 2.19, 22, 43; 4.16, 22, 30; 5.12; 6.8; 7.36; 8.6, 13; 14.3; 15.12. Luke’s depiction of signs in Acts is very different than how he depicts signs in his gospel. Here Luke critiques those who seek signs (Lk. 11.16, 29; 23.8), but he also indicates that Jesus himself is a ‘sign’ (σημεῖον). See Lk. 2.12, 34 and Lk. 11.30 (cf. Mt. 12.38-42; Mk 8.11-13).

58.

See Acts 2.14 + 2.19; 2.22 + 2.22; 2.41 + 2.43; 4.29 + 4.30; 5.12 + 5.20; 6.7 + 6.8; 7.35 + 7.38; 8.4 + 8.6; 8.13 + 8.14; 14.3 + 14.3; 15.7 + 15.12. See also : 191-200, esp. 191-92.

59.

See Acts 2.43; 4.16, 22, 30; 5.12; 8.6, 13; 14.3; 15.12.

60.

O’Reilly 1987: 170-211. See also : 238-48.

61.

In Acts, the one exception to this description of miracles occurs in Malta (28.1-10). Here Paul performs miracles, but he does not preach or teach, perhaps because Paul does not speak the language of the Maltese.

62.

On this point and the larger theme of spectacle in Acts, see .

63.

On the translation of θέατρον, see BDAG, 446; ‘θέατρον’, TDNT 3: 42-43; B. Wilson forthcoming. On the connection between martyrdom and spectacle, see Castelli 1995; : 53-88.

64.

Luke’s critique of idolatry also extends to Gentiles identifying humans as gods, as when Cornelius bows down before Peter (10.25-26) and when Barnabas and Paul are mistaken for Zeus and Hermes in Lystra (14.11-18).

65.

Even when Stephen criticizes the Israelites’ idolatry, he quotes Amos 5.25-27 (LXX), which stresses that the Israelites made ‘images [τύπους]’ of foreign gods (Acts 7.42-43).

66.

In 19.35, most translations supply the word ‘statue’ due to the well-known account of Artemis’s statue that fell from the sky (e.g., Euripides, Iph. taur. 85-89).

67.

In the prophetic tradition and elsewhere in Jewish scriptural texts, polemic against idols often highlights how idols – unlike the God of Israel – lack sensory abilities. Idols cannot see, hear, speak, taste or touch. See, e.g., Deut. 4.28; Ps. 115.4-7; 135.15-17. For a different approach toward idol polemic by Luke’s Jewish contemporary Josephus, see : 73-87.

68.

Pao 2000: 96-101; 217-48. See also : 165-70.

69.

See Pao 2000: 147-80. See also O’Reilly 1987: 191-92; : 505-19. For occurrences of God’s ‘word’ in Acts, see 4.4, 29, 31; 6.2, 4, 7; 8.4, 14, 25; 10.36, 44; 11.1, 19; 12.24; 13.5, 7, 26, 44, 46, 48, 49; 14.3, 12, 25; 15.7, 35, 36; 16.6, 32; 17.11, 13; 18.5, 11; 19.10, 20; 20.7, 32.

70.

Compare this to ῥῆμα, which is typically the object of the verb λαλέω in Acts. See : 148. On how λόγος terminology depicts God’s powerful agent in other Jewish and early Christian texts, including Philo, see Pao 2000: 177-80.

71.

This visually arresting image of ﬁre not only recalls God’s ﬁery appearance to Moses in the Sinai wilderness, but other instances where ﬁre signiﬁes the divine presence and divine speech in Jewish scriptural texts. See, e.g., Exod. 13.21-22; 19.18; 24.17; Lev. 9.24; Deut. 4.12, 15, 24, 33, 36; 2 Sam. 22.13; 1 Kgs 18.38; 2 Chron. 7.1-3; Pss 21.9; 29.7; 50.3; Isa. 29.6; 30.27; 66.15-16; Jer. 23.29; Dan. 7.9-10; 1 En. 14.8-25; 71.1-11.

72.

On how the tongue signiﬁes speech in Jewish scripture, see : 115, 120-24.

73.

Note, however, that Peter concludes his Pentecost speech by saying that Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit ‘which you all are seeing and hearing’ (2.33).

74.

E.g., Acts 7.37-38, 56; 9.17, 20; 10.34-43; 11.4-17; 16.13-14; 18.11; 22.3-21; 26.2-23; 27.21-26.

75.

Such Jewish receptivity is consonant with what we ﬁnd in Luke’s gospel. Here the Jewish people – in contradistinction from the Jewish religious leaders – overwhelmingly want to hear Jesus. Not only do crowds – including tax collectors and sinners – want to hear Jesus (5.1, 15; 6.18; 15.1; 19.11), but Luke speciﬁes that the Jewish people themselves, designated with the term λαός, also want to hear Jesus (7.1, 29; 19.48; 20.45; 21.38). Indeed, Jesus speaks ‘his words [ῥήματα] into the ears of the people [εἰς τὰς ἀκοὰς τοῦ λαοῦ]’ (7.1), and prior to Jesus’ cruciﬁxion at least, ‘all the people [ὁ λαὸς … ἅπας]’ in Jerusalem ‘were spellbound listening [ἀκούων] to [Jesus]’ (19.48).

76.

Soon after the Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit, this news, or ‘the word’ (ὁ λόγος), ‘was heard by the ears’ [ἠκούσθη … εἰς τὰ ὦτα] of the Jerusalem church (11.22).

77.

In his speech in Pisidian Antioch, Paul explains that Jerusalem and their leaders killed Jesus because they did not understand the words of the prophets (Acts 13.27; cf. 13.41).

78.

Furthermore, Gentiles do not always listen well, as when Paul tells those upon his Rome-bound ship that they should have listened to him (27.21).

79.

See Darr 1994: 87-107; Green 2015: 116-17. See also : 66-84.

80.

See, e.g., Acts 2.33; 7.34; 22.14-15; 28.26-28. Cf. Lk. 10.23-24.

81.

On how hearing and speech are also the preeminent senses in Mark, see Lawrence 2011: 387-97. On the importance of hearing in Matthew, see : 66-84.

82.

On the intersection of the Lukan passion narrative with martyrological texts and the noble death tradition more broadly, see : 325-44.

83.

E.g., Lk. 5.27; 6.10, 20; 8.50; 13.12; 18.22; 21.1-2; 22.61.

84.

E.g., Acts 9.9-19; 13.9-11; 16.14. See also Lk. 8.10; 21.14-15.

85.

E.g., Lk. 2.15, 17, 20, 26, 30; 3.6; 4.20; 8.28; 9.9, 32; 19.3-4; 23.35, 48-49; 24.39, [40]; Acts 1.3, 9-11.

86.

On the visibility of God in scriptural and rabbinic texts, see Boyarin 1990: 532-50; Fraade 2008: 265-68. On the incarnational implications of God’s brief appearances as a physical human in Gen. 18.1-5 and 32.22-32, see : 161-83.

87.

On the identiﬁcation of Jesus as a ‘voice’ and/or ‘light’, see Lk. 2.32; Acts 9.1-9; 22.6-11; 26.12-18.

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