Seeing Divine Speech: Sensory Intersections in Luke’s Birth Narrative and Beyond

Divine–Human Encounters in Luke 1: Seeing Silence

At first glance, one cannot help but notice how Zechariah and Mary’s respective encounters with Gabriel center on divine speech (and how it is received). With Zechariah, Gabriel’s speech – both his birth announcement (1.13-17) and his response to Zechariah’s question (1.19-20) – comprises the majority of the encounter (1.11-20; seven of the ten verses). Gabriel defines his encounter with Zechariah in terms of speech (‘I have been sent to speak … and to bring good news’; 1.19), and Zechariah himself loses his ability to speak because he did not believe Gabriel’s words (‘you will become silent and unable to speak … because you did not believe my words’; 1.20). With Mary, Gabriel again spends the majority of the time speaking, delivering yet another birth announcement (1.28, 30-33) and responding to Mary’s own question (1.35-37). Mary is initially perplexed by Gabriel’s ‘word’ (λόγῳ) and ponders his ‘greeting’ (ὁ ἀσπασμὸς) (1.28-29). Contra Zechariah, though, she ultimately demonstrates her faithfulness by telling Gabriel ‘Let it be with me according to your word [ῥῆμά]’ (1.38). Later, Mary will be praised for believing ‘what was spoken [τοῖς λελαλημένοις] to her by the Lord’ (1.45), and she will utter her own words of praise in the form of the Magnificat (1.46-55), a song to which Zechariah will belatedly join his voice when he sings the Benedictus (1.68-79).

With a closer look, however, it becomes evident that senses other than speech and hearing come into play during these parallel encounters, the most notable being the sense of sight. First, Zechariah’s encounter begins in a strongly visual key. ¹¹ Luke signals the start of the encounter with ὤϕθη, ‘appeared’ (1.11), the aorist passive of ὁράω, ‘to see’, and a typical way to signal the visual manifestation of angels and other visionary beings. ¹² Luke then goes on to describe this appearance in vivid detail, saying that the angel is ‘standing to the right of the altar of incense’ (1.11). This sight elicits strong emotions in Zechariah, for Zechariah is terrified and fear falls upon him when he ‘sees’ (ἰδὼν) (1.12). Zechariah’s initial reaction contrasts with Mary’s, for Mary is not afraid by what she sees, but merely perplexed by what she hears (she is confused by Gabriel’s ‘word’ [λόγῳ]) (1.29). Luke does not even mention that Gabriel appears to Mary, just that he was sent and that he approaches her (1.26, 28). Gabriel’s more ‘verbal’ approach to Mary may explain why Mary’s reaction to him is less extreme than Zechariah’s (Zechariah is terrified, but Mary is merely perplexed), and it may align with Luke’s overall characterization of Mary as one who believes God’s words. Regardless, with Zechariah’s fearful response, Luke makes it clear that Zechariah reacts to the angel’s visual – not verbal – manifestation.

By beginning Zechariah’s encounter in a visual way, Luke is consonant with many other narrative accounts of epiphanies, especially those found in scriptural texts. In his examination of theophanies as type-scenes in the Hebrew Bible, George Savran argues that theophanic encounters often begin in visual terms before turning to the verbal (Savran 2005: 5-29; 2009: 320-61). When humans encounter the divine for the first time, the visual element often functions to attract the attention of the human recipient, jolting them from the commonplace, whereas the verbal element – which the recipient hears – functions to establish and deepen the communication. Both seeing and hearing work together to convey how humans perceive the divine, and seeing in particular acts to disrupt the ordinary and to signal the invasion of the heavenly into the earthly realm. In Lk. 1, those waiting for Zechariah outside the temple appear to recognize this supernatural role of sight, for they attribute Zechariah’s divinely inflicted aphasia to a ‘vision’ (ὀπτασία) that ‘he had seen [ἑώρακεν]’ (1.22). Despite the word-centric nature of Zechariah’s encounter, the narrative audience identifies the encounter as a vision. ¹³

In addition to signaling the start of a divine encounter, sight secondly plays a key role by corroborating the content of Gabriel’s words in the form of visual signs. In the LXX, the word σημεῖον, ‘sign’, usually translates the Hebrew אות and refers to something that can be perceived via the senses, typically via sight. ¹⁴ Although Luke does not use the term ‘sign’ here, Gabriel’s provision of certain ‘proofs’ ends up becoming a form of visual verification that paves the way for Luke’s explicit usage of the term ‘sign’ in the epiphany to the shepherds (see below). With Mary, Gabriel directs our attention to his deliverance of another sign with the word ἰδού (‘Behold!’), saying, ‘Behold! Your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son’ (1.36). ¹⁵ In response to this sign, Mary sets out to visit Elizabeth ‘with haste’ (μετὰ σπουδῆς) (1.39), presaging the hasty journey of the shepherds in Lk. 2 who also respond to an angelically delivered sign in this manner (σπεύσαντες) (2.16). When Mary arrives, her visitation with Elizabeth primarily centers on the verbal (with attention focused on Mary’s greeting and her belief in God’s words; 1.39-45), but it also corroborates Gabriel’s words since Elizabeth is clearly pregnant (1.41, 44). Mary’s greeting, which Elizabeth hears (1.40-41, 44), also causes the child in Elizabeth’s womb to leap – a leaping that could potentially be seen by both women and that causes Elizabeth to recognize Mary as ‘the mother of my Lord’ (1.43). Indeed, Mary goes to see what no other character besides Zechariah has seen, for Luke tells us that as soon as Elizabeth conceived, she ‘hid herself away [περιέκρυβεν ἑαυτὴν]’ (1.24). The verb περικρύβω, ‘to hide away’ or ‘to conceal’, belongs to the realm of the visual and finds cognates later in Luke’s narrative that appear in relation to the motif of revelation and hiddenness. ¹⁶ By hiding herself away, Elizabeth is a ‘hidden sign’, if you will, but by going to see Elizabeth, Mary proves Gabriel’s statement that nothing is impossible with God (1.37).

When we look at Zechariah’s relationship with signs, however, we may initially assume that Luke critiques visuality of this sort. Zechariah’s question to Gabriel, ‘According to what shall I know this?’ (1.18), is in effect a demand for a sign, yet Gabriel rebukes Zechariah for this question and identifies his request as an instance of not believing God’s words (1.19-20). ¹⁷ Yet while Luke indicates that Zechariah’s appeal for a sign is negative, he does not indicate that signs themselves are negative. Despite his rebuke, Gabriel still provides a sign to Zechariah, beginning again with ἰδού, saying, ‘Behold! You will be silent and unable to speak’ (1.20). And while this sign is punitive, it is also positive, for it ultimately helps bring Zechariah to faith. ¹⁸ Luke’s depiction of signs here is consonant with his depiction of signs elsewhere in his narrative. On the one hand, Luke depicts signs leading people to faith, as they do for Zechariah, Mary and the shepherds, but on the other hand, he critiques those who expect God to provide a sign per their request (e.g., Lk. 11.16, 29-32; 23.8). ¹⁹ Humans do not get to dictate the occurrence or nature of a sign, and those who demand signs are usually denied, or as in the case of Zechariah, given a sign that they did not expect. Zechariah’s unexpected sign of a sensory impediment, therefore, not only proves the veracity of Gabriel’s words, but ironically functions as a fulfillment of his request. Stated differently, Zechariah’s silence serves as the sign he seeks.

With Zechariah’s silence, moreover, Luke intimates a sensory blending that points to the embodied nature of signs. Indeed, as soon as Gabriel pronounces his punitive sign, Zechariah immediately evinces the efficacy of Gabriel’s words by being unable to speak, for when he emerges from the temple, Zechariah is only able to motion to the gathered onlookers and remains ‘mute’ (κωϕός) (1.22). Zechariah himself, then, is a silent, visible sign; he is a sign whose speechlessness effectively requires him to rely on sign language – a visual means of communication conveyed through hand motions. ²⁰ In the absence of hearing, the onlookers see Zechariah’s silence. Luke overlays even more sensory interconnections with this silence, for he suggests that Zechariah is not only mute, but deaf as well. Although Luke primarily lifts up Zechariah’s inability to speak in this passage, later he will intimate that Zechariah also cannot hear, since his neighbors and relatives will ask him what he wants to name his child through hand motions (mirroring Zechariah’s earlier sign language) (1.62; cf. 1.22). ²¹ Luke says that Zechariah is κωϕός, a term that conveys both ‘muteness’ and ‘deafness’ in the ancient world and later in Luke’s narrative (7.22; 11.14), and Zechariah himself embodies this dual valence. ²² With the ‘sign’ of Zechariah’s silence, then, we find the senses of seeing, speaking and hearing intersecting with one another: the visual and verbal overlap, for Zechariah’s physical inability to speak (and hear) as a result of his unbelief becomes the divine confirmation – or sign – that substantiates Gabriel’s words.

Divine–Human Encounters in Luke 2: Seeing the Word

When we turn to the third and final divine–human encounter in Luke’s birth narrative, we find once again an ostensibly logocentric orientation. An angel of the Lord tells a band of shepherds the good news of Jesus’ birth (‘I bring good news’; 2.10), and the angel is soon joined by an entire heavenly host who sing praises to God (2.13-14). The shepherds do not have a verbal interchange with the angel, but their response to this angelic visitation is fraught with speech-related language. As soon as the angels depart, the shepherds ‘spoke [ἐλάλουν] to one another’ (2.15), and when they find the infant Jesus, they ‘made known the word that had been spoken [τοῦ ῥήματος τοῦ λαληθέντος] to them’ (2.17). Luke goes on to say that ‘all those hearing [οἱ ἀκούσαντες] were amazed by what was spoken [τῶν λαληθέντων] to them by the shepherds’ (2.18) and that Mary treasures ‘these words [τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα]’ (2.19). The shepherds then depart the scene speaking or, more specifically, ‘glorifying and praising God’ (δοξάζοντες καὶ αἰνοῦντες τὸν θεὸν) (2.20), mirroring the heavenly host who likewise praise and give glory to God (αἰνούντων τὸν θεὸν καὶ λεγόντων δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ; 2.13-14). ²³ Indeed, the passage concludes on a verbal note, for the shepherds praise God for all they experienced, ‘just as it was spoken [ἐλαλήθη] to them’ (2.20).

Although speech (and its reception) appears to be front-and-center in this episode, sight also plays an important role and is even augmented when compared to the first two angelophanies in Lk. 1. ²⁴ First, as with Zechariah, an angel interrupts the narrative with his visual appearance. Luke, however, increases the intensity of this visual element, for he mentions that God’s glory also appears: ‘an angel of the Lord stood among them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them’ (2.9). ²⁵ This glory ‘shines around’ (περιέλαμψεν) the shepherds, indicating its luminous quality, and it shines all the more brightly since Luke tells us that the shepherds are watching their flock ‘by night’ (2.8). In scriptural texts, God’s ‘glory’ (δόξα) indicates God’s perceptible presence, ²⁶ and Luke indicates that this presence accompanies the angel, causing the shepherds to ‘fear a great fear’ (2.9), or to become afraid, a standard reaction in the face of the numinous. ²⁷ This parallel appearance is further punctuated by the appearance of ‘the multitude of the heavenly host [or: army]’, who appear ‘suddenly’ (ἐξαίϕνης) (2.13). Indeed, God, an angel of the Lord and an entire heavenly army become visibly manifest at this birth announcement.

Second, Luke draws attention to the import of visual corroboration by once again providing a sign, this time by explicitly using the term ‘sign’ (σημεῖον). After pronouncing Jesus’ birth to the shepherds (which he prefaces with ‘Behold!’; 2.10), the angel says, ‘and this will be a sign [σημεῖον] for you: you will find a baby swaddled and lying in a manger’ (2.12). The sign, once again, comes in the form of a person (here the baby Jesus), and as soon as the angels return to heaven, the shepherds immediately respond to this sign by expressing their desire to see: ‘let us see [ἴδωμεν] this thing that has happened, which the Lord has revealed [ἐγνώρισεν] to us’ (2.15). Like Mary, they respond with haste (2.16; cf. 1.39), and they only share the angel’s good news once they receive visual confirmation: ‘When they saw [ἰδόντες], they revealed [ἐγνώρισαν] the word that had been spoken to them’ (2.17). The angel revealed news to the shepherds, but the shepherds only reveal this news to others after they see the sign with their own eyes. Indeed, Luke confirms the import of what the shepherds see, for he closes the scene with the shepherds glorifying God ‘for all they had heard and seen [ἤκουσαν καὶ εἶδον]’ (2.20).

In addition to heightening the visuality of this final encounter (both in terms of the divine’s visual manifestation and the provision of visual verification), Luke also hints at a subtle synesthetic blending of the visual and verbal. On one level, this synestheticism emerges when Luke depicts Mary participating in cognitive reflection by ‘treasuring’ (συνετήρει) the shepherds’ words (ῥήματα) concerning Jesus (2.19), an act she will perform again at the end of the birth narrative (2.51). The word συντηρέω, ‘to treasure’ or, more accurately ‘to keep in one’s memory for careful consideration’, has visual connotations: it is a compound verb involving τηρέω (‘to guard’, ‘to watch’ or ‘to observe’) and σύν (‘with’), and it can mean ‘to keep to oneself’ or ‘to conceal’. ²⁸ Mary, in a sense, conceals the shepherds’ words within herself; her very act of ruminating on the shepherds’ speech reminds us that we are always ‘seeing’ words, for cognition itself is both etymologically and conceptually connected to sight (Squire 2016: 1-35).

This subtle synesthetic merging of the visual and verbal appears even more clearly when the shepherds declare, ‘Let us see this ῥῆμα that has happened, which the Lord has revealed’ (2.15). In the LXX, ῥῆμα can mean ‘thing’, ‘matter’ or ‘deed’, but it more frequently means ‘word’, a sense that the birth narrative also contains (1.38; 2.17, 19, 29, 50, 51). ²⁹ While the logic of the scene dictates that ῥῆμα in 2.15 means ‘thing’ and refers back to the angel’s narration of a sign, the double valence of ῥῆμα as ‘thing’ and ‘word’ is suggestive, especially since ῥῆμα explicitly means ‘word’ only a few lines later (2.17, 19; Burchard 1985: 284-85). With the understanding of ῥῆμα as ‘word’, then, the shepherds in effect see a word. As Stephen Moore observes, ‘To see is indeed to know in the nativity scene – but only if one has first heard a word that doubles as a thing, a word one sees as well as hears’ (Moore 1992: 117-18). ³⁰ In other words, we find in this culminating epiphany of Luke’s ostensibly logocentric birth narrative not only a synesthetic command to see a word, but an intersensory blending that makes it difficult to separate one sense from another.

Divine–Human Encounters: Seeing Divine Speech

First, sight plays an increasingly key role in epiphanic moments. Not only does Luke persist in labeling epiphanies as ‘visions’, but many epiphanies begin in a visual key. ³¹ In angelophanies, for instance, an angel’s message is frequently preceded by ‘appearance’ or vision language or a reference to the angel’s dazzling clothes or to an accompanying light. ³² Theophanies and Christophanies are also marked as visual events, but to a greater degree. In Luke’s gospel, God appears a total of three times: once at Jesus’ birth (Lk. 2.9), once at his baptism (3.22) and once at his transfiguration (9.35). Of these appearances, God speaks a total of two times, and both times God’s voice is prefaced with striking visual imagery: namely, the opening of the heavens and descent of the Spirit (3.21-22) and Jesus’ visual transformation and the appearance of a cloud (9.29-32, 34-35). ³³ In Acts, God appears once again three times: twice during Stephen’s speech in which he recounts Israel’s history (Acts 7.2, 30-34) and once after Stephen’s speech (7.55). According to Stephen’s speech, God appears to Abraham before speaking to him (7.2-3, 7) and an angel appears to Moses in the flame of a burning bush before God speaks to him (7.30-34). After Stephen’s speech, God does not speak at all, for Stephen simply sees God’s glory and Jesus standing to the right of God (7.55).

Christophanies in Acts are also visual events. The ascended Jesus appears a total of seven times in Acts and speaks on six of those occasions. ³⁴ In almost every instance, these Christophanies are marked with vision terminology. ³⁵ Moreover, the two most important times that Jesus speaks – first to Paul in Acts 9 and then to Peter in Acts 10 – reflect more sustained attention to sight throughout the encounter. Before Paul hears Jesus’ voice on the road to Damascus, he is first accosted by a blinding light from heaven, and he finds that he cannot see when the voice stops speaking (9.1-9). Before Peter hears Jesus’ commands concerning what is clean and profane on the rooftop in Joppa, he first has a vision of an enigmatic object being lowered to the earth, which is taken back up to heaven after the voice stops speaking (10.9-16). ³⁶ On both these occasions, Luke envelops Jesus’ speech with attention to sight, and he emphasizes the centrality of these visions through narrative repetition. Indeed, Paul’s vision is narrated a total of three times (9.1-9; 22.6-16; 26.12-18) and Peter’s vision twice (10.9-16; 11.4-10), with both visions forming crucial turning points in Paul and Peter’s respective characterizations and the unfolding of the plot (Gaventa 1986: 52-129; Prince 2017: 364-98). Paul’s vision in particular highlights Luke’s increased attention to the visual, for each retelling of the event heightens the visual imagery and increases the brightness of the light that Paul sees (‘a light from heaven’ [9.3] → ‘a great light from heaven’ [22.6] → ‘a light from heaven brighter than the sun’ [26.13]) (Witherup 1992: 76).

Of course, as with Mary’s angelic encounter, not all epiphanies incorporate explicit visual terminology. The Holy Spirit, for example, does not always become visually manifest but simply speaks (Acts 8.29, 39; 10.19-20; 13.2). Not all angelic manifestations include explicit visual elements either (Lk. 1.28; Acts 5.19-20; 8.26; 12.23; 27.23-25), and Jesus’ final appearance in the narrative lacks any specific vision terminology, for he simply stands near Paul and speaks (23.11). ³⁷ Yet even in these instances of verbally oriented epiphanies, or ‘auditions’ to use John Miller’s terminology (Miller 2007: 11-14), we still find a sensory blending of the verbal with the visual. Luke may not use explicit vision terminology in these episodes, but he still depicts the Spirit, angels and Jesus entering into the narrative and acting. In the case of Jesus, for example, his standing near Paul suggests that he can be visually perceived, and he also stands near Paul ‘at night’ (23.11), recalling the earlier time that Jesus spoke to Paul ‘at night through a vision’ (18.9). ³⁸ Indeed, with these and other auditions, Luke still indicates that there is something important in seeing divine words delivered. On two separate occasions, Luke even depicts the recipient of a heavenly vision seeing the subject of that vision speak: Cornelius ‘saw in a vision clearly … an angel of God approaching him and saying to him, “Cornelius”’ (10.3; cf. 11.13) and Paul himself says that ‘I saw [ἰδεῖν] [Jesus] speaking [λέγοντά] to me’ (22.18). ³⁹ Indeed, ‘auditions’ are often simultaneously ‘visions’, for the deliverance of divine speech typically occurs in a visual context, either stated or evoked.

What is more, while Luke includes many instances of divine–human encounters and divine speech throughout his narrative (especially in Acts), he depicts the most significant encounters in vividly visual terms. The Holy Spirit may primarily speak, but the two most memorable scenes involving the Spirit – namely Jesus’ baptism and Pentecost – are extremely visual, with the Spirit descending like a dove and appearing as tongues of fire (Lk. 3.22; Acts 2.3-4). ⁴⁰ Jesus’ own most memorable encounters, as mentioned above, are likewise highly visual events, and they are events, moreover, that require vision to make sense of how God is acting in the world. Paul’s loss and recovery of sight paradoxically enables him to ‘see’ Jesus, and Peter must reconcile the image he sees with Jesus’ accompanying words in order to understand God’s will concerning the inclusion of the Gentiles. ⁴¹ Finally, the first time that both God and Jesus appear in Acts is the one time in Luke’s narrative where sight alone functions to communicate God’s will. This instance, as noted above, occurs after Stephen concludes his speech when he gazes into heaven and sees the ascended Jesus standing alongside God’s glory: a sight that confirms Stephen’s previous testimony, but without any reference to divine speech (Acts 7.55-56). With the most significant epiphanies and visionary experiences in Luke–Acts, therefore, sight does not simply signal the beginning of an epiphany. Instead sight, when it does intersect with divine speech, does so in ways that make sight essential for understanding God’s larger plan.

Visual Verification: Seeing Signs

Second, while signs do not appear in epiphanies per se later in Luke–Acts, they continue to play a significant role in facilitating belief. ⁴² This is especially the case in the first half of Acts where the phrase ‘signs and wonders’ is a frequent refrain. ⁴³ In these instances, signs – or miracles that can be sensorially perceived – often appear in tandem with speech: proclamation and the performance of miracles go hand-in-hand, with signs in particular functioning to substantiate the spoken word. ⁴⁴ There are times, however, when signs play an even more significant role than speech in leading people to faith. ⁴⁵ In Acts 3, Peter and John heal a man with weak ankles: an act that is predicated on Peter and John’s perspicacious sight (3.4-7) and that causes public recognition of the healing and its divine source (3.9-11, 16; 4.16, 21-22). Although Peter later pairs this act with speeches to both the astonished crowds and the annoyed religious leaders (3.12-26; 4.8-12), the entire episode revolves around this ‘sign [σημεῖον] of healing’ (4.22), which the leaders themselves call a ‘known sign [γνωστὸν σημεῖον]’ (4.16). Indeed, the healed man is ultimately a sign of Jesus’ power, a point that Peter makes in both his speeches (3.12, 16; 4.9-10). Signs play a similarly significant role in leading people to faith in Acts 5 when numerous people become believers because of the apostles’ many ‘signs [σημεῖα] and wonders’ (5.12-16). In this instance, Luke focuses solely on the apostles’ miracles without any reference to apostolic speech. We find a similar situation in Acts 28 when Paul ministers on the island of Malta by healing people, but without any mention of him preaching or teaching (28.1-10). Even when the Maltese mistakenly believe that Paul is a god after he miraculously survives a snake bite, Paul does not take the opportunity to correct them verbally. ⁴⁶ Indeed, signs sometimes take precedence over the spoken word when it comes to matters of faith.

Luke also clarifies later in his gospel that Jesus himself is a sign who should (but often does not) lead to faith. In the birth narrative, the angel of the Lord identifies Jesus as a ‘sign’ (σημεῖον) to the shepherds (2.12), and the prophet Simeon soon afterwards identifies Jesus as a ‘sign’ that will be opposed – or literally ‘a spoken against sign’ (σημεῖον ἀντιλεγόμενον) (2.34). Luke has already established that people (such as Zechariah and Elizabeth) function as signs in ch. 1, but he explicitly uses σημεῖον terminology in reference to Jesus in ch. 2. After the birth narrative, though, Luke goes on to depict Jesus, not just as a sign, but as an unrecognized sign that must be interpreted. In ch. 11 of his gospel, the crowds demand that Jesus perform a sign from heaven in order to test him (11.16), a demand that recalls Zechariah’s own request for a sign and Gabriel’s subsequent critique (1.18-20). Like Gabriel, Jesus responds to this demand by redirecting his audience to a sign that they do not expect. He says: ‘This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign [σημεῖον], but no sign [σημεῖον] will be given to it except the sign [σημεῖον] of Jonah, for just as Jonah became a sign [σημεῖον] to the people of Nineveh, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation’ (11.29-30). Unlike Matthew’s account of this saying, which lacks any likening between Jonah and the Son of Man with respect to becoming a sign (Mt. 12.39-40; cf. Mt. 16.4; Mk 8.12), Luke indicates that Jesus himself is the unexpected sign. How exactly, though, are we to interpret this sign? Are we to read Jonah (and thus Jesus) as a sign of judgment or as a sign of repentance? As a sign of condemnation or ultimate vindication? ⁴⁷ Jesus’ words are not entirely clear, and they require interpretation on the part of the reader (and decisions regarding what aspect of the Jonah story they want to highlight). Moreover, with this scene, Luke points to a great irony: the crowds demand a sign but are unable to recognize the sign (Jesus) who stands before them. As Jesus will bemoan just one chapter later, the crowds know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but they are unable to interpret the present time (12.56). According to Luke, Jesus is a sign who requires interpretation, but he is also an embodied sign who remains largely unrecognized during his time on earth. We see this motif once again during Jesus’ trial, for here Herod does not recognize Jesus nor interpret him rightly: he wants Jesus to perform a sign (23.8), but when Jesus remains silent (a ‘silent sign’, if you will), Herod’s initial curiosity turns to contempt and mockery (23.8-11). ⁴⁸ Indeed, Jesus’ words – his teachings and so forth – play an important role in revealing God’s plan to God’s people, but as a sign (who performs signs no less!), Jesus also provides visual corroboration of God’s plan, even if this visuality remains hidden from many eyes (cf. 19.41-44).

Overall, Luke’s depiction of signs as visual corroboration falls within a larger trend concerning the import of visual corroboration in Luke–Acts, especially when it comes to corroborating speech about the divine. In Luke’s narrative, sight often serves as the foundation for testimony, for what one says about God’s activity is often based upon what one sees. ⁴⁹ Luke introduces this motif as early as the prologue when he claims that his orderly account has been based on ‘eyewitnesses’ (αὐτόπται) (Lk. 1.2), and he continues this emphasis on eyewitness testimony at the beginning of Acts when he clarifies that Judas’s replacement must be a disciple who witnessed Jesus’ entire earthly ministry (Acts 1.21-22). Throughout his two volumes, Luke typically places verbs of seeing before verbs of hearing, suggesting an order of importance (and an importance to the order), contrasting in particular with Matthew, for whom hearing typically precedes seeing. ⁵⁰ The importance of sight preceding testimony becomes especially apparent with many of the epiphanies in Acts. Visions and epiphanies often impel people to speak about Jesus, and they justify the spread of the gospel to Macedonia (16.9-10), to the Gentiles (9.15; 22.17-21; 26.17-18) and ultimately to Rome (23.11; 27.23-25). ⁵¹ Jesus himself also commands Paul in visions to proclaim the good news, as when he tells Paul to speak and not be silent (18.9), to testify (or bear witness to Jesus) in Rome (23.11) and to ‘testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you’ (26.16). ⁵² In short, Luke often depicts signs, visions and sight in general as preceding speech and facilitating both testimony and belief.

Revelation and Hiddenness: Seeing and Not Seeing

Third and finally, the motif of revelation and hiddenness, though introduced in the birth narrative, plays an even more central role later in Luke’s narrative, in both epiphanies and beyond. We have already seen how both Zechariah and Elizabeth are hidden signs in the birth narrative, in that Zechariah cannot be heard and Elizabeth cannot be seen by the wider narrative audience until John’s birth (Coleridge 1993: 48). ⁵³ God is revealing God’s plan to Zechariah and Elizabeth, but they do not disclose that plan to others: Zechariah because he cannot speak and Elizabeth because she hides away her pregnant body. God is also revealing God’s plan to Mary with the birth of her son, but Mary does not understand this plan fully and so must ponder, or conceal, these things in her heart (2.19, 51). In a similar fashion, Luke indicates that John the Baptist and Jesus are also hidden signs in the birth narrative in that they are not publicly revealed until ‘time’. ⁵⁴ John remains in the wilderness until the day he appears publicly to Israel (1.80) (Coleridge 1993: 123-24), and Jesus stays in Nazareth in submission to his parents until he joins John in the wilderness and begins his public ministry at the age of 30 (2.51-52; 3.21–4.15).

After the birth narrative, epiphanies continue this revelation and hiddenness motif. At Jesus’ baptism, it is not clear whether anyone sees the heavens open and the descent of the Spirit or whether anyone hears God’s voice, since these events happen after Jesus’ baptism and since God’s words are directed to Jesus alone (Lk. 3.21-22; cf. Mt. 3.16-17). At the transfiguration, only Peter, John and James witness the event, and they do not share what they see with anyone, for they are ‘silent’ (ἐσίγησαν) about ‘the things they had seen [ἑώρακαν]’ (Lk. 9.36). ⁵⁵ At the empty tomb, the women witness angels telling them of Jesus’ resurrection (24.1-10), but the women’s words are dismissed and not believed until the male disciples have their own visual confirmation (24.11-43). Even after the ascension, when Jesus is finally fully revealed, epiphanies do not always bring immediate clarity and often require interpretation on the part of the recipients. ⁵⁶

In addition to epiphanies, Luke also clarifies that Jesus himself both reveals and conceals. Jesus brings revelation by revealing the thoughts of people’s hearts (Lk. 2.35; 5.22; 6.8; 7.36-50; 9.47; 11.17; cf. 1.51; 16.15) and by opening up the disciples’ minds to understand the scriptures (or to interpret them correctly) (Lk. 24.27, 32, 45; cf. Acts 8.30-35; 16.14; 17.2-3). ⁵⁷ As ‘the Son’, he alone has the power to reveal ‘the Father’ (Lk. 10.21-22), and as the Son of Man, he will also be revealed at the eschaton (17.30). At the same time, Jesus also at times forbids demons and his followers from revealing his true identity (e.g., 4.41; 9.18-22; cf. 4.34-35), and he frequently hides away from the crowds who want to see and hear him by retreating to the wilderness, or ‘deserted space’ (ἔρημος), and by praying in relative isolation (4.42; 5.16; 6.12; 9.18, 28; 11.1; cf. 21.37; 22.39, 41). ⁵⁸ Even when he appears in his resurrected state to the disciples on the way to Emmaus, he disappears, or vanishes (ἄϕαντος ἐγένετο), at the exact moment when their eyes are opened and they recognize him (24.31).

As with instances of epiphanic speech, Jesus’ own words while he is on earth also have a hidden quality to them, or at least his words concerning the necessity of his suffering and resurrection. Once again, we have the visual overlapping with the verbal, in that the disciples cannot perceive or recognize Jesus’ speech concerning his passion. On one occasion when Jesus reveals his passion (9.44), Luke writes that the disciples ‘did not understand this word [ῥῆμα], and it was hidden [παρακεκαλυμμένον] from them so that they could not perceive [αἴσθωνται] it’ (9.45), with the verb αἰσθάνομαι denoting sensual perception. ⁵⁹ After another passion prediction (18.31-33), we find once again that ‘they understood nothing about these things, and this word [ῥῆμα] was hidden [κεκρυμμένον] from them, and they did not recognize [ἐγίνωσκον] the things that were said [τὰ λεγόμενα]’ (18.34). ⁶⁰ Jesus elsewhere uses the language of revelation and hiddenness to discuss the disclosure of hidden behaviors (8.16-17; 12.2-3), but in the above instances, Jesus’ own revelatory ‘word’ concerning his death and resurrection are hidden from the disciples and do not become clear until after Jesus appears in his resurrected state. For Luke, seeing – and not seeing – Jesus’ words concerning his identity as the suffering messiah can only be understood according to God’s own appointed time.