The Road to Damascus - to hear or not to hear:

The issue of whether the men with The Apostle Paul also heard the voice (of Yeshua) is an interesting one. Some argue that the three narratives in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles are hopelessly contradictory and blame, not Luke, but Paul for this.

One of their arguments is this: “In Acts 9:7 we are told that the men travelling with Paul hear a voice; in Acts 22:9 that they didn’t hear the voice; and in Acts 26:14 that only Paul heard the voice. Thus, these details are totally contradictory.” - paraphrasing

Looking at a number of translations we see a consistent message in Acts 9:7 that the men did hear the voice, but we are not told if they understood it. The translations also give a consistent message in Acts 26:14 that only the Apostle Paul heard the voice (in Hebrew). Acts 26 does not tell us whether the other men heard the voice at all.

For Acts 22:9, I checked some 32 English versions on Biblegateway.com and 20 of them have that the men ‘did not hear the voice’. Of the other 12 some have that they heard but did not understand.

The Greek word used here for ‘hear’ or ‘heard’ is ‘ακούω ‘ (Strong’s G191). Strong’s tells us that G191 can mean ‘hear’, (in various senses) or ‘to understand’ or ‘be reported’. So even the word ‘listen’ can be a suitable translations as in Matthew 10:14 “And if anyone will not receive you or listen (G191) to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.” Clearly then in Matt 10:14 G191 means means ‘understand’.

In Romans 10:17 “So faith comes from hearing (G191), and hearing through the word of Messiah.”. Also here then the meaning is also clearly to ‘understand’.

So given that this Greek word can mean either hear or understand, does its use in Acts 22:9 mean that the men heard absolutely nothing or that they didn’t understand what was heard? 

While we can’t be certain, if we expect some consistency in Luke’s writings and he has already told us in Acts 9 that they did hear the voice, then the meaning of ‘understand’ certainly has the higher probability.

The fact that whether the men ‘heard/understood’ or did not ‘hear/understand’ in Acts 26 is an omission of detail, not a contradiction of this detail. Appreciate that in Greek there is really no contradiction between Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9. Provided you use the relevant meaning of ‘ακούω’ (G191) in each of these verses then one is just stating that the mean heard and the other that they heard but didn’t understand. In other words Acts 22:9 gives a little more detail, not a contradictory reading.

We might ask though how could the men have seen the light and not be blinded when Paul was, and also hear the voice and yet not understood it as Paul did? 

Firstly, I think it relevant to mention than Luke informs us that Ananias in Damascus actually tells the Apostle Paul (rather than the Apostle Paul informing him), that The Apostle Paul had had a vision of Yeshua and Yeshua had spoken to him.

“… And laying his hands on him he said, Brother Paul, the Lord Yeshua who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” – Acts 9:17

This narrative is good support for the whole event and a fair inference can be drawn here that the other men had not been blinded as well. It would seem the vision, while having some impact on the other men, was specifically directed at the Apostle Paul.

These men were all travelling back from the Hellenistic Sadducean High Priest in Jerusalem. Given that much of the disputation against the followers of Yeshua (for example those involved in stoning Stephen) were from Hellenistic cities like Alexandria (and the Sanhedrin was largely composed of Hellenists as the High Priests were installed by Rome), it is possible that these men were even citizens of Damascus and Greek speaking Jews (who had not also had the Hebrew education that the Apostle Paul had had). Therefore, it is possible that they heard Yeshua speaking in Hebrew and could not understand the language. Thus, it would then make sense to learn that they heard the voice but did not understand it.

Regardless of whether such conjecture is close to the truth, there clearly is little contradiction between these three accounts of whether the men ‘heard/understood’ (G191) the voice. 

From this Greek word ακούω and the combining of all three versions it should be clear that whatever the full details of the miraculous event were, the men HEARD but did not UNDERSTAND. 

Thus, this is another case where those who reject the Apostle Paul (and by inference the integrity of Luke as well) do so using poor scholarship and faulty pre-suppositions.


Note:
A table comparing the major events from the three narratives on the Damascus Rd event:

Event	Acts 9	Acts 22	Acts 26
Great light	Yes	Yes	Yes
The Apostle Paul falls to ground	Yes	Yes	Yes
The Apostle Paul hears voice	Yes	Yes	Yes
The Apostle Paul blinded	Yes	Yes	Not told, but ‘sent to open eyes’
Men – see light	Not told either way	Yes	Yes
Men – hear voice	Yes	?	Yes
Men – understand voice	Not told	No. Translations disagee	Not told
Men fall	Not told	Not told	Yes