St Paul and the meteor

[Clive]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... TuN4s53UYU

The early evangelist Paul became a Christian because of a dazzling light on the road to Damascus, but one astronomer thinks it was an exploding meteor

NEARLY two thousand years ago, a man named Saul had an experience that changed his life, and possibly yours as well. According to Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the biblical New Testament, Saul was on the road to Damascus, Syria, when he saw a bright light in the sky, was blinded and heard the voice of Jesus. Changing his name to Paul, he became a major figure in the spread of Christianity.

William Hartmann, co-founder of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, has a different explanation for what happened to Paul. He says the biblical descriptions of Paul's experience closely match accounts of the fireball meteor seen above Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013.

Hartmann has detailed his argument in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science (doi.org/3vn). He analyses three accounts of Paul's journey, thought to have taken place around AD 35.....

[outhouse]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... TuN4s53UYU

The early evangelist Paul became a Christian because of a dazzling light on the road to Damascus, but one astronomer thinks it was an exploding meteor

NEARLY two thousand years ago, a man named Saul had an experience that changed his life, and possibly yours as well. According to Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the biblical New Testament, Saul was on the road to Damascus, Syria, when he saw a bright light in the sky, was blinded and heard the voice of Jesus. Changing his name to Paul, he became a major figure in the spread of Christianity.

William Hartmann, co-founder of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, has a different explanation for what happened to Paul. He says the biblical descriptions of Paul's experience closely match accounts of the fireball meteor seen above Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013.

Hartmann has detailed his argument in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science (doi.org/3vn). He analyses three accounts of Paul's journey, thought to have taken place around AD 35.....

Since it opposes what Paul tells us himself, I place no credibility in this acts account.

Now what the author perceived is more important that anything Paul may have witnessed since Paul didn't tell us.


Was it something to do with a volcanic eruption? similar to Revelation's accounts?

[Clive]

It is a fascinating proposal - that Paul saw a meteor.

William Hartmann, co-founder of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, has a different explanation for what happened to Paul. He says the biblical descriptions of Paul's experience closely match accounts of the fireball meteor seen above Chelyabinsk, in 2013.

Hartmann has detailed his argument in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science (doi.org/3vn). He analyses three accounts of Paul's journey, thought to have taken place around AD 35. The first is a third-person description of the event, thought to be the work of one of Jesus's disciples, Luke. The other two quote what Paul is said to have subsequently told others.

"Everything they are describing in those three accounts in the book of Acts are exactly the sequence you see with a fireball," Hartmann says. "If that first-century document had been anything other than part of the Bible, that would have been a straightforward story."

But the Bible is not just any ancient text. Paul's Damascene conversion and subsequent missionary journeys around the Mediterranean helped build Christianity into the religion it is today. If his conversion was indeed as Hartmann explains it, then a random space rock has played a major role in determining the course of history (see "Christianity minus Paul").

That's not as strange as it sounds. A large asteroid impact helped kill off the dinosaurs, paving the way for mammals to dominate the Earth. So why couldn't a meteor influence the evolution of our beliefs?

"It's well recorded that extraterrestrial impacts have helped to shape the evolution of life on this planet," says Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama. "If it was a Chelyabinsk fireball that was responsible for Paul's conversion, then obviously that had a great impact on the growth of Christianity."

Hartmann's argument is possible now because of the quality of observations of the Chelyabinsk incident. The 2013 meteor is the most well-documented example of larger impacts that occur perhaps only once in 100 years. Before 2013, the 1908 blast in Tunguska, also in Russia, was the best example, but it left just a scattering of seismic data, millions of flattened trees and some eyewitness accounts. With Chelyabinsk, there is a clear scientific argument to be made, says Hartmann. "We have observational data that match what we see in this first-century account."

[DCHindley]

It is a fascinating proposal - that Paul saw a meteor.

Having researched the symptoms of retinal detachment, and the visual effects of low blood sugar, I sometimes think that one or more of the three versions of the story were caused by retinal detachment in conjunction in conjunction with a bout of low blood sugar.

I have not had the former thing happen to me, but the ophthalmologists I've seen describe full or even partial detachment as accompanied by "flashes of light" in the corners of the eye.

Now I have experienced low blood sugar levels, in which segments of my field of vision in any one eye starts to blur out and it appears as though the blur randomly floats across my field of vision. Now imagine this happening in both eyes at once, and the confusion it might cause someone. I did not suspect then that I was experiencing the effects of low blood sugar, although I was taking medication for type II diabetes. It's just that I never experienced that particular issue before. I would also get cold clammy skin and light headedness when my vision blurred like that.

Now suddenly you got all the ingredients to interpret the causes for the symptoms Paul is said to have experienced.

Flashes of light (retinal partial detachment), blurred (obscured) vision after his unexpected fall from his transport animal and his confusion trying to come up with a reason for what he was experiencing (all blood sugar issues). Like me, he would not know about low blood sugar, so could not regulate it by diet, so he is going to continue to experience these bouts in the future. So that might explain that health issue he continuously thanks his letter recipients for putting up with.

DCH

PS: Think of the Godfather movie sequel where Michael has bouts of shakiness and light headedness, and with jittery hands wolfs down a candy bar that one his bodyguards and others carry with them at all times just for this occasion. If he didn't eat the candy bar, and other food was not consumed that would reduce the effects, he would have experienced the same symptoms described above.