This question suggests a cultural scenario which might connect Zechariah’s vision with his inability to speak. Obviously the connection with 2Cor. 12:4 is semantically very indirect.
found two relevant PHd dissertations:
THE REVELATORY ACTS OF GOD IN THE GOSPELS, MARK D. BATLUCK, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
2013
Such occurrences are not rare even today. If you see something like this happening, call an ambulance immediately. Zacharias is having a stroke, probably due to an occlusion in a distal branch of the middle cerebral artery in the left hemisphere of his brain.
Unlike (maybe a year ago?) when I suggested that in the first book of the Iliad, Achilles was suffering from a brain tumor that gave him visions, I’m only half joking this time. Surely this episode was suggested by a real occurrence in life. Aphasia is a very typical symptom, and very a dramatic one both for the person affected and for people around him.
But the question remains: “How did they know?” Was there a particular cultural scenario that linked Zacharias’ inability to speak to a vision? (The passage in 2Cor. 12:4 is different: there it’s a question of hearing ἄρρητα ῥήματα, not seeing a vision.)
@Paul, I would think that the crowd recognized that the unlikely case of an aphasia with no associated agraphia suggested a psychological explanation. Given the sacred context, the differential diagnosis was obvious to them: a religious vision.
Why is this only in Luke? Because only a physician would have known about the annual psychiatry convention hosted just outside the temple, and that the crowd would therefore have been made up entirely of doctors especially resistant to physiological explanations.
I think the question may be ill-framed. Since Z had seen a vision, which has just been described, it is narratologically appropriate that the fact is recognized. This is narrative logic, not real-life logic.
Or to put it more simply: Luke was hoping you wouldn’t ask that particular question. (Anyone remember that Monty Python sketch featuring an interview with a man who claimed to have written Shakespeare’s plays, and his wife the sonnets?)
Mwh: You’re obviously right that this is narrative logic, not real-life logic. However, we might still ask whether it was typical to link loss of speech to a religious vision or a divine visitation of another sort, or whether this was a nonce association Luke made for the occasion. I can see at least a couple of likely scenarios:
Z actually did suffer a stroke (or lost his capacity to speak for some other reason) just before coming before the crowd, who naturally explained his symptoms as a punishment from God. Someone at some stage, maybe Luke, embellished the story by adding the idea that he had actually had a vision before God smote him.
The story required Z to have a vision. Luke wanted to give the narrative another dramatic turn, so he decided that Z should lose his ability to speak as well. Maybe he had seen that happening to someone himself, or maybe he had heard or read about it happening (he was a physician, no? ) – but he thought it would give the right twist to the story.
But was it just his random idea, or was it a more common association?
Joel: I understand your sarcasm and I’m not a big fan of rationalizing explanations of miracles, especially not unlikely medical explanations. But the fact remains that some medical conditions are relatively common, and things like a stroke do and did happen; after witnessing a particularly dramatic event of that sort you are likely to remember it for the rest of your life. People would have tried to find an explanation for that sort of thing and I think it’s only to be expected that they should pop up once in a while in scripture. So while I’m very skeptical when miracles are explained by convoluted medical explanations involving rare or unlikely conditions, I think it’s only natural to see common ones behind this sort of narrative. Another example of a distorted description of an actual illness is the story of the man possessed by demons, which Jesus sent into pigs (Mark 5) – certainly the story is suggested by people suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
(How do you mean, “no associated agraphia”? Where did you get that? If indeed that was true, yes, but I doubt it, given that he was an old man already… )
Which is immediately followed by a full spontaneous remission.
Personally, I happen to agree with mwh’s narrative explanation, though I still consider Luke to be an inspired writer. For many of these side-stories in scripture, I think that “what parts exactly are historical?” is a very minor point compared to asking whether the stories are true or not, from the standpoint of the heart, soul, and spirit. That may be why I found the Luke 2:14 problem in the other thread important. The question of whether God’s promises to man are extensive or intensive strikes me as much more interesting and relevant than the precise nature of the godhead, etc.
I thought they were astonished precisely because he was suddenly able to write. But whatever, it’s not really important. Instantaneous remission nine months later is highly unlikely anyway. That, like the whole story, is motivated by narratological reasons – I don’t see how that contradicts with what I wrote. What I was pointing out is that the story is certainly at least partly inspired by a true occurrence. Whether we believe in the miracles associated to it is another matter. And the question that still remains is how people interpreted different symptoms. Since they didn’t know what we know about medicine, they must have had their own explanations, and those are interesting in their own right.
) – but he thought it would give the right twist to the story.