Hi all
there are some quite enormous historical claims of visions of Mary in the 20th century. This youtuber sets up the story, and has William Lane Craig and Sean McDowell commenting - but it’s still left me (as a Protestant of course) quite uncomfortable.
Hey Max, nice to have you join us here. Is there something in particular you hope to discuss or a certain timestamp on the video you find most interesting?
Are you hoping to discuss Marian apparitions and what, if anything, can account or explain them?
Or since many Christians believe already in a mass vision of Jesus, why should’t the Marian apparitions be believed as well - and as a consequence, taken as proof of Mary’s high status in the spiritual world?
Sure! I prefer forums where people must summarize the argument in text. (I must have felt lazy.)
The sceptical claim was that because us Protestants quote Paul on the 500 seeing a risen Jesus, we should also - to be consistent - accept the claims of thousands of secular and sceptical and Catholic people in 1917 at Fatima. Or the events in Egypt in 1968. The Wikis of course contain sceptical accounts of these events - which as a Protestant I am attracted to. One argument for the Egyptian visions is that they were Muslim - what are they doing having visions of Mary? Presuppositions and expectations are important to try and explain away such instances. But the wiki already indicates that Muslims do have a certain understanding of Mary - although I do not know much about that.
If we explain these away - are we not contributing to the same sceptical, doubt-it-unless-I-see it vibe of today’s Dawkins types? But if we are to be consistent - should we not become Catholics - or at least some sort of Protestant with Mariology hybrid? I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts.
I tend to take a somewhat sceptic attitude towards mass visions. Or perhaps a blend of sceptic and open because I assume that the persons saw something. It is like in the mass sightings of UAPs (ex-UFOs): people saw something but what did they really see?
When Paul mentioned the 500 seeing the risen Jesus, we are not told any details. The only thing that is told is that a group of 500 people believed that they saw Jesus and others accepted that claim.
In the previous appearences of the resurrected Jesus, people did not just see Jesus. Jesus told something and sometimes participated in activities, like eating with people. We are not told what he did or spoke in the case of 500 witnesses, or how did they know it was Jesus?
The mass visions of Mary provoke many questions. How did they know it was Mary (or maybe we should use the name Maryam, if they were Muslims)? It seems there were strange light phenomena and/or a shape that someone claimed to be Mary. That perhaps shows that something apparently extraordinary was seen but is not proof that the shape was Mary.
One theologian I know is currently working part-time on a project she calls ‘Mariology for Pentacostals’. She is a Pentecostal herself. It will be interesting to read the articles she will write. I don’t know how long it will take because she has also other projects, in addition to a teaching position, and her time has gone mainly to these other projects and teaching.
Her speciality is systematic theology, so the study will be that rather than exegesis.
My question is what these appearances did or said: if Mary appeared, she would only do so to point to Jesus, not to herself, not to play games with the sun.
As for Craig, I think he’s wrong about the 500: nothing tells us that they were already believers before the appearance, only that they were when Paul wrote.
The commenter in the video makes a basic error: just because “everyone saw something” and “it was supernatural” does not mean it was actually Mary – don’t forget that Satan also can “appear as an angel of light”.
I’d say that Protestants have a simple answer: Paul doesn’t say that those 500 had a “vision” of Jesus, he says they saw Jesus, i.e. the Resurrected One in the flesh – so these are not the same things at all.
I don’t think it’s comparable. There is no reason to think Mary is any more special than you, me or the next person. Mary was not special. Just a woman. A young woman who got pregnant. Maybe the conception was supernatural or maybe she was sexually assaulted, got pregnant, and the spirit of
god was with the child who became Jesus. Then afterwards, Joseph “knew her”’and maybe she got pregnant some more or they just had sex and she never had any more kids. The Bible decided to not go very deep into this subject.
The Bible lines out stories of disciples and mothers seeing Jesus several times after his resurrection and many at his accession. The Bible does mention that at some point some people rose back up and went into the city. Then never give gives any more info such as did it last just a few days and then they fell over dead, or did they return to their grave or was it just visions of the “spirits” and the corpses remained behind. Does not give us any detail.
Nothing seems to hint at it happening thousands of years later. So while the Bible does not necessarily forbid it, it also does not hint at it. Could 20k have seen Mary. Sure. Do I believe it? No.
A number of people claim to have seen Elvis or Bigfoot, also. In each case, it’s necessary to assess the plausibility of the claim. Are there likely alternative explanations? The Bible calls us to test the spirits, not to accept every claim. Is it consistent theologically? Science is not the only basis of assessing whether something makes sense. As already noted, an appearance of Mary isn’t proof that Catholicism is correct; as far as I know, none of the reports of appearances of Mary have featured lectures on transubstantiation, for example, so the argument of the video is rather beyond what can be concluded. Although it’s true that we should not a priori reject miracles, they are uncommon.
The 500 cited by Paul are part of a list of various appearances. In general, the New Testament record of post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, where there is detail, tended to be people who weren’t expecting anything and took some convincing.
I think it is natural to feel uncomfortable here. In my opinion, many non-orthodox and non-Catholic Christians have an “anti-Mary bias” and misunderstand the teachings of the Church and the scripture it is based on.
Many apologists are quick to point out “evidence” for the resurrection from an ancient letter almost 2,000 years old, the earliest copy of which comes 100 or more years after it was supposedly written. Somehow this is supposed to serve as good testimony of a miraculous event but hundreds of people alive today, who are able to be questioned and cross-examined are usually dismissed out of hand when they tell us something we do not want to believe? Maybe even comparisons to Elvis and Bigfoot are tossed around. Please also note that Paul has Jesus appearing to a 12 that didn’t exist. Judas was not there. Somehow these ancient references are more plausible than modern witnesses who are still alive? On what grounds? Paul is 2,000 year old hearsay, and as far as the Gospels go, who wrote them and where they were written is largely unknown and hotly contested. To most educated scholars they are anonymous testimony. That hardly makes it credible and the gospels are literarily dependent on one another and do not represent four distinct witnesses. The idea that the people who saw Jesus in some of the NT stories took some convincing is generally irrelevant and could be construed as narrative details whether true or false. Verisimilitude does not equal historical. It never has and never will to the highest level of academic history. Those who base their faith on historical apologetics and deny apparitions of Mary are largely being inconsistent with their own standards of evidence. So if you are in that boat, I would say you should feel tension and friction in your own beliefs.
Also, those who say Mary is not special have cut themselves off from both the Bible and the earliest Church. Mary was extremely special and plays an integral role in salvation history in both. As the new Eve and new Ark of the Covenant, this is obvious to anyone who reads the New Testament through ancient Jewish lenses–including the earliest Christians who chose and preserved the Bible.
Mary is not an enemy. Some people go too far in how they understand and describe the Blessed Virgin, but that doesn’t mean we should swing the pendulum all the way in the other direction and deny the plain teachings of Scripture and the early church about her.
Brant Pitre has a wonderful book on Mary and her Jewish roots:
Although many modern-day Christians are quick to insist that Mary was just an “ordinary woman,” this was certainly not true of ancient Christians. In ancient times, the parallels between Eve and Mary were widely recognized and led to the recognition that just as Eve had played a unique role in the fall of humankind, so Mary plays a unique role in its redemption.38 Consider the following quotations from ancient Christians living in the East and the West:
These are not obscure names in the history of the church. Neither are these two authors below who understand that 2 Sam 6 and Luke 1 clearly depict Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant.
St. Gregory: Mary is truly an ark—”gold within and gold without, and she has received in her womb all the treasures of the sanctuary.” [3rd century]
Athanasius: “O noble Virgin . . . O dwelling place of God the Word . . . You are the ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides” (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin). [4th]]
When we read scripture through Jewish eyes, Jesus is the new and greater Moses, he is inaugurating a new Exodus, is the new Manna from heaven, establishes the new covenant of Jeremiah, a new Passover supper to be celebrated in perpetuity, etc…Why then is there not a new Ark of the covenant which played an integral role in the first Exodus and the history of Israel? The answer is there is.
Vinnie
There are quite a few aspects of religion that are not easily explained. And sometimes you have to be patient and wait for self-validation before you can be reasonably sure that it is a genuine phenomenon.
Case in point; laying on of hands and falling back by an action of the Holy Spirit.
I admit that I was on the fence as far as validity on that point, and a few other of the evangelical demonstrations. Till it happened to me personally, and I was “dropped” 2 and a half times. I say the half because what we had at one service was a line of people “laying hands” that you briskly walked through…I didn’t teeter a bit on my feet until after I got back to my seat.
But the other two illustrations were “oh my, flat on my back on the floor” encounters, that I just couldn’t stop or intervene, one of which I had to be helped up to get off the floor, by another member of the church.
The key is to always keep an open mind, until it can be conclusively proven not to be the case.
Judas didn’t have to be there – “the Twelve” was a term of art, a technical term, referring to the Apostles who had walked with Jesus. That it was at the particular moment only eleven was not important, any more than talking about the Twelve Tribes when there were different ways to list them and get twelve.
Which is logically ludicrous since the attributions we have are the only ones ever discovered and go back to the earliest Fathers. It is more historically certain that the four Evangelists actually wrote the works attributed to them than that Caesar wrote the Gallic Wars.
Both of which are pure tradition.
I like how a speaker at a conference once put it in response to that very comment: “She may have started out that way!”
Hardly a view from the radical reformation!
Mary is an interesting case in church history.
As most of the prominent figures in the good news about the Kingdom of God are male, and God (He) is usually described as ‘Father’ and ‘Son’, there has probably been a need for female ‘heroes’ to the story. Most other religions had goddesses and priestesses and the male-dominated picture of the Kingdom of God may have sounded a bit hard and one-sided for those used to asking something from female religious characters. My impression from reading from the early centuries is that Jesus was too often pictured as a fearsome King and judging God, rather than someone whom you could approach safely.
In patriarchal societies, the many women who played an important role among the followers of Jesus could be easily bypassed. Mary was a blessed woman who could not as easily be forgotten. She was the most evident ‘female hero’ in the story because she was given an important role in the plan and accepted the difficult task she got humbly. She was an example of both a humble maiden and the mother, a person who had carried the Son of God closer than anyone else. Such a role was almost like being part of a family of gods.
It is a matter of opinion how significant a role we want to give to Mary. She was definitely blessed and a model for the following generations. If Jesus was seen as the seed of Eve, Mary could be seen as a new model of the Eve whose seed would crush the head of the snake.
Anything more than that is tradition added on the core story. I think that ‘mariology’ has deviated far from the original message and plan of God.
Another matter of interpretation is whether Mary & the other Saints spend their time watching the prayers of humans around the world and trying to influence God on behalf of those persons.
My understanding is that this belief is not an original apostolic teaching.
Poor Mary & the Saints, rest in peace although some would like to burden you with all kinds of unrealistic hopes and demands.
I like the way I heard someone put it over in a recent Holy Post episode - while Catholics perhaps get a bit carried away in how much they venerate Mary, Protestants tend to reactionarily go in the opposite direction and don’t appreciate her enough. And probably all the churches need to deepen their appreciation and respect for early female apostles and prominent figures. For thousands of years, most of the church has been using ill-informed tradition to deny itself access to at least half of the voices used by the Holy Spirit to teach us more about God.
Our interpretation of biblical scriptures and suitable roles have at least partly depended on cultural filters.
Sometimes it has lead to somewhat incoherent practices. A century ago, women could not lead or preach in established national churches. When the same women went as missionaries to new frontiers, they could start new churches, lead and preach - [our denomination was exceptional in letting also single women to go as accepted missionaries to new frontiers, so they did not always have a husband to take the lead]. Women could also lead activities that were classified as social work of the church, even when teaching was part of the work. Women coming from the upper classes of the society had more liberties in this.
Missionary and social work have played very important roles in our denomination, which may explain why women have played important roles in our church context for more than a century. Yet, there are still members that are reluctant to support a woman to becoming a leader (elder or leading pastor) in the church. They may accept a woman as a church worker leading some activities in the church, like as a youth pastor, and listen to her when she teaches in front of the church but they feel that there is a limit to what women are allowed to do in the church. Identifying where the limit goes becomes difficult when women are trained and accepted as workers and pastors. Then the only remaining alternatives for a limit are an elder or leading pastor.
I have to give these members credit in that they have been very supportive towards those that have been elected as elders or leading pastors, even if they themselves voted against it - practical love in operation despite differences in interpretation.
My own attitude is that the selection and call of God is more important than the sex of the person (avoiding here the word ‘gender’ 
). All male leadership is perfect if God has selected and called these persons to the position. Mixed leadership is also perfect if God has called those persons to the position.
That might be the understatement of the millennium! In fact, it may not be much of an overstatement to suggest that the rejection and subjugation of all that has recently been labeled as ‘feminine’ may have cost the church her very soul. Or at least large swaths of it in the West that now chase after idolatries of politics and ‘power’.
I’d push back a bit on your last paragraph. God’s call is perfectly timed,of course. But the people so called are never perfect, excepting Christ himself. From Moses to David to Peter. All of them very real in their humanity, which we can then feel the encouragement for ourselves that we too can be used by God.
But only if she was ordinary (to begin with) – if she was born without sin, then she is no example to us at all but rather an insult.
The real problem with that is that while asking Mary or Paul or whomever to pray for us is no different than asking your pastor to pray for you, that millions do so every hour and all expect the same sort of response as from a pastor requires some assumptions, starting with that they can actually hear all those millions at once. Sure, there are ways to argue around that, but it is still a good ways from the text.
Greek mythology creeping into the church . . . again.
While insisting that Mary is the Bearer of God is sound given that Jesus was God from the moment of conception, the rest of it is pious additions/speculations.
Reminds me of the day I pissed off a conservative professor by insisting that while the head pastor of a church should be a man, by not ordaining women as well we only had 51% of a real ministry – though what may have really pissed him off was my argument that if Jesus was the second Adam, that had to be Adam before removal of a certain rib or women weren’t atoned for and thus to properly represent Christ in the ministry of the church then women had to be part of it. (He also wasn’t happy that a colleague conceded that, following the example of Priscilla and Aquilla, female ministry partners of male ministers could be ordained.)
I encountered a joint Episcopalian/Lutheran congregation where elders were required to be married – and were consecrated as couples!
Or as I have seen occasionally, only men can pronounce absolution or celebrate the Eucharist (that’s one I can make a strong argument for, BTW).
That’s why I love the Lutheran phrase “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ” – it pretty much declares “I’m nothing, just standing in for Jesus and doing what He ordered”.
Some friends have said half-jokingly that all elders should have grandchildren that are known as well-behaving believers. Only then can we be sure that the person fulfills all the demands that are listed in the biblical scriptures.
Luckily, the denomination where I am does not have that tight criteria for elders, and elders are chosen for a given time period, not for lifetime as in many local Pentecostal churches. If an elder becomes too senile or too fixed to practices that were fine 40 years ago but are not what is needed today, there is a possibility to replace that person after a few years in the position.
That is a matter of interpretation. I think it puts too much weight on the human. The Eucharist should be the table of the Lord (figuratively, Jesus serves us), and absolution should be received from the Holy Spirit. In both cases, there is a risk that we forget the core if we focus too much on the ‘specialist’ that performs the show.
Many churches have their own tables (‘Eucharists’) where only the members of that church are allowed to participate. Those practices tend to forget what that table is and what is the body of Christ today. I think it is sad but I know that many denominations have a different interpretation about this matter than I have.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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