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The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Did the men with Paul hear the voice?
Acts 9:7 says the men travelling with Saul heard the voice. Acts 22:9 has Paul say they did not. The Greek verb for hear also means understand, and many versions read it that way in chapter 22.
Acts 9:7, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: can someone hear a voice and not hear it? The neighbours heard the argument through the wall, and the neighbours never heard what it was about. Is that a contradiction, or two senses of hear?
Acts 9:7 says the men with Saul stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. In Acts 22:9 Paul tells the crowd that they saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one speaking to him. Luke wrote both accounts of the same event.
The verb is akouo in both verses. Strong's, as carried in the site's word study data, lists understand among its King James renderings as well as hear. Bible Hub's interlinear pages show a difference in grammar: in 9:7 voice is genitive, phones, after the participle akouontes; in 22:9 it is accusative, phonen, after the aorist ekousan. The ESV puts did not understand the voice in its text at 22:9 and footnotes the alternative hear with understanding. Bible Hub's parallel page shows the split: the ESV, NIV, NASB and NLT read did not understand; the King James, NKJV, CSB and NRSV read did not hear. The tension is in English hear, which cannot carry the sense of understanding that the Greek verb can.
And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible sets the two verses side by side under "Did the men with Paul hear the voice?", Yes at 9:7 and No at 22:9. At full strength: one author, one event, one verb, and in 22:9 the verb is plainly negated. Appealing to a second meaning of hear only where it is needed looks like special pleading.
The ESV Study Bible says the companions saw no vision of Jesus and did not hear the message to Saul, but could testify to a brilliant light and a sound, which shows the event was not in Saul's imagination. The CSB Study Bible on 9:7 says they heard a noise but did not recognize the words, and on 22:9 that the grammar supports the idea that they heard but did not understand. MacArthur: only Paul understood the Lord's words, and his companions heard the sound but could not make out the words, as with the voice in John 12:29. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible adds that ancient hearers liked variation in retold stories.
The case difference is real in the Greek, but none of the sources read here shows that the genitive and accusative by themselves mark hearing a sound and hearing with sense, and the CSB, whose note cites the grammar, still translates did not hear. So the diagnosis rests on the range of the verb and on Luke's own context, with the case evidence as support at most. The third telling, in Acts 26, is not examined here.
Not a claim that the case endings settle it. The argument is about the range of one verb in context, not a hidden rule of Greek grammar.
- Bible Hub, Acts 9:7 interlinear, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/acts/9-7.htm
- Bible Hub, Acts 22:9 interlinear, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/acts/22-9.htm
- Bible Hub, Acts 22:9 parallel versions, https://biblehub.com/acts/22-9.htm
- Bible Word Study (jayms.com tool data), Strong's G191
- ESV Study Bible, note on Acts 9:7 and footnote on Acts 22:9
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Acts 9:7 and 22:9, textual note on 22:9
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Acts 22:9
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 9:1-18 and 22:7-11
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, Did the men with Paul hear the voice?, https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/voice.html
- King James Version, Acts 9:7 and 22:9
