Epilep­tic Symp­toms In The Bib­li­cal Prophets ?

This is in response to this arti­cle by a Chris­t­ian missionary.

Muham­mad’s 11 symptoms

1. He expe­ri­enced ring­ing in his ears, like bells

In their epilep­tic or psy­chot­ic fits which they inter­pret­ed as ​“prophet­ic” visions, Ezekiel heard ​“loud thun­der­ing nois­es” (Ezekiel 3:12f); Jere­mi­ah heard ​“sound of the trum­pet” (Jere­mi­ah 4:19); Isa­iah heard loud and shrill voic­es like ​“some­one cry­ing in the wilder­ness” (Isa­iah 40:3).

2. Sweat was on his forehead

Dur­ing what he believed to be his ​“prophet­ic” expe­ri­ence, all the ​“bones” of Jere­mi­ah ​“shook” (Jere­mi­ah 23:9) and he appeared to oth­ers like a ​“drunk­en man.”

3. His heart would beat rapidly

Isa­iah’s heart ​“pant­ed” (i.e., beat heav­i­ly) in his ​“prophet­ic” expe­ri­ence accord­ing to Isa­iah 21:4.

4. His face was red

Com­pare this with those whom the Old Tes­ta­ment regards as Prophets : The Old Tes­ta­ment Prophets bruised and bled them­selves (see : I Kings 20:35 – 43) under the influ­ence of what they regard­ed as their ​“prophet­ic” experience.

5. He would breath heavily

Isa­iah’s heart would fal­ter and he would breathe heav­i­ly in what he believed to be his ​“prophet­ic” visions (Isa­iah 21:4).

6. He would sud­den­ly fall down or lie down

In Abra­ham’s psy­chot­ic vision, he ​“fell face down” on the ground (Gen­e­sis 17:3). In his visions, which he claimed to be ​“prophet­ic,” Ezekiel would fall on his face (Ezekiel 1:28 ; 43:1 – 5 ; 44:4). When Peter and the dis­ci­ples of Jesus under­went a psy­chot­ic vision, they ​“fell flat on the ground.” (Matthew 17:6)

7. He want­ed to be cov­ered by a blanket

Old Tes­ta­ment Prophets cov­ered them­selves with rough and thick ​“gar­ments of hair” and leather-gir­dles (Zechari­ah 13:4 ; II Kings 1:8).

8. He would fall down unconscious

Daniel fell uncon­scious on observ­ing a vision, which he claimed to be a ​“prophet­ic” expe­ri­ence (Daniel 10:8, 9f).

9. His lips would move rapidly

Max Weber writes :

They [The Old Tes­ta­ment Prophets] screamed (karah) their prophe­cies aloud to the world, part­ly in indis­tin­guish­able words, part­ly in impre­ca­tions, threats, and bene­dic­tions with sali­va run­ning from their mouths (hit­tif ​“geifern” mean to prophe­cy), now mur­mur­ing or stam­mer­ing.Max Weber, Ancient Judaism (NY, 1952), p. 287

I had already indi­cat­ed that Ezekiel suf­fered from paral­y­sis of the limbs and of the tongue (Ezekiel 3:25f) from which infir­mi­ties he is relieved only upon the pro­nounce­ment (which he believed to be ​“prophet­ic”) of the down­fall of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 24:27 ; 33 22).

10. He would snore like a camel

The com­ment of the big­ot­ed author of the orig­i­nal post itself stat­ed that this was not (i.e., in his opin­ion) a symp­tom of epilep­sy. Thus there isn’t any need to fur­ther inves­ti­gate it because he/​she did not raise any objec­tion here.

11. He would sweat

See response to point 2. The dumb Chris­t­ian repeat­ed this point twice.

All of the above (except snor­ing like a camel) are symp­toms of epilep­sy. So 10 out of Muham­mad’s 11 symp­toms may be epilepsy-related…10/11

Now, I anx­ious­ly await the judg­ment of the Chris­t­ian Zion­ists on the Old Tes­ta­ment Prophets since their prophet­ic expe­ri­ence turns out to be a mir­ror image of that of the Prophet Muham­mad^(P). For the Mus­lims, this in itself is the great­est proof of the fact that the Prophet Muham­mad^(P) rep­re­sent­ed the con­ti­nu­ity of the Hebrew Prophet­ic tra­di­tion, which had been bro­ken and con­tra­dict­ed by the false teach­ings of Christianity. 

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