Paul's Ascent to Paradise: The Apostolic Message and Mission of Paul in the Light of His Mystical Experiences

by James D. Tabor

Throughout these chapters of 2 Corinthians Paul exhibits fierce indignation, and asserts his authority to the uttermost.

His invective amounts to a “declaration of war” against those who fail to submit.83 He warns the community (i.e., anyone who would interpret his “weakness” as a lack of divine power) in 10:11: “Let these people understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present!

His purpose in writing is not ultimately to defend himself before them (13:19), but to give them opportunity to correct their ways and submit to him before he makes his visit (12:21; 13:10), so that he will not have to be sever...

For the opponents and those who will not come around, there is no hope. They are “false apostles,” “deceitful workers,” and servants of Satan himself.

The crux of Paul’s response, however, involves the subtle and shifting use of four key terms: weakness (astheneia); power (dunamis); boasting (kauchēsis) and foolishness (aphrosunēs).87 Paul’s concern is to make it clear that he is not the least bit “inferior” to the opponents, whom he sarcastically labels as “super-apostles.”

The Corinthians wanted “proof” that Christ was speaking in Paul. But he closes his letter by asking them to examine themselves, to see if it might be they who have failed the “test.” This test comes down to whether or not they submit to him. Their operation on the “worldly plane” causes them to boast over “worldly things” (11:18). They compare and measure themselves with one another (10:12), commending themselves on the basis of their pneumatic powers and their Jewish connections (10:18). They see themselves as having power, while Paul is judged as weak and unimpressive (10:10; 11:6).

this extraordinary and exalted revelation brought “weakness”:

And to keep me from being too elated because the revelations were so marvelous (huperbolē), a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan (aggelos), to harass me, to keep me from being too elated (12:7).

Paul’s celebrated “thorn in the flesh,” the speculations are endless and at times sound like entries in a medical encyclopedia.90 Perhaps our best clue is what he plainly says, an angel of Satan (i.e., a demon) was allowed to afflict him, without specifying what such harassment involved. It well might have been some sort of physical ailment, but it just as well could have been an internal battle within his mind, such as he alludes to in Roman 7:15-20 and his struggles with “lust.”

As Albert Schweitzer pointed out, all of the apostles had “seen the Lord,” but as far as we have evidence, only Paul claims to have been taken to heaven and told secrets he could not disclose.

In this context his recounting of his ascent to heaven is his way of affirming in the boldest possible manner that he is the one commended by the Lord, that he is the one who must be heeded.

For Paul the issue is singular and clear cut-the opponents are of Satan, while he speaks and acts with the authority of Christ.

Paul finds it important to stress that he and the other apostles preach the same message (15:1- 4), and that together they form a single line of witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.

when he wants to stress this unity and continuity with the others, he actually separates himself from them in a rather skilled and complex way.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5).

He actually sees himself as fulfilling the role of the “Servant” who brings Israel back to God through a ministry to the Gentile nations.

He says that has been called as a “priestly servant” (leitourgos | λειτουργός) of Jesus Christ to the Gentile nations, in the priestly service (hierourgeō | ἱερουγέω) of the Gospel of God, so that the offering (prosphora | προσφορά) of the Gentiles may be acceptable (15:16).

He is Christ’s “ambassador” (5:20). The commendation of his ministry is his abundant sufferings (6:4-10).

The Heavenly Journey In Antiquity

Death, the origin of which was variously explained, was seen as irreversible and thought to be a gloomy state in which a mere shadow of the former person existed in the underworld, removed from the world of light and life.

The gods were close at hand, frequently making visits to earth to deal directly with men, or to appear in dreams and visions, or communicate through signs and omens.

Related to this view of human place is the idea of death as a journey down to Sheol—the underworld of the dead from which there is no return.

Sheol is a journey down, it is undesired, and most important, it is a place or state where one is forsaken and cut off from God, where one is remembered no more.

There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master (Job 3:13-19).

This view of death and Sheol is consistent throughout the Hebrew Bible and continues well into the Second Temple period.

The dead do not praise Yahweh, nor do any that go down into silence.

during the Hellenistic period one can begin to speak of a “new cosmology,” which was related to a fundamental shift in the human perception of his place.19 In this cosmology the earth is the center and lowest level of a vast and expanded universe. It is surrounded by planetary spheres or “heavens,” usually seven in number, each dominated by its respective powers.20 Below the moon, the first of these spheres, is the “air,” the abode of various spirits or daimones. Above the highest sphere is the pure dwelling of God.

Human beings are separated from God, therefore, by an interminable distance, filled with intermediate powers. Dwelling at the lowest level of this vast cosmos, they are no longer at home. They are out of place. Their destiny is to dwell with God in the highest heaven,

The language of exile is common--humans are strangers and pilgrims in...

Salvation comes to mean “getting out” or going home, i.e., to be released from the earthly condition and...

Most religions of the period were concerned with explaining how humankind came to be in the material world below, calling them to turn from their present condition and preparing for their relea...

Some have a notion of a Savior figure, who opens the way, w...

There is a range of attitudes toward the cosmos, from worshipful ad...

Jonathan Z. Smith has defined the study of Hellenistic religions as “the study of archaic Mediterranean religions in their Hellenistic phase within their native and diasporic setting.”21 He isolates a number of characteristic “shifts” as archaic religions move into this new context. Religions become focused on the salvation of the individual, from fate, decay, and death, in contrast to blessings for the nation.

There is a corresponding shift from “birthright” (national) to “convinced” religions (i.e., religions of conversion).

Rather than a celebration of the order of the cosmos, one often encounters a sense of alienat...

The figure of the “holy man” or magician replaces the notion of the sacred temple as a locus ...

Throughout the period one finds texts in which the archaic notions survive, but they are combined with, or adapted to, these characteristically dualistic perceptions of human beings and their universe.

The religious man sought to make contact with, or to stand before, this one, true god of the Beyond. The piety of the individual was directed either toward preparing himself to ascend up through the planetary spheres to the realm of the transcendent god or toward calling the transcendent god down that he might appear to him in an epiphany or vision. These techniques for achieving ascent or epiphany make up the bulk of material that has usually been termed magical, theurgic . . . or astrological and that represents the characteristic expression of Hellenistic religiosity.24

“Dream of Scipio” in Cicero’s Republic

Scipio is lifted high above the earth and Africanus the Elder reveals the workings of the cosmos to him. Scipio wants to know first whether those “whom we think of as dead [including his father Paulus] were really still alive.”

Surely all those are alive . . . who have escaped the bondage of the body as from a prison; but that life of yours, which men so call, is really death (6. 14).

Scipio wants to immediately die, so he can hasten to the heavenly world; whereupon Africanus the Elder explains that all must remain on earth until called home by God. The duty of men on earth must first be fulfilled, described in this text, chiefly, as loyalty to family and country and the development of virtues. Africanus declares:

Such a life is the road to the skies, to that gathering of those who have completed their earthly lives and have been relieved of the body and who live...

Africanus reveals to his pupil further secrets of the cosmos, exhorting him, “Keep your gaze fixed upon these heavenly things, and scorn the earthly” (6,19).26 Such a contemplation of the eternal heavenly world will lead to a “true reward, a return” to the heavenly regions

Strive on indeed, and be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by the finger. Know then, that you are a god, if a god is that which lives, feels, remembers, and foresees, and which rules, governs, and moves the body over which it is set, just as the supreme God above rules this universe. (6. 24).

There is an emphasis on the individual, who at death will leave the mortal body behind, ascending back to heaven, the true home of the soul. A devaluation of all that is earthly and material runs through the entire text. Since humans don’t belong on earth, death is viewed positively, as a release to “true life.” The text lacks any myth of the soul’s fall into the lower world and its imprisonment in the body, but we know the details of such from works like Plato’s Timaeus.

One is to contemplate the heavenly world with all its harmony, thus disassociating oneself from the material world below.

Poimandres, the first tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum, contains a similar cosmological structure, but illustrates some of the variations that are found in this kind of material.

The text then recounts a revelation of the origin of humankind, how he came to be subject to fate and death, the present state of humans as they are, and the way they can return to the heavens. The account of human origins and the fall reflects a complicated cosmogony