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

by James D. Tabor

these refer to different destinations, then we would have a single journey reported in two stages, that is, he was taken up to the third heaven, and then allowed to enter Paradise.

Paul uses the verb translated here “caught up” (ἁρπάζω) one other time, in l Thessalonians 4:17, where he is explaining how the dead and living will be taken up to meet Jesus in the air when he returns.

Paul declares that he is passing on a “word from the Lord”

It would seem to indicate that Paul’s experience was an involuntary one where God took the initiative rather than one brought about by preparation or special techniques (cf. other uses of harpazo in the sense of “to catch up” where God or his Spirit are clearly those who perform the act . . .)”5

This is to misunderstand the nature of visionary experience as something granted by a deity.

the “Mithras Liturgy” there are various special preparations and magical techniques connected with the ascent, however the experience is one graciously granted by the deity. The opening ritual begins: Draw in breath from the rays, drawing up three times as much as you can, and you will see yourself being lifted up and ascending to the height, so that you seem to be in midair (lines 538-41, italics mine). Throughout the text the initiate must rely upon heavenly guides or deities (lines 630-34) and must be allowed an audience before the supreme god (lines 640-44). The same is true in Apuleius’s account of the Isis initiation. That account stresses that Lucius must wait for the graceful call of the goddess.

was carried through (vectus) all the elements,” in Apuleius’s description of his experience is one of the closest verbal parallels to Paul’s use of being “caught up” in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4.

The Latin verb veho is very similar to the Greek here “caught up” (ἁρπαζω).

simply means he was transported up.

Paul’s references to “the third heaven” and “Paradise” are a challenge to sort out since we have shifting designations to both the numbering of the heavens and the location of “Paradise” therein during this period. Scholars have tried, without much success, to precisely identify his language in Jewish texts from this period.

Regarding the number of “heavens,” we have the following: 3 Baruch has five; Testament of Levi either three or seven, depending on the version; Apocalypse of Abraham and Ascension of Isaiah have seven. Seven heavens are named in b. Hagigah 12b and this numbering shows up in other scattered references in Tannaitic texts.7 In non-Jewish texts, as I pointed out in ...

The Apocalypse of Moses refers twice to Paradise as located in the thir...

But there is another quite different reference to Paradise in 13:4. There it refers to a time after the resurrection of the dead, when all the righteous will dwell with God forever. Also, the Latin version of this text, the Life of Adam and Eve, which I mentioned in the previous chapter, uses the term in yet a third way. There Adam ascends before his death “into the Paradise of righteousness,” but the reference is clearly to the highest heaven, the throne of God (25:3). So here we have three very different meanings given to the term Paradise within the same textual tradition.

2 Enoch also seems to locate Paradise in the third heaven.

the third, he is shown Paradise, a place like the garden of Eden, prepared for the righteous as an eternal inheritance (8:1-9:1 [A, B], cf. 42:3 [A]). Yet later in the text, the term Paradise is used again, but this time to refer to the time after the judgme...

Sometimes Paradise is used to describe the place of repose for the righteous dead (variously located); other times it is used to describe a final state at the end, a ...

For example, in the Apocalypse of Abraham the patriarch is taken to the highest or seventh heaven, there he looks down and sees Paradise below, where the righteous dead dwell (21:6). The Testament of Abraham tells how he was taken to Paradise at th...

Enoch 60:8 and 61:12 seem to refer also to this dwelling place of the righteous. In contrast, Testament of Levi 18:10-14 and Testament of Dan 5:12 use Paradise to refer to the final Edenic state, the new Jerusalem at the end. This usage shows up a number of times in 4 Ezra as well (7:36, 123; 8:52), where Paradise seems to represent eternal life in contrast to Hell.

The other reference is Rev. 2:7, where it refers to a state of blessedness before the throne of God, upon a restored Edenic earth (Rev. 3:7; 22:1-5).

Paradise is an image rooted in Genesis 2-3, and refers to either a preserved or restored garden of Eden, a place or state of pleasantness, removed from sin, suffering, and death. Whether it is located above or below, in the present or in the future—and we have examples of all of these variations—it seems always to symbolize God’s intimate presence and access to the tree of life.

Tannaitic sources about the four Rabbis who “entered Paradise (pardes | פרדס)” (t. Hagigah 2:3-4; p. Hagigah 77b; b. Hagigah 14b, 15a,b).8 Ben Azzai looked and died, Ben Zoma looked and was smitten, Aher (Elisha ben Abuyah) “cut the shoots,” and Akiba “ascended safely and descended safely” (or “entered safely and went out”). In this tradition “Paradise” is clearly the goal of a mystical ascent or journey to heaven, similar to the vision of the merkabah.

First, that Paradise is the abode of the righteous dead in the third heaven.

he is reporting his own visionary experience, over against the claims of his opponents.

the dwelling place of the dead is merely a “tour stop” along the way—not the ultimate goal of the ascent.

Paul apparently does not think the dead are in heaven.

they will be awakened from their “sleep” and rise to meet Christ in the clouds, in the air. Paul is quite literal about this. He does expect that they will emerge from their tombs with new immortal bodies, but nonetheless, they still rise to heaven; they don’t descend from heaven.

Paul holds an idea that might be called “transformation by burial,” and for him, the body and its burial, whether of Christ or the saints, is vital

Second, there is the possibility that Paradise refers to the throne of God, which is in the third heaven.

Paradise for Paul means the highest level, the throne of God, seems highly likely,

This third view, of a two-stage journey, with Paradise beyond the third heaven, and equivalent to the throne of God, seems to me to be the best interpretation.

Paradise is the goal of the journey, and it is the highest goal one could claim,

And it is there, in Paradise, before God’s throne, that he hears things unutterable.

Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 2:6 to these “rulers of this age” over whom he identifies Satan as head or “god”

Yes, he can relate visions and revelations; yes, he too has been as far as the third heaven; but he, moreover, has been taken into Paradise—he has appeared before God’s very throne in the highest heaven. There he heard words, but of such a nature that they cannot even be communicated to lower grade initiates.