Paul?
Watched last evening, a favorite, colorful scholar, James Tabor, author, recently retired professor, expert in Paul, dead sea scrolls, new testament, history of religions, & more, in a fascinating discussion, "What the Apostle Paul Really Thought About Jesus and Cosmic Salvation" online. It was an August 6, 2022 interview that went over an hour. Wide-ranging and sometimes rambling conversation in which I heard both confirmations and surprises.
A surprise was Tabor on Paul's narrative in 2 Corinthians 12, "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows". Clearly, Paul is telling his own experience, he was the "man" and, as Tabor says, our only reliable first person account of a known NT figure telling such a vision experience (yes, Revelation John, but we don't really know who that person was).
The usual Sunday school class exposition is, "weird! what the heck was that all about?!" Tabor discussed it as revealing Paul's views, generally not inconsistent with some Greek and other thought of his day, about levels of the cosmos: successive spheres of existence ruled and inhabited by angels and principalities and powers, the first being Earth, and going up level by level to the highest, the seventh heaven, above which is only paradise that is the dwelling place of God, the One True God of Israel, Creator of all that is, seen and unseen.
It was interesting, illustrative and effective to watch Tabor and his interviewer "show" the spheres of heaven by circling their hands above them to "draw" and then discuss the successive circles of encompassing sphere over sphere over sphere of heaven above heaven above heaven &c - - with Paul in his vision being lifted to the third heaven of these spherical worlds. Paul not believing, as Christians have come to believe, that at death we go directly to Paradise (Jesus to the respectful thief, "this day you will be with me in Paradise").
We modern day Christians, believe and assert as true, what we want to be true, no matter what it is or how outrageous it may seem to a reasonable person, and we can find a verse of Scripture to prove it. Yet, as someone said or wrote, "no amount of belief makes something true".
Anyway, Tabor discussing Paul on cosmic salvation, not only was it not what today's Christians like to believe, but it was not what we thought Paul believed.
The other thing, the confirmation, was connected: Philippians 2:5,6 "... Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God" Tabor saying, as have other scholars, that the verse does not prove Paul thought Jesus arrived already divine, as many have insisted over the years. Rather, that it says, based on Genesis 1, that Jesus was in the same image of God that all other humans are, including the First Adam (of the Garden), but that, unlike the First Adam who disobediently ate the forbidden fruit that Nachash the serpent had promised would make the earthlings like God, Jesus as the Second Adam did not aspire to be like God, but lived humbly, even submitting to death on a cross; as a result of which God raised him and exalted him to paradise to be like God. This, for Paul, seems different from Gospel John's identification of Jesus with Logos, the generating force that brought all that is into existence. And is different from the Nicene Creed's assertion of Jesus as the Second Person of the Trinity as being from all eternity of one substance with God the Father.
My own mind may be settled on all of it, and probably is, including I don't agree with you on any aspect of any social, political, religious, spiritual, theological matter; yet one of my hobbies in my extreme old age is reading and listening and discovering and contemplating; for one who takes the Bible seriously and not just as something to say you believe.
RSF&PTL
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2 Corinthians 12 (RSV)
Paul’s Visions and Revelations
12 I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. 5 On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6 Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. 7 And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
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Philippians 2 (RSV)
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.