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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Caught up to heaven
Jewish visionaries told of being caught up through the heavens to see God's throne and paradise, and writers numbered the heavens differently. Paul's third heaven speaks that language, though he refuses to make it his credential.
He would only say it happened to a man he knew, and then he changed the subject. Some Jews in Paul's day told stories of holy men taken up into heaven, through layer after layer of sky, to see God's throne and the garden of paradise. Writers disagreed about how many heavens there were; three and seven were the favorite numbers. Some people tried to prepare for such experiences by fasting and prayer. Paul says a man was caught up to the third heaven and into paradise, tells it as if about someone else, and will not repeat what he heard.
Jewish visionaries sometimes described their experiences of heaven as being caught up. The experience could be so vivid that the whole person seemed taken up, as in Ezekiel, and some texts, such as 1 Enoch, explicitly included the body. Greek writers also spoke of ascents of the soul, especially after death. Many Greek readers thought the pure soul rose to the highest heaven when it died. Texts varied in the number of heavens they pictured, from three to 365. Keener notes that "three and seven were the most common numbers", with paradise, the new Eden, kept in the heavens until the world to come. The ESV Study Bible explains three heavens: the air where birds fly, the higher sky of sun, moon and stars, and the unseen realm where God dwells. The CSB Study Bible gives the same three. Paradise, a Persian loanword, names the garden of Eden in the Greek Old Testament. Wright remarks that "Since heaven was often subdivided into seven," a third heaven might have seemed a letdown. Some Jewish writers cultivated visions with fasting and sleep deprivation. Wright writes that prayer, fasting and strict keeping of the Torah could create the conditions for being caught up. These practices are known mostly from later traditions, but he finds signs that they existed in Saul's day. Revelations in the Greek mystery cults were likewise said to be unutterable, and Josephus and Philo used the idea of God's highest wisdom or his name. Heiser describes Eden as God's home on earth, where his council met. Linking that picture to Paul's paradise is an inference drawn here, not by the sources.
An analogy: an astronaut who, asked to prove his worth, mentions his walk in space in one sentence, says he cannot describe it, and spends the rest of the talk on the injury that still slows him down. The audience knows what the trip means, which is why his refusal to dwell on it stands out.
Because stories of ascent were a known way to claim heavenly knowledge, the third heaven of 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 matches anything a rival could boast of, and is turned to weakness. Revelation 4:1-2 opens a door in heaven and calls the seer up, and Luke 23:43 promises paradise.
Not a trip he planned or trained for. An astronaut earns his walk in space by years of preparation and knows exactly where he was. Paul tells it as something done to him, and he does not know whether he was in the body or out of it.
How much is known about Jewish ascent practice in Paul's day. Keener cautions that, except for Philo, all the Jewish ascent stories are pseudonymous or later than Paul, so the practice of his time is hard to reconstruct. Wright grants that the evidence comes mostly from later traditions but finds indications that such ways of prayer were already known in Saul's day. A second question is what lies behind the visions of Colossians 2:18. Keener and his notes point to Jewish mystics who fasted and sought visions of God's throne, Wright to Jewish traditions of meditation that hoped for a sight of the heavenly realm, and Wright and Bird to the angels' worship in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran. The ESV Study Bible reads the rare verb for entering from inscriptions near Ephesus, where "It denoted the higher stage of mystery cult initiation", and so finds a pagan rite behind the teacher's claims.
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- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Corinthians 12:1 and 12:2-4
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 2 Corinthians 12:2-3
- CSB Study Bible, notes on 2 Corinthians 12:2-3 and 12:4
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 2, Damascus, and ch. 3, Arabia and Tarsus
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 6, Gardens and Mountains
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Colossians 2:18 and 3:1-4
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Colossians 2:18 and 3:1-2
- ESV Study Bible, Introduction to Colossians, Purpose, Occasion, and Background, and study note on Colossians 2:18
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 11, Ephesus II
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 20, box Portals and Parallels: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice
