¹ See Perkins, P., Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (1st ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984) 219.Google Scholar

² See Perkins, , Resurrection, 219–28.Google Scholar

³ Or ‘Is it Christ Jesus … for us?’

⁴ Or ‘namely, that’.

⁵ Tannehill, R. C., Dying and Rising with Christ: A Study in Pauline Theology (BZNW 32; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1967) 130ff.Google Scholar See also Perkins, , Resurrection, 295.Google Scholar

⁶ Perkins, , Resurrection, 197.Google Scholar

⁷ See, for example, the discussion of Lorenzen, T., Resurrection and Discipleship: Interpretive Models, Biblical Reflections, Theological Consequences (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995) 127–46.Google Scholar

⁸ Holleman, Joost, Resurrection and Parousia: A Traditio–Historical Study of Paul's Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 (Leiden: Brill, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Paradise or the garden of Eden was often conceived as lying in one of the heavens, though the exact location differs from one apocalyptic work to another. See Himmelfarb, M., Tours of Hell: The Development and Transmission of an Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1984).Google Scholar2 Enoch, for example, locates them in the third heaven. But 2 Enoch may have been influenced by Paul's writings, even though the shorter version mentions worship in the Temple in a way that suggests it is still in existence, thus antedating 70 CE.

¹⁰ In different ways, the close relationship between mysticism and apocalypticism has been touched upon by several scholars of the last decade, myself included. See my Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports About Christianity and Gnosticism (SJLA 25; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977);Google ScholarGruenwald, I., Apocalyptic and Merkabah Mysticism (Leiden–Cologne: Brill, 1979);Google Scholar and now especially Rowland, C., The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (New York: Crossroads, 1982)Google Scholar and Fossum, Jarl, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism (WUNT 1.36; Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 1985).Google Scholar The Pauline passage is also deeply rooted in Jewish and Hellenistic ascension traditions, which imposed a certain structure of ascent on all reports of this period. See also my ‘Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity and their Environments’, ANRW 2.23.2 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1980) 1333–94;Google ScholarDean–Otting, M., Heavenly Journeys: A Study of the Motif in Hellenistic Jewish Literature (Frankfurt–New York: Peter Lang, 1984);Google ScholarCulianu, I. P., Psychanodia I: A Survey of the Evidence of the Ascension of the Soul and its Relevance (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Culianu has also published a more general work, Expé‘riences de l'Extase: Extase, ascension et récit visionnaire de l’hellénisme au moyen âge (Paris: Payot, 1984)Google Scholar, introduction by Mircea Eliade. The verb harpazo in Greek and its Latin equivalent rapto is sometimes shared with pagan ascensions (sol me rapuit, etc.), but also probably initially denotes both the rapture of vision and the specific heavenly journeys of Enoch (Hebrew: laqah = Greek: metetheken).

¹¹ Whether or not Paul's experiences typified the rabbis has been debated vigorously with acute attention to the implications for rabbinic rationalism. The debate misses the obvious point that the evidence for these experiences occurs all over Judaism in the Hellenistic period and is coterminous with Pharisaic Judaism. If Paul is the mystic, there is a close connection between this apocalypticism and Pharisaic Judaism. Precisely what the connection is still cannot be defined, but Paul gives us interesting hints about it. It is ironic that scholars who accept almost all rabbinic datings at face value seem reluctant to believe these traditions, supposing that all mystical experience is something despicable for the rabbis. Debating the reliability of talmudic reports that the early rabbis engaged in such practices regularly becomes somewhat theoretical, when the Mishnah's testimony for the first century is now suspect on general methodological grounds, according to Neusner, J., The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, 3 vols.: The Masters, The Houses, Conclusion (Leiden: Brill, 1971).Google Scholar

¹² See Baird, W., ‘Visions, Revelation, and Ministry: Reflections on 2 Cor 12.1–5 and Gal 1.11–17’, JBL 104 (1985) 651–62.Google Scholar See also Forbes, C., ‘Comparison, Self–Praise and Irony: Paul's Boasting and the Conventions of Hellenistic Rhetoric’, NTS 32 (1986) 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Paul does not say that the man saw nothing, he only mentions what the man heard. While we are on the subject of difficulties, a significant exception to the identification of Paul with the mystic is Smith, Morton, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1975);Google ScholarJesus the Magician (New York: Harper and Row, 1978).Google Scholar He believes that the passage refers to Jesus, although Paul never met the man Jesus. As we shall see, the passage is probably another record of the kind of experience Paul had in meeting the risen Christ, this time in heaven.

¹³ Segal, Alan F., Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University, 1990) 40–51.Google Scholar

¹⁴ In this section, I am particularly endebted to Quispel, G., ‘Hermetism and the New Testament, Especially Paul’, ANRW 21.22Google Scholar, forthcoming.

¹⁵ Gaventa, B. R., From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 45–8.Google Scholar

¹⁶ The use of the mirror here is also a magico–mystical theme, which can be traced to the word ו’ﬠ occurring in Ezekiel 1. Although it is sometimes translated otherwise, ו’ﬠ probably refers to a mirror even there, and possibly refers to some unexplained technique for achieving ecstasy. The mystic bowls of the magical papyri and Talmudic times were filled with water and oil to reflect light and stimulate trance. The magical papyri describe spells which use a small bowl that serves as the medium for the appearance of a god for divination: e.g., PGM IV, 154–285 (Betz, pp. 40–3), PDM 14.1–92, 295–308, 395–127, 528–53, 627–35, 805–10, 841–50, 851–5 (Betz, pp. 195–200, 213, 218–9, 225–6, 229, 236–9). The participant concentrates on the reflection in the water's surface, often with oil added to the mixture, sometimes with the light of a lamp nearby. Lamps and charms are also used to produce divinations, presumably because they can stimulate trance under the proper conditions. The Reuyoth Yehezkel, for instance, mention that Ezekiel's mystical vision was stimulated by looking into the waters of the River Chebar. It seems to me that Philo appropriates the mystic imagery of the mirror to discuss the allegorical exposition of scripture. See The Contemplative Life 78 and Georgi, D., Die Gegner des Paulus im 2. Korintherbrief (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1964) 272–3.Google Scholar Paul's opponents then look into the mirror and see only the text. But because Paul and those truly in Christ actually behold the Glory of the Lord, they have a clearer vision on the truth.

¹⁷ The romance of exaltation to immortality was hardly a unique Jewish motif; rather it was characteristic of all higher spirituality of later Hellenism – witness the Hermetic literature. Even in a relatively unsophisticated text like the magical Recipe for Immortality (the so–called Mithras Liturgy) of third-century Egypt, the adept gains a measure of immortality by gazing directly on the god and breathing in some of his essence.

¹⁸ The bibliography on the Pauline and post–Pauline hymns in Phil 2.6–11 and Col 1.15–20 appears endless. See Schillebeeckx, E., Jesus: an Experiment in Christology (New York: Seabury, 1979);Google ScholarHengel, M., ‘Hymn and Christology’, in Livingstone, E. A., ed., Studia Biblica 1972, 173–97Google Scholar, reprinted in Hengel, , Between Jesus and Paul, 78–96;Google ScholarMurphy, J.–O'Connor, , ‘Christological Anthropology in Phil. 2.6–11’, RB 83 (1976) 25–50Google Scholar and Georgi, D., ‘Der vorpaulinische Hymnus Phil. 2:6–11’, in Dinkier, E., ed., Zeit und Geschichte, Dankesgabe an Rudolf Bultmann (Tübingen: Mohr, 1964) 263–93, esp. p. 291Google Scholar for bibliography. Käsemann emphasizes that Paul's metaphoric use of the body and its separate parts is characteristic of paraenetic sections, emphasizing the relationship between the believer and the risen Lord. See Schweizer, , TDNT 7,1073.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Segal, Two Powers in Heaven.

²⁰ See my Two Powers, 33–158, esp pp. 68–73 and now Hurtado, L. W., One God, One Lord. Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 77–91.Google Scholar

²¹ See Kim, Seyoon, The Origin of Paul's Gospel (2nd ed. WUNT 2.4; Tübingen: Mohr– Siebeck, 1984).Google Scholar Scholars like Kim who want to ground all of Paul's thought in a single ecstatic conversion experience, which they identify with Luke's accounts of Paul's conversion, are reticent to accept especially Philippians 2 as a fragment from Christian liturgy because to do so would destroy its value as Paul's personal revelatory experience. But there is no need to decide whether the passage is originally Paul's (hence received directly through the ‘Damascus revelation’), since ecstatic language normally is derived from traditions current within the religious group. Christian mystics use Christian language, Muslim mystics use the languages developed for mysticism in Islam and no mystic is ever confused by another religion's mysticism unless it is the conscious and explicit intent of the mystic's vision to do so. See Zaehner's, R. C.Hinduism and Muslim Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1969);Google ScholarKatz, S., ‘Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism’, in Katz, S., ed., Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (London, 1978).Google Scholar In this case the language is not even primarily Christian. The basic language is from Jewish mysticism, though the subsequent exegesis about the identification of the Christ with the figure on the throne is Christian; the vision of God enthroned is the goal of Jewish mystical speculation.

²² Bockmuehl, M., Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (WUNT 2.36; Tübingen: Mohr–Siebeck, 1990;Google Scholar repr. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997) 158. See also 1.18 and Rom 1.16.

²³ Bockmuehl, , Revelation, 159.Google Scholar

²⁴ Lorenzen, , Resurrection and Discipleship, 158.Google Scholar

²⁵ See, e.g., TDNT 9, 661.