Historical Paul: What Scholars Actually Know About Paul's Life, Beliefs, and Personality

Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman, the only show where a six-time New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned Bible scholar uncovers many fascinating, little-

know

n facts about the New Testament, the

historical

Jesus, and the emergence of Christianity. I'm your host Megan Lewis, let's get started. This is a special edition of the Jesus Misquoting Podcast. We had scheduled this episode a while ago, but when it came time to record it, an emergency arose in my family and I had to take two weeks off. Fortunately, my friend James Tabor agreed to replace me. Many of you

know

who James is.

He is a leading scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity who has published widely in many different areas in this episode. Megan interviews him. on the importance of the apostle Paul to understanding the early Christian movement, this is obviously a crucial topic for anyone interested in the New Testament or how Christianity developed after the time of Jesus and James is one of the leading experts on the subject who has studied it. intensely and posted about it for over 40 years in the episode Megan refers to it being a two-week show, but we decided to put the two recordings together so you can listen to them in continuity and that way I'll be back next week for In the next episode , I'm sorry to say that in addition to my family emergency, Megan had a small health problem and lost her voice, but not completely, so her voice is a little weaker than normal, but her questions are just as strong and interesting As always, since this is a special episode, it won't include Q&A or other segments that we've come to enjoy, at least I'm here to record, but we'll include those segments again next week. and for the

life

of the podcast, here are Megan and James.

I hope you enjoy. Hello everyone and welcome. Unfortunately, Bart can't join me today, so I'm very lucky to have Dr. James at the table with me for those who aren't familiar. With him, Dr. Table retired in 2002 as a full professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he taught Christian Origins and Ancient Judaism for 33 years and was a full professor for a decade. His master's degree and doctorate are from the University of Chicago and he also taught at the University of Notre Dame and the College of William and Mary.

Dr. Table has combined his work on ancient texts with extensive field work in archeology in Israel and Jordan and has been co-director of the acclaimed Mount Zion. excavation in Jerusalem since 2008. Dr. Tabor is also a popular public speaker and writer and is the author of books such as Paul, Paul's Apostolic Message and Mission are Sent to Paradise in light of his mystical experiences and the dynasty of Jesus. You can find Dr. Tabor. online at jamestable.com, including his Bible study blog, and on YouTube at youtube.com forward slash James chart videos James, thank you so much for joining me, it's a pleasure Megan, I really appreciate being here and especially being on Bart's podcast uh him and me.

Going back a long way, it's always nice to be able to involve friends in ventures like this, so today we're going to talk about Paul. As I just said, you've written quite a bit about him. Could you start by saying why I think he is an interesting figure. You know, that's a really great question because for some people I think evangelical Christians in particular and the great

historical

church as a whole, East and West, Paul is just the dominant thing. I think there is certainly lip service paid to Peter. in the Catholic Church of East and West and you go to the Vatican and you go up the stairs and on the left you see the gigantic statue of Peter, but on the right is Paul James, by the way, he is nowhere to be seen, but we can talk about him.

Those, uh,

actually

seem to take over the leadership of the early Jesus movement, but Paul, in a sense, has replaced Jesus, you know. The 19th century

scholars

even talked about Paul because at first they said that the second founder of Christianity, like Jesus, obviously has to be. the founder, but then Paul is kind of another founder and in some cases I think you now have books and studies that just say you know Paul founded Christianity and therefore among believers of all kinds, Paul is exactly that . I know Bart and I grew up. I grew up in evangelical Christian circles and I can't tell you how many times, growing up in Sunday school classes and other types of teaching contexts, Paul would be the appeal of last resort.

After all, Jesus is a Jew in his own time, apparently. he kept Jewish festivals and maybe observed the Torah in some way, but in a sense, Paul is like the first Christian you meet, so I remember that many times people could quote Paul and solve all their questions, but again, if you think The issues that even today are being discussed across all spectrums of Christianity say that the place of women or gender or sexuality Jesus is

actually

not who people usually refer to sometimes because he didn't say anything about, say, the homosexuality or sex between people of the same gender. but with Paul we have passages in some of his letters Romans and Corinthians, the place of women.

Paul has a lot to say about it, depending on which letters you read before, late, so he is just an imposing figure, there is no one who is taller than Paul and So I think for any of us who study early Christianity historically or even from a faith perspective, it's Paul Paul Paul and more Paul, he's everywhere. Do you think your experience somehow doesn't work in the New Testament? so I grew up an Anglican and I still consider myself an Anglican and you definitely get a lot of influence. I don't think at least my theological education hasn't been terribly strict.

I don't know if strict is the correct term. but we've relied less on

what

the Bible says explicitly about women and sexuality and that kind of stuff and we've focused more on being kind to other people um, but no, Paul is definitely obviously a very household name and it came up with a lot of regularity. in sermons and things like that, um, how many something that has come up in conversations with Bart is how comparatively little we know about the people who wrote the gospels, how much we know about the figure of Paul and how much of that?

Do you think it's rooted in historical fact and to

what

extent is it perhaps a myth that grew up around this person, yes, I think because Paul is as central as Jesus, the material we get in his name and about him is just as complicated. like unraveling the Gospels, for example, I would talk about four layers of posts and what happens when people quote Paul, they just mix them all up, so you've heard people say, for example, well, Paul was a Roman citizen and

scholars

would say no. Wait, wait, wait, and we say this to our students all the time, let's clarify our sources, like if I said well, Jesus was a carpenter, not only do I have to look at the Greek word, it's trancity Carpenter, but where does it say that? actually it only says that in a book Mark chapter 6 verse 3 one knew that by heart and the same with Paul Paul is a Roman citizen well, Paul never says in any of his letters either what we call the central letters that some of us call them the authentic letters that are only in the book of Acts, which was not even written by Paul, so the four layers briefly and I don't know whether to do this or this, but let's start from the bottom, there are seven polo letters that are typically seen like I tell my students that the first letters they cut, many of them are evangelical just like the March students or come from that background, I just call them early that way, there is no arguing that they are the first things we get from Paul, it would be letters like First Thessalonians are named after churches, the Corinthian correspondence Romans Galatians Philippians Philemon uh, those are the first seven letters.

I might have left out one, but I think it might have been seven and uh, the most critical scholars would say if you're going to work with Paul, you should really limit your central ideas to those seven letters and the reason is that the next level would be Ephesians Colossians in Second Thessalonians, we often call them deutero Paulines in academia, but I think they are rightly much more developed. Christologically you know the views of Jesus and in terms of Salvation that Paul could have developed. I mean, that's certainly the standard conservative argument. Well, Paul, you know, changed over the years, so these later letters are just his Later Reflections, but it's also possible that I've been rewritten a sort of rewritten survey like Matthew and Luke, most of us think that we rewrote Mark, so to use a rough parallel because Bart has been teaching on the gospels, you know, the first Paul would be like starting with Mark, but then you get another one. layer in Mark, which would be Matthew and then Luke and to some extent John and it's really important to sort that out and then you have the letters that we call pastorals that many even more conservative scholars would consider to be a secondary Paul.

There's a horrible school that would be Timothy Titus, the two letters of Timothy and you can definitely see vocabulary changes, the themes start to change and then you have the story of Paul in the book of Acts, you know, we call it the Acts of the Apostles but it could really be called Paul's ax with a brief introduction because in chapter 7 Paul is on the scene in chapter nine he is the main character and then the red one has what 20 trying to remember 20 seven chapters I think I'm going from memory here 28 chapters I think that's all Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul, so a lot of the biography is spinning around in our heads if we were exposed to knowing the Bible growing up, the churches or even the Anglican liturgy that just blends together. all the ax stuff with the letters, so what I've done in the two books I've written, the surveys are sent to Paradise in a book called Paul and Jesus, I can limit myself to just the seven and the idea would be if you start there , you will have a core and it would be more solid and more reliable and then if you maybe want to add other things that are possible, but in general, if something as established as Paul.

The first few letters, so it makes a difference, particularly in his biography, but actually, Megan, you can read just those seven letters and get a little bit of a biography. You know he says things like I'm from the tribe of Benjamin and he. He says that I was a Pharisee and he tells him that he studied and excelled in his study of Judaism. Some of that would parallel what we find in the book of Acts, but other things might not, so I think that's the way we have to proceed. my students in particular and just the general public if they ask a question, what about what Paul said about women in 2 Timothy?

My answer might be very different if we're talking about, say, 2 Timothy rather than one of the first letters from him or him too. he talks about women, but in a different way, so that's part of the problem, that's very interesting. I would like to include a survey of misquotations as well as misquotations because Paul has been interpolated. I mean what Bart discovered when he started his academic journey and talked about it. in all your books that I open I have a Greek New Testament here and I don't care if in Paul's letters or anywhere else I look at all those variants at the bottom of the page and now they are different, sometimes they will say Yes, but the differences are minors, that's very true, but there are also some important differences, so we could talk about misquoting Paul or someone has added something to Paul and we have to try to figure it out based on handwritten copies or it's something like that.

A good example of what is actually constantly discussed in the field is where Paul in one of his first letters, First Corinthians chapter 14, talks about not allowing a woman to speak or even ask a question in the assembly. Personally I am willing to say that he is Pablo, but many people who want to see Pablo are more. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither man nor woman. The idealist Pablo. They would say well, how do we know that that was added to or at least reinforced by a copious later that is trying to harmonize Paul?

There is another passage in First Thessalonians where Paul talks about the Jews and says that they kill Christ and oppose him. all of humanity and the wrath of God has finally fallen upon them and it sounds quite unpleasant and even more than unpleasant and of course that can be taken by people who want to use Paul to promote a kind of anti-Semitism in the way that he does Mateo. He says the blood of Jesus is on our heads and the heads of our children forever, but that's just in Matthew, that's not in Mark when he talks about the trial before Pontius Pilate, so we have some of those same problems, no.

It's exactly the same. because we don't have these four stories plus the Gospel of Thomas plus the gospel or Peter to add them all to the mix, but there is enough in the mixto also see the complexity of Pablo, so every time you listen, know that you are not in the field. If you hear someone quoting Paul, pay attention to the reference because many times it will be fine. Paul said and you have to wait a minute. I didn't know what you're saying. Paul said and where are you quoting from. and a lot of times people won't even know it because it's somewhere, yeah, and it really makes sense to start with the seven and I think every essential thing you want to ask about Paul will be addressed in those seven and I feel like those first letters will be our best. place to start, so you immediately find yourself in a kind of critical enterprise.

It's very interesting what might be basic facts or basic theological threads. Can we select from those seven letters? Of those seven letters, I would start with a kind of biography that we could create. It's here and there, but the book of Galatians is very important because it even mentioned some chronology there and I think the first thing you start with is usually called Paul's conversion, but most of us in the field have come to see that it is not really a conversion like changing from one religion to another, but it is actually a change of persuasion from someone who is already within Judaism and who recognizes the varieties of Judaism and what we call that late second temple period from the 1st century BC.

C. until the 1st century AD. C. Judaism is extremely diverse, very Hellenistic, so Paul makes changes in his view, but it is not that he went to Buddhism or that he repudiated the god of Abraham Isaac of Jacob or even that he repudiated the Torah as a Jew to the less, so if you start with Galatians, he does talk about this experience he had and makes statements about himself that are quite extravagant and come directly from his mouth as a first-person witness, he says for example that it pleased God that he called me from my mother's womb, so think about that if you think that what you're doing now was destined before you were in the womb, it's not just predestination because if you took it more generally, you could say Well, the whole world is kind of predestined, no, he said I was called in my mother's womb, so we told you, that's interesting, see? those little Mesopotamian royal inscriptions, but they come from kings, it's not something I'm familiar with coming from a private non-royal individual exactly and, uh, Jeremiah is another figure.

I think he is the only other figure in the Hebrew Bible where Hashem or God or Yahweh, let's make Yahweh for short. Yahweh says to Jeremiah when you were in the womb, I knew you, I called you and I made you a prophet, so Paul identifies with that, in fact, I almost feel like he has Jeremiah in his ear because he said: I made you a prophet for the nations Jeremiah, we don't think of Jeremiah as a prophet to the nations, but that's his commission in chapter one and then at the end of the book, towards the last third, he addresses all of these national entities. and Cole's wrath upon them or judgment upon them and then Paul says that I was called from my mother's womb before my birth and said that Jesus then revealed his son either in me or to me, but the Greek preposition probably means both and uh he then re he says that he revealed the gospel, the good news that I preach so immediately, that becomes a fundamental fact that Paul believes that he has heard from Jesus and yet I opened this book.

I brought a copy just to show it in front of you here, bringing out Jesus with the phrase Paul never knew Jesus well, as far as we know, in his earthly

life

, I guess you could say, but Paul would say yes, I have known Jesus, in fact my face to face encounters with visionary Jesus supersede even those who knew him according to the flesh and that's why he actually has this kind of parliament going uh yeah I'm late but I'm not blessed and I wasn't with the 12 of the followers originals of Jesus, but it's almost like he's saying what I've heard from him more recently than you and he just takes this relationship that he has with Jesus as sometimes even conversational, he talks about many.

I wrote my dissertation on Paul's ascent to paradise and within that section he is a second Corinthians. 12. He says that I had these abundant revelations of Jesus in Galatians, he said that I had a revelation of Jesus Christ and then he talks about that and I have this thorn in the flesh that is a kind of suffering that he has like a wound almost from receiving these exalted ones. Revelations, we know that also, by the way, other Hellenistic literature where one is as if wounded by his great experiences and has to return to earth and he says that he asked the Lord three times and calls him Lord.

The boss the teacher said I asked him three times and got the same answer Paul, my grace is enough for you, so he seems to be stating in his letter that it is frank to talk to Jesus, well, none of the gospels affirm that, they always do. say. My students don't claim the gospels they just don't claim for themselves, right? I open to Mark, he doesn't say that he was in the spirit and Jesus appeared to me and said: write this, he doesn't say anything. He doesn't even introduce himself and when one of the writers Luke introduces himself he basically says this isn't Visionary, this isn't revealing, but I've been checking things out and I've been following eyewitnesses and then I decided.

I will write a story that sounds a lot like Josephus starting his Jewish wars. You know, I followed everything and, in fact, we think I could even follow Josephus' model as a kind of scripture, but Paul is not like that. Paul would say almost as if there was a Have you ever heard the joke among evangelical Christians that says, how do you know Jesus is alive? What is your? I talked to him this morning, you know, we laughed, but yeah, Paul is kind of a sin, that's the feeling he got and later in the church this turns into There's a big conflict with the James wing of the church or Yaakov as his Hebrew name, followers of Jesus' brother who would say in the pseudo clementines that these are the writings of the second and third centuries and they don't like Paul and they say well.

Paul, you had a vision, but what if it was a vision from a demon? So, one that you have been communicating and that you say is Christ, in reality he is the devil. We were with him and we played him and we played him. You know you understand it even in the epistles of John in Peter we were there we were Witnesses we are not just having heavenly visions, so this becomes a point of controversy later on, that is very interesting, so it seems that this controversy is putting the experience one's physical experience above Paul's spiritual experience.

Well, maybe Spiritual Revelation also seems at odds with the way much of modern evangelical Christianity works. I feel like if you told someone you saw Jesus in person, they would be a little skeptical, but having this personal spiritual connection is a lot. more understood and expected, it is understood and it is also not falsifiable, yes, no one, one person's experience is another person's illusion, so to speak, and it is problematic. However, Paul would offer as additional evidence and this would be another thing we could add to this biography that he has met Jesus, talks to Jesus, claims to receive his message from Jesus and puts it directly above the Apostle, the other Apostles, the calls the so-called pillars of the church and cannot resist adding that this is Galatians. what they are doesn't mean anything to me well that's like uh in your face you know he's fighting once right now if he said something like you know Bart has this idea and that idea but what BART thinks doesn't mean anything to me because I have my ideas, you know, he's not very collegial and yet he's happy to report that they agreed with him, so since they agreed with them, they're fine, but he says if you don't they would have done and then he really ups the ante by saying even if an angel from heaven and he doesn't say an illusion or deception a real angel comes to you and says I'm an angel from heaven Yahweh sent me and you know that guy Paul you've been Listening he's delusional he's crazy you should tell that angel to hell with you, literally, I mean, wow, he says damn it, but what it means is to hell with you now.

I don't know anyone in Scripture who makes that kind of claim and so he clearly feels under pressure. because they contradict him, he has enemies who oppose him even during his early days of preaching and teaching and traveling, and he gets very defensive about his authority and there is another place that is very revealing, uh, First Corinthians 9. Always talks about what he mentions. James, who is basically in charge of the movement and makes it clear also in Galatians names him as James Peter and John in that order, but in First Corinthians 9 he's talking about uh, I'm not behind these other Apostles, whether it's James or Peter. he cefas we think they are the same.

I know Bart talks a little bit about that, whether they are or not, but let's say they are or any of the other Apostles and he's talking about the authority and the rights that they have as Apostles, so he basically wants to. to say look, I'm late but I'm not the least important I didn't know him quote in person but I would add that none of us knows him in person is Kata sarka, it means that in his human life you already know how to know him like this a human being on Earth, but He says none of us know, but I do know him in spirit and then he would offer up his sufferings, I think as part of his test, so what he's really pushing for and that's what my Pauls have sent the Paradise.

Because he called it the Battle of the Apostles, he's really being pressured by his enemies and he says, you know, I'm not going to argue with you and then I'll take off my shirt and I'll show you my stripes. my back I'm going to show you the stigmata this actually uses the word stigmata the wounds of Christ and uh you take off your shirt and show me your wounds I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea yeah and he seems to be saying and in Galatians he even says that no one bother more because I carry in my body the stigmata of Christ the winds and he tries to appeal to his followers in that way you know who you have like me who you have that money is not needed who do you have to work night and day and take the shift at night and leave at 3 a.m. and then get up in the morning and teach you in school like he apparently did in Corinth according to the book of Acts? so he's a really complex set of defenses and claims and counterclaims and when you read the letters you have to feel all of that, you almost want to read them out loud, you imagine, and maybe strut back and forth across the room, my favorite.

The example is that in First Corinthians 1, where he is very upset with the group there because of their different divisions that he has heard about and the boys who live with his father's wife, people get drunk at love parties, the rich take the best food and not give it to the poor apparently there are divisions between Jews and Gentiles and he is just very upset not exactly the ideal Congregation of uh of uh called yakod you know we are together and he says: I declare that I am so happy that I never baptized any of you except Crispus and Gaius, this is a house and he's leaving now I think I'm misquoting him, he named someone and then he says oh yeah, I think I baptized Stephanus too or something like that I have, I do not remember. the names exactly off the top of my head, but the idea is that he pauses and continues after making the Statement and then says oh, but yeah, okay, there was one more, yeah, I love it and I think that's what we gives confidence that these are occasional.

Letters are one side of a telephone conversation, they're endlessly interesting, so you know, if you can find the actual letters of someone that you study historically, it's a really wonderful pleasure to try to delve into those letters and see all the insinuations and illusions and I think that all of us in the field of Christian Origins are captivated by Paul because of that Dynamic that he has that kind of realia and he is the first to know it, he is the first witness that we have something that would be Paul, people don't No you think of it that way and I like to say it too Megan, no matter how you take it, he is the only eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus, all other reports are secondary, no one else says right, as Mark writes, although he has no appearances.

Luke writes about Matthew and John writes about people who see Jesus. Paul says, I've seen the Lord and he tells you that he appeared to me and he equates it with the appearances of the other Apostles, so it's interesting when people sometimes say, hey, when I get into apologetics, you'll hear some people in my More skeptical side of the owl say: well, we don't have eyewitness accounts, oh actually yes, we do have an eyewitness account, but apparently it's based on a visionary experience, believe it or not. Another thing exactly, yes, and I think it might be the only first-person account in Antiquity of an identifiable figure who claims to have ascended to heaven, which proved to me, but you know, we have Enoch, but who is Enoch?

Did Enoch really write? I mean, no one really thinks we have a lot of pseudo-fictional accounts of ascent in the opening of my book. I'm going to show it where people can see it. Paul is sent to Paradise. I examine all the promotion stories, they are the main ones. from the ancient Near East, the materials you work with to the late Hellenistic period. And I think he isthe only one that claims to be first hand, except maybe I would choose the Metamorphoses of Apostles, which talks about the cult of Isis, and if you allow him to be Lucius the character, it is a novel, yes, but if you allow him to be the character because most novelists get involved in their novels, he says that I am the first person who ascended here and entered the underworld and saw the gods above and below and greeted them face to face and so on and it seems that he is reflecting the initiation in the religion of Isis on a really first-person level, yeah, so I talked about that in my book and I think it's a very valuable account there as well.

It's really interesting what it's like to go up through the heavens and find the great God or the great power. I really had no idea Paul was such a smut, yes a lot of people know that, but since you're a newbie to Paul and he worked a few thousand years before in some cases, he can be very nasty and very sweet, so if you're okay with that with him and does not feel resistance and opposition, he will be tender, he says like a nurse with his son, so use images of nursing or a father with a son in terms of a kind father who would love his son and you know, be very tender with him , but then he reverses it, he says, but if you don't listen to me, so do I. have a rod, I can come and spank you or he says, uh, whoever doesn't agree with this is not accepted.

That's in First Corinthians when he gives all these rules about how to order the congregation and they're all disruptive and you get an idea of ​​some of them. They're saying well, who is Paul? I don't care if you quote Paul, it's Paul. I don't follow Paul. I follow Paulus or I follow Peter. I follow someone else and he's very, so he really has range and basically says. whoever does not recognize this is not recognized and then threatens and says that when I get there I will discover not only the words of these arrogant people but also their power and you get the idea that I could really lose control in a face to face. -Confronting an encounter in terms of having this kind of eruptive presence because it's in the bunks and then once, I think this is the most notable thing, is talking about your Jewish enemies who want their Gentile converts to be circumcised, which really It means converting to Judaism. you know, he takes the whole Torah of Judaism as it was at the time and he says, you know, I just wish they would be cut off and he refers to circumcision, you know, circumcise yourself and I hope the knife slips, that might be the most unpleasant.

What he said is definitely not, although telling angels to go to hell is also pretty heavy, so it's pretty funny, you know a certain sense of the word funny, well thanks for that. I think we'll probably end this episode here because we'll invite you back next week to talk about Paul's mysticism and apocalypticism and all the isms that are okay. I really enjoy it a lot. It was a good dive into Paul and those four layers in mind were perfect. You just have to know it. what you're quoting when you do it right, thank you very much and we'll be back next week everyone, thank you everyone for joining us and join us again next week for more information on Paul if you're interested in the New Testament gospels, the Book of Genesis, the resurrection of Jesus, the historicity of the Exodus or anything else related to the Bible, you should check out my online courses where I cover all these topics and more, if you want to learn more about the courses, check them out.

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Hello and welcome back to miss Jesus quote not with Bart Ehrmann today. I'm back to Dr. James's table again if he didn't get it. our discussion last week about who Paul is, how we know who he is and what group line lyrics you should look at to get to the bottom of that, so please come back and listen that was absolutely fascinating, it's like some kind of Quickie, quick introduction to Paul and the Bible, and it was a pleasure, so Dr. Table, thanks for coming back. I appreciate the opportunity, thank you. Oh, absolutely, we're going to talk more about Paul, but we're going to learn more specifically about Paul and The mystical spiritual side of Jesus and Paul, which is not something that really appears in the Gospels, seems to be something much poorer in nature, so I'm waiting for that, so you said last week that Pablo obviously never met.

Jesus in the flesh, but I would say he still knew him, could you explain this a little? Yes, Paul a couple of times when he talks about the resurrection of Jesus, he says that at the end he appeared to me and he mentions Peter James the 12,500th most and then he says the last one of all and you almost want to add, but no less important because he continues saying several times in his letters. I was last, but I worked harder than the mall and that's why he's so jealous of everyone. who did it, yes. It's worth being right about his opposition to the movement.

He makes it very clear that he persecuted the movement, whether we want to follow the book of Acts, that he's getting people killed or whatever, we're not sure, but he certainly opposed it and said he was part of the Pharisees, he says that just as Josephus tells us that and he was from the tribe of Benjamin which he surpassed in his study of Judaism. I try to leave out the acts because Ax would be like oh yeah, he studied with Hillel. uh gammalia and so on and we're just not particularly interested in Camelia the first uh he never says that, but possibly that's what he's referring to, but then when he finally starts talking and I should also add, he says in First Corinthians 9. uh, do I have ?

I have not seen the Lord and then he names James Cephas and the other Apostles and, in fact, you know the same thing, I have had the same experience. I have seen the Lord and you assume he is the risen Lord now because people are reading the gospels. First, this is the big problem with the New Testament. I don't suggest you get a razor blade, but it wouldn't be a bad idea. If you separate them all, put them in chronological order and read them differently because If you start with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which so many people know.

I'm going to read the New Testament, so you're already predisposed to assume that seeing the Lord means a resurrected corpse walking through Jerusalem and appearing to people who touch him and look at his wounds and doubt or don't doubt and that might not be what Paul is talking about at all. is talking and Paul fits much more with the idea of ​​what we call in Hellenistic religions Hellenistic culture and apotheosis this means to be taken to heaven as a human being, someone born of a woman is taken to heaven and sometimes remains there in a glorified state and Augustus becomes a god, for example, when he dies there is a funeral for Emperor Augustus, we have good stories about it and one of the senators swears that he saw his soul ascend to heaven and one of the astrologers said yes, we found the star, we found a new star, it never existed before, that is Augustus and we have many stories like that of what we call astral immortality, it is very common.

In the Hellenistic world, some of my favorite examples of that are found in funerary inscriptions that someone had put over his grave. You have two extremes, one is someone who doesn't think there is anything when he dies. I was, I was not, I am not. I don't care, I love it, it's pretty widespread, you know, you know what you were in 1822, well, you're not really worried about it, so what will you be in 2122? Well, more or less the same as in 1822, it's something like that. attitude and then there's another one that I like that says don't come to my grave and serve wine on my grave because they would have these annual funeral parties and particularly in Italy they are still done today by the way and give old George a little bit of a drink, yeah , and a marijuana drum, and he says, "you'll only make mud." I'm not there, I'm not going to lie, you know, let me rest, but you also get some that say, don't cry for me, cry for yourselves.

I have become a star that appears in the night, so that is astral immortality. Now people have trouble thinking of Jesus as an apotheosis if we can turn him into a verb, uh, deity because they're so used to the gospels where you want that. spirituality and physicality, but you know it really starts with Luke and I don't want to get into Bart's territory because I know he covers this all the time, but comparing him to Paul in Luke is like touching me, I'm flesh and blood. You know, you feel, you feel, you sink your hand into the flesh, you feel that bone underneath.

I'm not a ghost and that seems like a big excuse because then we know that people like Kelsus say that he's a writer from the early 2nd century who says you know, okay. Some of your boys saw Jesus, but maybe they just saw a ghost. I mean, they are ghost stories multiplied throughout the Hellenistic world. How would we know that they said oh no, no, they ate with it, they touched it, so they all have that difference in treatment and description talk about um, maybe he's comfortable with the Hellenistic religious background and the other gospels, discomfort with he, yes, and yet in the other gospels, Mark has no appearances and yet he says he is resurrected, so I think Mark is actually reflecting more of the vision of apotheosis. or my teacher in Chicago, Norman Perrin, used to say that the Transfiguration, as it is called in Mark chapter 9, where Jesus appears on a mountain shining and like the sun and glory and then Elijah and Moses appear with him, that is a prolyptic testimony of the resurrection than in others In words, what Mark wants you to believe is that he has reached that state that the disciples saw as a foretaste in a vision of his life and, in fact, the young man noted that he is not an angel in the Tomb and says, "go to Galilee and you will see." He said that you are going to have this vision and Matthew even says that they did have that vision and some doubted, which is very important that it does not seem to be a flesh and blood encounter, so Paul is more clearly with the Seer. experience and then when you ask him what people ask him what kind of resurrection body it will be, he says well, it will be like Christ, he says that, like Christ and then you say the next question, you know, what was that?

Like he didn't say, well, he was five foot eight and I could see his beard and I saw the wound, he doesn't say that, he says, you know, I can't tell you what kind of body the size of an apotheosis is. body the body assumed in heaven is a body that God gives it just as on Earth the person had a physical body Flesh and Blood, he says, but in the heavenly kingdom of God you will have this, actually he calls it the body of wind, uh using the You know the word panuma for wind or spirit, so you could call it spiritual body, but spiritual body implies ghost.

I think he has allowed others to point him out time and time again. You know, in the Hellenistic world, the stuff up there is still stuffed, but it's kind of light and airy, so you get a I like to just call it a body of air, you say okay, so, but it's a body, which means it has a definition or a form, has personal identity. I can come up to you, Megan, and say, oh Megan, you were Megan is in that nether world, so yeah, I think I remember you too, so somehow there would be this communication, presumably preserving the Entity, but when she says that she has seen the Lord, you know, maybe the book of Acts is on the right track when it says it's like a light that mixes of some kind instead of something else when asked what kind of body he would simply say, well, you know , it's uh, I always joke with my students about what the prime of life is, and if you're going to grow into a body, what would it be, what stage do you want most of them to be 20 years old and they would probably say you know 25 or 30 I don't know, I'd probably choose 30.

I think it's a pretty good body in 30 years since I'm already past that, but he doesn't say that, he didn't say no, it will be a perfected physical body with all your imperfections removed or your wounds or your injuries. responsibilities, whatever doesn't say that. or says that God will give us, God will give us the body that is appropriate for that existence, so he is clearly in this world of the Ethereal, the higher upper levels of the cosmos and although in his Unique account of his own Ascent to Paradise or to heaven, mentions a third heaven.

I think it actually is. In my book, Paul's Dissent to Paradise, I argue that it's a two-stage journey where you first go up to the third heaven and that's generally as far as you can go, but then in some of our texts it's the world of heaven. Dead where they are as if held, they are no longer under the world in our later texts, they are like in The Book of Enoch and so on, and some of the others are the literature of Enoch let's say because they are not the book of Enoch but then it says and also I was caught up to Paradise and I think that would be what we would call the seventh heaven or the heaven beyond the heavens but inWhat do you mean by Soma?

Because you have already said that they are different Somas, there are stars that have Soma and different beings have Soma throughout the cosmos, so I don't tend to think. That's what he's thinking about, I think he's thinking about it more like we think about a point of light or something like that and that would be, you know that you will be attracted to the presence of This Light, but it's defined in that's how he thinks, but the real The problem is that it never happens and then you have to say well what will happen when we die, we'll bury you, but then I got rid of my tent now I'm not dyed, I'm naked, no clothes, where am I?

Me and he says, well, you're with Christ, you're with Christ, but then you're going to meet him when he comes, so it's almost like Christ fills Heaven and Earth and then you're under his care or something, it's just I think it's an attempt to speak the old language of the ancient Near East with the new Hellenistic language and not change the words much, but make them fit, you know, yeah, it's very interesting. I know it sounds like I'm trying to explain something in a way that people can understand. they find relatable using language they understand but explaining something that is very different Maybe, um, yes, preserving the corpse, you know, becomes very important in Judaism, um, there is even the rabbinic myth about the neck bone, have you heard This thing that survives no matter what happens, even if the body is cremated?

That neck bone will still be there and that's it. God needs to then build the rest, sounds like DNA replication to me, which is really strange. You know, we just need a small sample of skin and we can do you again, enough so that we know that people are climbing on their dogs now after they die. is happening uh there was a special on 60 Minutes or something where you get exactly the dog you had. Wow, it's like he's not your dog. Your dog is gone. They can be fantastic and plant it in a host dog's uterus and then you can do it first. it has to grow to the point of being plannable.

I guess cloning is basically a little scary and I think it's probably again with Christ and that's important and I think that's towards the end of his life. It is in Philippians one of the last. letters and he does not believe that he is going to encounter Christ anymore and he does not believe that he thinks that he is going to die and he refers to his death as leaving, leaving, as leaving and being with Christ, that denies the later apocalypticism. I don't believe it. I think he thinks that when you die you enter the presence of Christ, but then you would wait, because he calls it sleeping, you would unconsciously be somewhere else, but not for the full resurrection.

I'm certainly not active in the cosmos, you would be later in the future, so Gilgamesh is interesting because you work on older stuff and he sounds like uh, what's his name? something like that on the island, yeah, because they're immortal, so they definitely do that because they eat bread, it's like the Isles of the Blessed or something, so you lose the chance to have that, but it's not about going to heaven, but it goes beyond this, but the normal still in a physical society that in another place, yes, in another place, yes, very good, thank you very much for your time, it was really fascinating, it is good for you, it is very good for you.

I have an article that you can get for free on my blog post, it's called What the Bible Really Says About Death After Life in an Article and Morton Smith and Joe Hoffman asked me to write it years ago in a volume titled What the Bible Really Says and I Said They, Are you kidding, you want an article about the Bible, no, this is a can of worms and you want the death after death and the future, thanks, I'll try it, it definitely doesn't sound like a whole book, no, oh, and you can read it, it's a great poll, thank you very much audience, thank you for joining us, it will be a pleasure to come back next week, so join us, so this has been a misquoting episode of Jesus with Bart, um, we'll be back. with a new episode next Tuesday, so be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on the bar turman YouTube channel so you don't miss Bart Herman and I Megan Lewis thanks for joining us