Secrets of the Third Heaven: Exploring Paul's Vision

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman

Episode: Secrets of the Third Heaven: Exploring Paul’s Vision

Release Date: June 10, 2025
Host: Megan Lewis
Guest: Dr. Bart Ehrman

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Main Theme

This episode explores the enigmatic passage in 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul speaks of being "caught up to the third heaven." Dr. Bart Ehrman dives into the nature of visions in the ancient world, their roles in religious experience, and Paul's use of such visionary claims to assert authority within the early Christian community. The discussion contextualizes Paul's vision both in scripture and in the broader social and theological world of his time.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Phenomenon of Visions in the Ancient World

• Prevalence: Visions and supernatural experiences were common and culturally integrated in the Greco-Roman era.
  • Dr. Ehrman explains, “About 1 out of 8 people report having visionary experiences. That’s 13%—and that statistic hasn't changed much since ancient times.” (03:21)
• Nature of Visions:
  • Ancient societies saw less distinction between natural and supernatural realms.
  • Visions included dream-like and waking experiences; ancient peoples didn’t strongly differentiate between the two.
  • “Dream is … just as real as something when you’re awake. … They didn’t differentiate as much … between dreams and visions.” (06:55)

2. Visions in Early Christian and Jewish Texts

• Christian and non-Christian vision accounts shared many similarities.
  • “It isn’t that Jews and Christians were seeing things and others weren't. … Broadly throughout that environment.” (07:51)
• Encounters with deceased loved ones and divine beings were common vision motifs.

3. Paul’s Vision in 2 Corinthians

• Context of the Letter: Paul writes to defend his apostolic authority amid challenges from rival “super-apostles.”
  • Second Corinthians likely combines at least two letters—chapters 10-13 represent an earlier, angrier message.
    • "Second Corinthians has long been recognized by critical scholars as consisting of two different letters ... When you read chapters one through nine ... they’ve agreed to see the light ... Then you get to chapter 10, and all of a sudden, kabam, he starts screaming at them..." (15:05)
• Reading the Passage:
  • Dr. Ehrman reads the crucial verses where Paul describes "a person in Christ ... caught up to the third heaven." (09:11)
  • Although Paul uses third-person language, scholarship agrees he is alluding to his own experience.
    • “He’s talking about himself. … The key to that is showing ... because of the revelations that he’s had, God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble.” (13:41)

4. The Purpose of Paul’s Vision Account

• Defending Authority Through Paradox:
  • Paul frames weakness and suffering as markers of genuine apostleship, not oratorical flair or charisma.
    • “He actually has more bragging rights because he’s weak, pathetic, and getting beat up all the time.” (21:49)
  • By claiming a profound, unrepeatable vision, Paul asserts unique divine favor—yet says humility ("thorn in the flesh") tempers pride.
• Content of the Vision:
  • Paul offers no details. The tactic: claim secret knowledge but deny details, leaving rivals unable to contest or replicate.
    • “I’m not allowed to tell you what I learned up there. But, I—14 years ago, I had this vision…” (23:53)
• Layered Heavens:
  • Ancient cosmology often imagined multiple heavens. The “third heaven” was the highest, realm of the divine.
    • “He went to the throne room of God and … heard things that he’s not allowed to tell anyone.” (24:38)

5. Aftermath and Resolution

• Outcome in Corinth:
  • After Paul's severe letter (now 2 Corinthians 10–13), word comes that the community returns to Paul's side, prompting his more conciliatory letter (chapters 1–9).
    • “You can actually piece out the development of the relationship ... It looks like what happened is ... they realized that they were wrong and they turned back to Paul.” (26:10)
  • Details on this restoration are sparse, despite modern curiosity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Visions & Reality:

  “When, when what we would call a supernatural event happens, they would just talk about it as just a different kind of a natural event.”
  — Bart Ehrman (05:32)

• On Paul’s Strategy:

  “Paul is a paradoxical thinker ... those who suffer for Christ are the true apostles, not these powerful, rhetorically effective, strong guys.”
  — Bart Ehrman (21:49)

• On the Third Heaven:

  “Paul’s imagining that the heavens are divided into three levels and that the highest level is the level God is in. … He went to the throne room of God.”
  — Bart Ehrman (24:38)

• On Authority and Suffering:

  “He’s been flogged … beaten with rods … shipwrecked … all of this shows that he’s the true apostle of Christ. Because the Gospel of Christ is about a crucified man, someone who suffered for the sake of others.”
  — Bart Ehrman (21:49)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• [03:21] – Explanation of visions: frequency, psychological context, and cultural expectations
• [05:32] – Ancient attitudes to the supernatural and lack of modern distinctions
• [07:51] – Similarities among Jewish, Christian, and pagan visionary traditions
• [09:11] – Dr. Ehrman reads Paul’s “third heaven” passage
• [13:41] – Discussion on Paul’s use of third person; confirming he refers to himself
• [15:05] – Overview of Second Corinthians: composition, context, and letter structure
• [21:49] – How Paul redefines authentic apostleship through weakness
• [24:38] – Discussion of “the third heaven” and layered cosmology
• [26:10] – Tracing the narrative arc between Paul and the Corinthians

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Listeners’ Questions Highlights

• Was Jesus a monotheist? — Ehrman: Yes, in the context of Second Temple Judaism, Jesus would have viewed other gods as not real gods but acknowledged other powerful supernatural beings. (37:02)
• Solus Scriptura: Ehrman was not troubled by the lack of a biblical claim; he notes the diversity within the Bible itself. (32:29)
• Bible and Greek Classics: The New Testament is not a "ripoff" of Greek classics; similarities exist but worlds differ. (33:58)
• Divine Names: Most descriptors for God in the Old Testament are borrowed from previous deities, except Yahweh. (34:42)
• Mark’s Ending and Women: Unlikely that Mark intended to exonerate the disciples from relying on women’s testimony—focus is on the disciples’ misunderstanding. (35:46)

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Conclusion & Episode Wrap-up

Bart Ehrman summarizes:

“Paul says that he was taken up to the third heaven … heard things that he can’t tell anybody … He uses it to show that he, in fact, is authoritative, … he’s been given revelations by God.” (38:08)

The discussion provides a window into the role of visionary experiences in religious history, the psychology and culture of ancient visions, and how personal revelations supported contentious leadership in the early church.

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Next Episode: Megan Lewis will host Dr. Paula Fredrickson to discuss diversity in ancient Christianity.

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Transcript

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[Megan Lewis]

Visions of supernatural beings or places are relatively common in the Bible and early Christian writings. From wheels within wheels to visions of the risen Jesus to trips to the afterlife, writers record a whole array of fascinating experiences. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to talk about one of the less flamboyant but nonetheless intriguing visions, Paul's trip to the third heaven. We'll get into the role of visions in ancient communities, what exactly a third heaven is and why Paul chose to write about it. Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. Hello everyone and welcome back to Misquoting Jesus. Today we are talking about supernatural visions and specifically Paul's vision of the third heaven in second Corinthians before that. Bart, how are you doing?

[Bart Ehrman]

Yeah, I'm doing pretty well. I just, I got back from a tourist in Greece just now, like you know, 12 hours ago. So I, I had great visions there. Let me tell you, there's a lot of fantastic visionary things on Greek islands, let me just say. So. Yeah, so that was, that was really good. I do these trips sometimes, you know, I give some lectures and, and it's always, it's always great fun. So. Yeah. So yeah, how are things on your end?

[Megan Lewis]

Yeah, also good. No Greek islands for me sadly. Maybe next time. But no, very well. Yeah, busy but happy. Everyone's healthy and looking forward to summer break.

[Bart Ehrman]

So I mean, happy my 18 year

[Megan Lewis]

old is graduating which is a little bit odd.

[Bart Ehrman]

Ah, right. Yeah. Okay. Well so is my 18 year old granddaughter. So I guess that says something, right? Your daughter and my granddaugh.

[Megan Lewis]

Okay then, Wonderful. Okay, so as I said in the beginning, we're going to be talking about Paul and visions. We also have some listeners questions coming up which are as ever fantastic. And we have news on some biblical Studies, academy events and a free course that Bart is going to be doing later in the stuff in the summer. So stick with us for more information on all of that. But before we get to Paul, specifically in Second Corinthians, I wanted to ask more generally about visions. In the ancient world, when we say visions, what are we referring to?

[Bart Ehrman]

You know, I think, I think sometimes people imagine that, you know, visions only come to people who are having some kind of like neurological event, you know, or that there's, there's, you know, that you're seeing things and hallucinations and things. And that's, that's true. You know, a lot of people do have, and it's, it's not, it can be a sign of illness, but just, just in the modern world, you know, they're fantastic studies, lots of studies of visionary experiences, expert psychological neurological studies and about 13 of people report having them. So 1 out of 8, 1 out of 8 people have them. And it's, there are all sorts of explanations for them. But when, when, when I talk about visions, it, you know, I, I, I stick kind of to the meaning of the word. The word vision actually comes from a Latin word wide which means to see. And so a vision is just something you see. You know, you have good vision or you don't have good vision. It's what you're seeing most of the time. What you see is there hallucination or you might call a non veridical vision, you might not call it that, but I would call it that. A non veridical vision is a, is a vision that is when you, when you see something, but there's no external stimulus that's actually creating it. That you're, you, your, your brain is seeing something that's not there. And, and visions that, that actually applies when they talk about visions in this literature, the psychological neurological literature. It's, it's not just, it's just not with your eyes. That's not your only sense. It's, it's some kind of sensory experience you have where the sense organ has not been stimulated by an external thing. And so it's an internally generated thing. And the trick is, you know, how do we differentiate between what's really there and what not there?

[Megan Lewis]

So I know it's really difficult to say, but how common do people think these kinds of visions were in the Greco Roman world? Is it something that gets written about a lot? Would have it have been like weird to go into work and just start talking about the vision you had yesterday? Or was this just it was just a thing that happened?

[Bart Ehrman]

Well, I, you know, it's a little bit hard to say and because probably just in terms, in terms of neurology, you know, our neurology, our, our neurological systems are, are not different from what they were 2,000 years ago. It's not, we haven't evolved that way. There are cultural pressures that, that facilitate visions. And so if you're in a culture where, where people, you know, people see things all the time and it's kind of expected that you do, then you too will. I mean, this is part of the modern psychological analysis of this kind of thing. In the ancient world, I, I would say that people were not as. They were not certainly were not as scientifically oriented as we are. They didn't, they didn't have a sharp differentiation between what we think of as a. The natural world and the spiritual world. They tended to think that everything was integrated into the same world. That when, when what we would call a supernatural event happens, they would just talk about it as, as just a different kind of a natural event. The gods. The gods were active in nature. And so when the gods do something, they make the sun come up. It's not that much. It's no more difficult to make the sun come up than it is to make somebody walk on the water. I mean, it's the same thing. And so whereas we differentiate, since we differentiate, we, I think, are more critical about things that we think we see. Even though, as I said, you know, one out of eight people have kinds of things that we would call hallucinations. And every, almost every time they have one, they're sure they saw it or they experienced it. And so in the ancient. I would imagine it's more often the other difference in the ancient world is they didn't differentiate as much in many cultures, especially Greek and Roman cultures, between dreams and visions. The way we do that, it doesn't matter whether you're asleep or awake. It's the same phenomenon. And so a dream is. Can be just as real as something when you're awake. And so we differentiate between a dream and a vision, but they didn't so much.

[Megan Lewis]

So as I said, we have quite a few visions written down in the Bible and early Christian writings. Do the. Does the subject matter seem to align approximately with what we might see in visions had by non Christian or non Jewish people?

[Bart Ehrman]

I think so. You know, you. The. So it isn't that Jews and Christians were like seeing a lot of things and others were not seeing anything. Even when it comes to things like people who come back after death. You know, today, I mean, you know, a lot of these, one out of eight people are seeing deceased loved ones who come back, and almost always they're convinced they really did come back. And that happened in the ancient world as well. And we have. We have eyewitness accounts of people who had died, who came back in the flesh. So not. Not just Jesus, but we have, you know, numerous other accounts of people saying, oh, yeah, so and so, you know, who died, you know, last year has come back to me and told me so and so. And so it was. It was not. It was not thought of maybe the same way, but I think it happened. And it probably happened more often. Not just in Judaism, Christianity, though, kind of broadly throughout that environment.

[Megan Lewis]

So if we look at Paul specifically, he records two visions, the vision of Jesus that led to his conversion, but also a vision of heaven, which we see in Second Corinthians. It's not a terribly long passage, but it's a little esoteric. Could you just read it for us so that everyone is kind of on the same page?

[Bart Ehrman]

Yeah. So this is. So we'll talk more about the context. But. But Paul is. Paul is trying to show that he has special insights into God and into Christ. But he doesn't want to brag about it, but he says, you know, he feels like he's got. He's got. Tell them this, that he really does have these experiences that makes him an authority. So this is writing to these Corinthian Christians who are somewhat doubting Paul's own authority. And so what he says to them, this is. It's in Second Corinthians, chapter 12. Paul says it's necessary to boast. Nothing's gained by it. But I'll go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. He says, I know a person in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows. And I know that such a person, whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows, was caught up into paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one, I will boast. But on my own behalf, I will not boast except of my weaknesses. He goes on to say a little bit later that. That in order because of the revelations that he's had, God gave him a thorn in the flesh to torment him so as to not get too elated about all the things that he was experiencing. So, so that's, that's the passage. It's first, it's second Corinthians chapter 12 versus roughly 1 through 9.

[Megan Lewis]

I'm going to leave you all to kind of ruminate on that for a moment. We have a brief break and we'll be right back to really get into what on earth is going on in this passage.

[Bart Ehrman]

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[Megan Lewis]

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[Bart Ehrman]

Visit betterhelp.com today. I'm Bart Ehrman and I'm happy to announce a new two lecture course course called Did Jesus Really Exist? I'll be giving these lectures on Saturday, July 19. It will involve as well a Q and A session and the best news is that it will be entirely free. As you probably know, scholars have long maintained that there are non historical materials on Jesus in the New Testament Gospels. But is it possible that Jesus himself was not historical? Not too many New Testament scholars think so, but plenty of other people do. And mythicists, as they are sometimes called, have become a vocal presence on the Internet. They are not a new phenomenon. Mythicists have been around since the French Revolution. But what kind of arguments do they deduce? How strong are they? And what kind of counter arguments would scholars present beyond that? Why do scholars almost invariably agree that Jesus did exist, even if they have different interpretations of his life and different views about what he actually said and did? In this two lecture course, I'll be looking at the evidence at some length again. It will be on Saturday, July 19, consisting of two lectures and a Q and A, completely free. If you're interested, Please [e-mail] DidJesus exist? I hope you can come. I'm really looking forward to it.

[Megan Lewis]

So my first impression on hearing what you just read to us and reading it myself when I was preparing for the episode is that Paul is talking about something that happened to someone else, not something that he himself experienced. What's actually going on there?

[Bart Ehrman]

Yeah, he's not. He's talking about himself and it becomes pretty clear because it sounds like he is. I mean he's trying to present it what we might think of like more Objectively, there was this person who had this. But the entire, this entire section of Second Corinthians, chapters 10 through 13 is about him justifying his own authority and trying to show that they that he's the one who really knows the truth. And the other Christian leaders that they're starting to listen to are not people who are really followers of Christ. And so here he's trying to show that he has had these secret revelations that he can't talk about, but he wants to know that he's had them. And the key to that is showing that when he goes through this thing that I was taken up to, that this person 14 years ago was taken up to the third heaven and he went into paradise. He goes on, as I indicated, say that he that because of the exceptional character of the revelations that he's been given, God has sent him this thorn in the flesh to keep him humble. And so he's clearly talking about his own, some, some vision that he himself had.

[Megan Lewis]

So I want to talk about how the passage really fits into the context of Second Corinthians, but before that, we should probably talk about Second Corinthians generally. What is he trying to do in that letter? Why was it written?

[Bart Ehrman]

So Paul had a number of letters back and forth between with his congregation that he converted in Corinth. Corinth is a major was a major city in Greece, and it was a large city, and he had spent a lot of time there converting people. The people he converted had been pagans by almost exclusively, it looks like, and he left the congregation. He's heard about all sorts of problems. First Corinthians, the first letter we have from him wasn't the first. He wrote to them. We know that because in First Corinthians 5, 9, he refers to his earlier letter. So there are letters that have gone back and forth that we don't have. First Corinthians, though, is trying to deal with a set of problems that have arisen within the congregation that he's trying to solve one by one, problems of disunity in the church, problem forms of what he sees as crass immorality, various wrong kinds of beliefs and things. And so he does that. Second Corinthians is complicated in a way that First Corinthians is not. Second Corinthians has long been recognized by critical scholars as consisting of two different letters that have been spliced together. When you read chapters one through nine of Second Corinthians, Paul is all gushy about this congregation. They've come Back to his side. They're simpatico now. He's really grateful for that. And these nine chapters are about how great this is, that now finally they. They've. They've agreed to see the light and that they're together on this. Then you get to chapter 10, and all of a sudden, kabam, he starts screaming at them about how unfaithful they are and how. How. How he's going to have to come visit them a second time in order to whip. And you know, that he's going to visit them a third time, I guess, to whip them back into shape. And. And it's very harsh. And he goes after this group of people that he calls our false apostles, opponents of Christ who are teaching something contrary to what he does. And these Corinthians are believing it. He's going to have to come and just kind of straighten them out. So that's where this. So the tone shifts, like. And it doesn't just like. It's kind of a different tone. It's like saying the opposite stuff about the relationship. So at one point in the first part of Second Corinthians, he mentions a letter that he had sent after First Corinthians that they had read, and it apparently had its effect, and he calls it an angry letter. And so what scholars have thought is that chapters 10 through 13 are part of this earlier angry letter, and that chapters one through nine were written after the angry letter, after the thing had been resolved. Which makes it a little bit confusing because the first nine chapters are the later letter. The last three, the four chapters, are the first letter. So this vision is where. Occurs within that context of where he's lambasting them for following other leaders and not ascribing him sufficient authority.

[Megan Lewis]

So why would someone take two halves of two different letters, rearrange them from their original chronological order, and then smush them together? What does that achieve?

[Bart Ehrman]

Yeah, well, it's a simple answer to that. We don't know, so.

[Megan Lewis]

Damn it.

[Bart Ehrman]

I know, I know. It's just like, I hate saying that, but, you know, sometimes. So the. So the reality is it's not an unusual phenomenon in early Christian literature or other literature as well, to take different writing, sometimes by the same person, and making kind of the greatest hits album, where you take the. You take the two best parts or something, or three or four parts. Some of us, some scholars, including me, think that actually Second Corinthians has parts of five different writings in it. And, you know, it takes a while to kind of demonstrate that but once you start looking at the evidence, you say, oh, wow, that looks like it's right. I, I didn't go into this believing that. You know, I never thought that at all. But once somebody started pointing this evidence, whoa, that really, that really does seem right. But so almost, almost all critical scholars agree about the two letter thing. And it's, you know, and it's, we don't know why, why the person did it, but it does, it does look like he's taken off the, the ending of what's now 1 through 9, and he's taken off the beginning of what's now 10 through 13. And he's put them together. He may not have known which was first and which was second, whoever's doing this. And so. But the result is that when you're reading the letter, it just is confusing if you're paying attention, because all of a sudden, after being kind of all gushy and loving, it's like he's just cracking down on them really hard. And it doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense. But if you understand it that way, that's what's going on.

[Megan Lewis]

So what role does the vision play in this latter half of the, the letter, in the kind of angry section? Why is this included?

[Bart Ehrman]

In this section, Paul is, Paul talks about other people who are, who call themselves apostles of Christ who have come to Corinth and convinced the Corinthians that Paul is problematic. That Paul, Paul brags about having, you know, knowledge about Christ, but he actually doesn't know very much. He's, he's obvious. He's. He's physically a weak figure. He apparently is kind of paltry. And they say he's not very good rhetorically, like he doesn't speak well. And they say that they are empowered by the spirit of God and they're more rhetorically effective, they're more robust, they're more charismatic in their personalities, and they're very convincing. And these Corinthians have gone over to their side. We don't know exactly what it is they were teaching that was different from what Paul taught. Unfortunately, Paul doesn't go into the theological detail, details of the differences, but he does talk about these people and he's very nasty about them. And he sarcastically calls them the super apostles. He says, I'm an apostle. Yeah, well, those guys, those super apostles, you know, and he's kind of. And he does that. So within the context of that, Paul is trying to demonstrate that he is the one who has the authority, that he's the true representative of Christ, and these others are not. And his way, his ways of doing that are sometimes surprising, but it's the theme of this part of the letter.

[Megan Lewis]

So what are some of those surprising ways that Paul uses to justify himself?

[Bart Ehrman]

You know, Paul is a. He's kind of a paradoxical thinker in a creative and interesting way. In First Corinthians, one of his big arguments is that people who think that the way to follow Christ is the way to glory get it completely wrong. Because Christ is. Is the Messiah who suffers. And if you follow him, you're going to suffer. Not only are you going to suffer, but it's going to. The Gospel of Christ seems foolish. It doesn't seem wise, and it seems weak. It doesn't seem strong. I mean, a crucified man is the way God saves the world. It's crazy and it's weak and it's foolish. In Second Corinthians, Paul uses that to justify himself. These super apostles are saying. They say that he's physically weak and he's not rhetorically effective. He doesn't speak well. And Paul uses that in order to show that that makes him the better apostle, because it's God working through him, since nothing about him personally would convince anybody. And he goes on then in this second Corinthians, especially in chapter 11, saying that he actually has more bragging rights than they do, precisely because he's weak, pathetic, and getting beat up all the time. And so he starts listing in chapter 11 all the suffering he's done for the sake of the Gospel, where he's been innumerable beatings. He says he's been flogged, 40 lashes, minus one by Jewish authorities. He's been beaten with rods by Roman authorities three times. He's been stoned once. He's been shipwrecked three times. He spent a day and night at the sea. He's hungry all the time. He's thirsty. He doesn't have any money. And all of this shows that he's the true apostle of Christ. Because the Gospel of Christ is about a crucified man, someone who suffered for the sake of others. So those who suffer for Christ are the true apostles, not these powerful, rhetorically effective, strong guys. And so it's kind of this irony, but at some point, he's got to. He's got to show that, you know, even so, even though I'm going through all this, God's on my side. And so that's when he narrates this vision thing, says, yeah, I'm not Allowed to tell you what I learned up there. But I. 14 years ago, I had this vision, and then he. And he talked about him having multiple visions, which is why God gave him this thorn in the flesh, to keep him humble, despite the fact that he's getting all these revelations.

[Megan Lewis]

So he doesn't say what especially. He was. He was revealed the secret knowledge that he was given. What. What does the vision kind of tell us? He goes into a third heaven. What's a third heaven? Yeah.

[Bart Ehrman]

So many people thought that the heavenly realms were layered. This becomes a major theme within Christianity, that there are different levels of heaven, and eventually, you know, depending on a person's righteousness and they can get to different levels, and so the really righteous people get up there really high. So the third heaven, in this case, Paul's imagining that the heavens are divided into three levels and that the highest level is the. The level God is in. And so he's basically saying that he. He went. He went to the throne room of God and he was taken there. It wasn't something he did for himself. God took him there and revealed to him things that he's not allowed to tell anyone. And so it's. It's one of these things where you get, you know, when people want to kind of one up someone in an argument where they say, yeah, well, you know, actually, I saw these. I can't tell you what it was, but I'm just. I saw it. You know, it was really cool, too. It's so cool, you know, you wouldn't believe it. You know, it was just so cool. And. Yeah, but I can't tell you. And so it's like, you know, so there's no response to that because. Okay. I mean, there's no way to verify it or. Or not, but that. So that. That's the strategy employs there because he feels obligated to show he really does know what he's talking about, even though he doesn't seem like a very powerful, dynamic person. Person.

[Megan Lewis]

Do we know how this particular element of Paul's story ends? Do the Corinthians kind of repent and come back again? Or is it just a massive mystery?

[Bart Ehrman]

So the nice thing about having 1st and 2nd Corinthians and knowing that 2nd Corinthians is two different letters written at two different times is you can actually piece out the. The development of the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians. You can actually layer it chronologically. And so it looks like what happened is he was attacking people for having these kind of high spiritual views in First Corinthians and not realizing that the end has not come yet and we've not yet been glorified. That's going to be later. And he has to explain that to them. And looks like these so called super apostles come in and tell them exactly what they wanted to hear, that in fact you can have a glorified existence now like we do. And then Paul hears about that and he writes this nasty letter to them saying, you know, you've turned against me and you need, you know, you're following false apostles. These are not followers of Christ. That's what's in chapters 10 through 13. That's part of that letter. He says that Titus took the letter to the Corinthians and explained it to them. And he says they all, and they, they realized that they were wrong and they turned back to Paul. All we, you know, we don't know anything about what that all entails. You know, if you kind of familiar with modern church situations, you might think that maybe these super apostles went too far and kind of did some, did some bad things. They thought man, these guys can't be right. But we don't know. We don't know. We don't know. But then when Titus comes back and tells Paul that all of this has been worked out, they're on his side. Then he writes this other letter that's now chapters one one through nine. And so we can trace it but we, but he doesn't give us the details and we really wish we had the details. We just love to know what really happened here.

[Megan Lewis]

We are unfortunately out of time for today but thank you very much. That was really interesting. We are going to go through some news on upcoming events and then listeners questions.

[Biblical Studies Academy Announcer]

Welcome to our upcoming highlights and event segment where we catch up on bar arts courses, community updates and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond.

[Megan Lewis]

All right, we have a couple of pieces of news before we get to listeners questions. First, at the end of May we hosted two really interesting events inside of the Biblical Studies Academy or BSA. One was an Ask Me Anything with Dr. Dan McLellan about his new York Times best selling book the Bible says. So I spoke to him a few weeks ago. Hopefully you caught that interview. And the other thing was a discussion and Q A with Robin Walsh, Dr. Robin Walsh, about divine conception and strange birth narratives in the Gospels and Roman literature. So these were both Biblical Studies Academy exclusive events. You can if you would like to catch the replays within the Biblical Studies Academy portal and if you're not a member. We currently have a free 14 day trial at bartehrman.com BSA so you can go, you can catch up with these events, see if this is a community that you would like to, to remain part of. We also have a big course announcement. According to a recent study, 22% of people in the US believe that Jesus was a mythical figure. And that is a higher percentage, honestly, than I think I would have expected. Another study in the UK had similar results, but under 35s were 25% more likely to think that Jesus did not exist. If Bart is right, as you've heard him say many times on the podcast, that Jesus is the most significant individual in the history of our civilization, then these are some surprising, possibly alarming numbers. So we have a free course coming out where Bart is going to set the record straight. On July 17th, Bart's going to be recording a live course. Did Jesus Really Exist? It's a two lesson course followed by a live question and answer session. And in the course, Bart is going to give us the best evidence for Jesus as an historical figure and dealing with some of the claims made by mythicists and demonstrating why they are wrong. You can join us live@bart ehrman.com DidJesus exist? But what do you have to add to that little announcement there?

[Bart Ehrman]

Yeah, well, it's amazing. I have to give this because it's true. I mean I did. Boy, yeah, those numbers are higher than I would have expected too. I wonder. I need to look into those. Pull that polling. But, but there, there's, there are groups of people today who call themselves mythicists who think that Jesus is completely a myth. And I think, you know, it's easy to be, you know, swayed by somebody who comes up with a spectacular theory. If you do, you don't, you don't really kind of see the whole picture. And so this would be trying to show, well, whatever else you think about Jesus and I'm, you know, I myself, I'm not a Christian and it's, I don't have a particular horse in this race. I mean, it's not part of my faith or anything. But I think, I think the evidence is so overwhelming that I find it a little bit frustrating that people kind of quickly jump onto this. And so I'm going to try and explain, try and explain and you know, people have different opinions, that's fine. And I'll be taking questions and, and I bet they'll be interesting.

[Megan Lewis]

They always are. I'm going to be hosting this one. So you should all definitely join us both then at. You can get more [e-mail] DidJesus exist? Now we are going to go to the final segment of the day, our listeners questions.

[Biblical Studies Academy Announcer]

Now it's time for questions from listeners where Bart answers real questions submitted by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart erman.com Ask Bart.

[Megan Lewis]

All right, Are you ready?

[Bart Ehrman]

Yeah. We'll see.

[Megan Lewis]

Probably. First up, I am curious about your personal history with the Protestant solus scriptura doctrine. Were you ever troubled during your evangelical or even liberal Protestant days by the idea that nowhere in Scripture does it explicitly say that Scripture itself is the sole source of authority?

[Bart Ehrman]

No, that didn't bother me. I mean, I, you know, when I was a, when I was a fundamentalist, we, we turned to the passage in Timothy that all scriptures inspired by God and profitable for doctrine, reproof and training in righteousness. And so that was our kind of our motto at Moody Bible Institute. And so we did believe that the sola scriptura idea, only scripture, starts out with Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation. And his point was that the Bible is the authority, not the church. Whatever the Catholic Church says, whatever the Pope says, whatever's in the Catholic dogmas, those are not authoritative. The authority has to come from the inspired scripture. And so that's what I believed when I was an evangelical, when I was a liberal Christian. I didn't, I didn't look at it that way. I thought Scripture was informative and helpful and insightful. But I, I knew there were other authorities for, for what truth is. And so, but the fact the Bible doesn't claim that for itself didn't matter to me in part because I knew the Bible. I mean, you can't say the Bible claims anything for itself. The Bible is 66 different books written by different people. So it's not like a thing. And so, so, so no, that wasn't a problem.

[Megan Lewis]

Thank you. A Next Question Asks I've noticed a fair bit on the web claiming that most of the Bible is simply a ripoff of the Greek classics. Is this view accepted by academics or is it simply a current online trend?

[Bart Ehrman]

Well, I didn't know it was a current online trend, but it's completely false. It's a ripoff of the classics. So I, you know, I, I read a lot of classics. I, I'm, I have an adjunct appointment in the classics department at unc. My brother, professional classicist, you know, and I've read, you know, I read, I Read classical literature all the time, from Homer to Euripides, Plato, and, and the New Testament's not a ripoff of that. It's a whole different thing. I mean, it's written the same language. It has some similar themes in places and similar ideas in places and lots of differences. But no, it's. It's. It's not that at all.

[Megan Lewis]

Excellent. Do the different names for God in the Old Testament originate from the names of other previous gods?

[Bart Ehrman]

Pretty much. There. It kind of depends what you mean by name. The. There's only one name for God in the Old Testament that. The Tetragrammaton, the four letters. And normally it's pronounced Yahweh, That. That's his personal name. The other designations for God, things like Elohim and Adonai, these are, you know, El Shaddai. These are. These are. These are word. They're words. They're descriptors. And often they do, in fact, relate to other deities. El was a. Was a, you know, a Canaanite deity, for example. And then the Christians start the. The Jews started calling their God El, or Elohim is the plural. So that. That is the case. But there's only one proper name, and that's Yahweh, and that isn't found elsewhere.

[Megan Lewis]

Regarding the original ending of Matthew, could it have been the author's intent to emphasize that the women did not not speak to anyone, thus confirming that the tale of Jesus came not from the fanciful tales of mournful women, but from the reality of the risen Christ appearing to his disciples at Galilee as was promised?

[Bart Ehrman]

I think he. I think this question must mean Mark instead of Matthew, because in Matthew, the women do go tell the disciples. And it's in Mark where they don't tell anybody. And so I guess the question is, would they? In Mark, the women find out that the tomb is empty. They learn that Jesus has been raised from the dead. They're told, go tell the disciples that he'll meet them in Galilee. And then they don't tell anybody. And that's where it ends. It ends with them not telling anybody. And so is the idea that the truth of the resurrection then would be revealed to the disciples in Galilee. You don't have to trust the women's word for it. You could make a case for that. It'd be hard to demonstrate one way or the other. I think the bigger point is that in Mark's Gospel, one of the major theses is that the disciples never understand who Jesus is. And even though they're his closest Followers, they don't get it. And at the end, they still don't get it. They don't even hear that he's been raised. And so I think it's playing into that motif more than into the question of the reliability of the will.

[Megan Lewis]

Women thank you. And one final question before we wrap up. Was Jesus a monotheist?

[Bart Ehrman]

Was Jesus a monotheist? So today when we use the term monotheism, we tend to mean the somebody believes there is only one God. And Jews throughout history, Ancient Israel, in ancient Israel, most Jews were not monotheists. They believed that there were many gods, but there's only one that they were going to worship by the time of Jesus. Most Jews in the world, I think, basically are monotheists. They know the pagans have other gods and things, but they tend to argue that those aren't really gods. And I'm sure that Jesus was in that camp. He didn't think that the other gods were actually gods, but he did think that there were other supernatural powers that are more powerful than humans. And you could call those divine beings, but he wouldn't have called them a God. God. I don't think so. To the. In that sense, I guess he was a monotheist.

[Megan Lewis]

Audience thank you all for your questions, but thank you for your answers. Now, before we finish for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we spoke about?

[Bart Ehrman]

I'll try. What were we talking about today? Oh, yeah, yeah. Paul's vision. Right. Well, we've been talking about this very interesting passage in 2nd Corinthians 12 where Paul says that he was taken up, up to the third heaven and went into paradise and he heard things that he can't tell anybody. And so it's, it's a, it's his visionary experience. He doesn't give us much detail, but he uses it to show that he, in fact, is authoritative, that he, he's been given revelations by God. And so we're talking about visions and what all this means and how it fits into Second Corinthians and what it means for Paul's understanding of his gospel.

[Megan Lewis]

Audience thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss it future episodes. Remember that you can use the Code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week, but sadly, without Bart. Instead, I'm going to be joined by Dr. Paula Fredrickson. To talk about the diversity and variation of ancient Christianity. So please do join us then. Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting J Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favourite podcast listening app or on Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.