In my previous post, “Have I Not Seen the Lord? What Did Paul Claim to Have Seen?” I suggest that we need to go to Paul, and what he says in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, as our earliest witness to faith in Jesus’ resurrection–rather than to our latest witnesses–the gospels of…
Most people who read the New Testament read it “backwards.” By that I mean they begin with the four Gospels–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John–move through Acts, and finally get to the letters of Paul and the rest. What many fail to realize is that the seven letters of Paul (1…
I have been thinking deeply about “Paul’s Ascent to Paradise” for the past forty years. When I first suggested a dissertation on two verses of Paul’s letter we called 2 Corinthians back in 1975 at the University of Chicago, Jonathan Z. Smith, my soon-to-be advisor smiled and said, “You just put…
My first book, Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise in its Greco-Roman, Judaic, and Early Christian Contexts, was published in 1986–now 34 years ago, and long ago went out of print. Used copies, mostly paperback, have been selling for years on Amazon at the ridiculous price of $245 to $393–in “acceptable” to…
I just happened to see on the Society of Biblical Literature web site that Jimmy Dunn has died. We were academic “friends” and he reviewed my book Paul and Jesus, for Biblical Archaeology Review in 2013. You can read his review and my response here on the blog. We sharply disagreed, but I…
Last week I posted an article I published some years ago dealing with Paul’s idea of “Apotheosis,” or “Divinization,” i.e. “becoming Divine.” Several readers wrote me that the extensive use of Greek in that published article, made it difficult for them to follow. I apologize for not noticing that. It…
Nietzsche said the Christian decision to make the world ugly and evil has made the world ugly and evil. Of course the Christians were only mimickers and mirrors of the neo-Platonism and Gnostic perspectives that became so influential in late Antiquity. Quite a contrast to the Hebrew Bible. Demons, Satan…
Those who have read my book, Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity might recall that in the Introduction I survey what I consider to be Paul’s “Six Major Ideas,” several of which are underemphasized, or even overlooked, in many standard treatments of Paul. One of those, which I explore in…
A few weeks ago I posted an article I had published back in the year 2000, on “Salvation” in the Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements, edited by Richard Lances. Here is another dealing with Millennialism in the Ancient World–by that I mean the ancient Near East/Mediterranean world. I tried my…
Bart Ehrman has a very interesting post up on his blog (July 3) titled “Do Matthew and Paul Agree on the Matter Most Important to them Both?” I highly recommend both the post and the blog. ((The blog requires a membership fee, which is rare among us Bible Bloggers, but…
