The Third Heaven

I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven.  2 Corinthians 12:2  NASB

Out of body – This strange verse (and the following two verses) needs some serious examination.  A host of questions arise: Is there such a thing as a “third heaven”?  Does this verse support the idea of out of body experiences?  Who was this man?  When we look at the extended passage in the next two verses we have more questions: How can someone hear “inexpressible” words?  Who told this man that he wasn’t allowed to speak them?  Why?

The whole context is a perplexing aside.  Paul is writing to the Corinthians with the intention of reprimanding them and instructing them to replace chaos with proper order in their assembly.  In the process, he speaks about boasting.  We tend to think of boasting as a negative trait, but Paul is probably not using the Greek sense of the term.  His background is likely the Hebrew verb śāmaḥ, which means to rejoice (cf. Psalm 5:11) or its equivalent rānan (also Psalm 5:11).  Both are positive expressions of jubilation.  Thus, Paul can write, “Boasting is necessary,” and not mean anything diminishing (2 Corinthians 12:1).  But he wishes to show that even though jubilation is needed and justified, it isn’t symphérō; “profitable” but not in a financial sense.  symphérō means “of benefit to the assembly,” that is, “communal enhancement.”  With this in mind, he relates an incident that occurred fourteen years earlier.  His point is that even this “miraculous” experience does not qualify as something beneficial for the community, and therefore, cannot be used to raise the status of the one who experienced it above those “regular” members.  So, perhaps we’ve uncovered the motivation, but that still leaves us with the questions about the veracity of this experience.

I think we need Abraham Heschel’s insight into mysticism before we can proceed.  Heschel “reformulates the idea that mysticism is often related to a dissatisfaction with the world as it is. . . [by focusing] on a particular issue in religious mysticism, [that is] the quest for a visual experience of God.”  He examines “the nature of—and the dangers inherent in—this quest . . .”[1]

Does this help us deal with Paul’s obscure references?  Many Christian commentators suggest that Paul’s “third heaven” is simply a reference to the “non-physical dwelling place of God,” as opposed to the first and second heavens of the created order.  Some even go so far as to suggest that Paul is employing a disguised reference to the Trinity.  But these anachronistic explanations miss the fact that ancient Jewish mysticism included the idea of multiple heavens (as many as 365, but typically 7).  The idea was also popular among Gnostics following Plotinus who posited multiple heavens of demi-gods.  The Talmud suggests multiple heavens sometimes connected to the Book of Enoch which we know was in use during the first century.  Paul’s doctrinal views were influenced by Talmudic thinking, and as such he could have adopted this multi-heaven idea.

What can we say about “out-of-body” experiences?  Religious literature recounts such experiences over the course of thousands of years.  Modern psychological studies also document reports of such experiences.  Recently, Susan Blackmore has written about certain brain functions that can produce these experiences.[2]  Often dismissed as “Satanic” or “evil,” we must now consider the possibility that neural circumstances could affect brain patterns producing these sensations involuntarily.  Blackmore draws an important conclusion: “Yet, realistically, it is far better to understand the truth about the experience than to cling to the unworkable dualist notion of a soul or spirit that leaves the body.”[3]  Perhaps what we have in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is a personal description of such an experience, a neural/brain interaction, not a body/soul dichotomy.  This would be far more in line with the Hebraic idea of embodiment, that is, the fully-integrated person as opposed to the common Greek partition.

However, the most intriguing part of Paul’s recollection is the last piece, the statement in verse 4: “. . . was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.”  This is truly perplexing.  If the words were inexpressible, why would such a man be commanded not to speak them?  By definition, inexpressible words are unutterable.  The translation here is the culprit.  The Greek term used is arrhētŏs, a combination of the negative prefix and the word rhētōs, that is, “something not spoken.”  But clearly Paul cannot mean something silent!  He must mean something uttered but commanded to not be spoken again.  In other words, secrets!   “Inexpressible” may be the literal meaning of the Greek, but it makes no sense.  “Uttered with the intention of not being repeated” is the only way to understand such a phrase.  arrhētŏs must be “not uttered” because of its purposed outcome.

We haven’t examined Paul’s use of parádeisos (translated Paradise) but a moment’s look at that term in late Judaism would reveal that this loan word (from Persian) is applied to the idea of a return to the original paradisiacal Garden, now hidden but nevertheless real.  It was considered the resting place of the righteous dead.  If this is what Paul meant, his idea is comfortably at home in Jewish rabbinic thought.

Paul’s “rapture” experience leaves us with perhaps more questions than answers.  Certainly it pushes the boundaries of our comfortable limits in the sensory world.  Whatever Paul meant, whether a personal experience or a remembered recounting, he spends no time elaborating because his point is not the existence of ecstatic visions but rather the uselessness of such experiences for the edification of the larger community.

Topical Index: arrhētŏs, inexpressible, out-of-body, third heaven, Paradise, 2 Corinthians 12:2

[1] Gordon Tucker (editor), in Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah: As Refracted through the Generations (Continuum, 2007), p. 299.

[2] https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/explaining-out-of-body-experiences/

[3] Ibid.