Paul and Jesus

12. The itinerary proposed in the later letters of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—where Paul is released from prison, continues his missionary work, and ends up imprisoned a second time in Rome, where he is executed—is not reliable.

CHAPTER 5: A COSMIC FAMILY AND A HEAVENLY KINGDOM

1. For a photo, transcription, and translation of this and many other similar letters from the period, see Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, translated by Lionel R. M. Strachan (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1978), pp. 178–83.

2. Romans 11:25; 16:25; 1 Corinthians 2:1, 7; 1 Corinthians 4:1, 15:51.

3. See Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 366–67.

4. Steve Mason is the one who has pointed this out. See his discussion in Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009), pp. 283–328. There is a summary of Mason’s main argument at http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/mason3.shtml.

5. See Ra’anan S. Boustan and Annette Yoshiko Reed, eds., Heavenly Realms and Earth Realities in Late Antique Religions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

6. Many modern Christian Evangelicals, influenced by the interpretations of nineteenth-century biblical scholar John Nelson Darby, base their view of a “secret rapture” of the church before the Second Coming of Christ on this passage in Paul.

7. Although Luke is following a passage in Mark 12:24–25 here as his source, these particular descriptions of the nature of the resurrection he adds to Mark’s narrative, as one can see with a side-by-side comparison.

8. Isaiah 61:1 is the core text where Yahweh “anoints” by the Spirit the one who is to bring “Good News.” Jesus quotes this text in Luke 4:18–21, applying it to himself as the Messiah. The Dead Sea Scrolls also quote Isaiah 61:1 and refer to this figure as the “Anointed one of the Spirit.” See “The Heavenly Prince Melchizedek,” 11Q13 in Vermes, ed., The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, pp. 500–1.

9. The Greek word I have translated here “son-ship” (hiothesios) appears in some English translations as “adoption.” This is misleading since it can imply in English that there is no “natural” relationship between the parent and the child, only a legal one. Paul believes that the select group is truly made up of children of God, begotten by his Spirit, every bit as much as Jesus became a child of God.

10. One of the better studies is by James G. Dunn, Christology in the Making (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980).

11. Some scholars have argued that Paul is not referring to Jesus’ preexistence here but rather to his choice, as a human being created in the image of God, to “empty” himself and become an obedient servant, providing a model for the glorification process. See Charles Talbert, “The Problem of Pre-Existence in Phil. 2:6-11,” Journal of Biblical Literature 86 (1967): 141–53. The scholarly discussion of the passage is extensive. See Ralph P. Martin, Carmen Christi: Philippians ii.5–11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983).

12. There was ample development of these kinds of speculative cosmological ideas within various forms of mystical Judaism at the time and one can assume Paul would have been aware of these. See Schonfield, “The Christology of Paul,” in Those Incredible Christians, pp. 227–41.

13. See my discussion of Jesus and John the Baptizer and their proclamation of the Kingdom in The Jesus Dynasty, pp. 125–67.

14. See Leviticus 23:9–10.

CHAPTER 6: A MYSTICAL UNION WITH CHRIST

1. Only once in the Hebrew Bible does the idea of believing or trusting in Moses occur, but it is as an agent of God, when the Israelites at the crossing of the Red Sea “believed in Yahweh, and in his servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31).

2. Outside of Paul’s letters (58 times), or letters attributed to Paul (27 times), the phrase “in Christ” occurs only once in the book of Acts, where the reference is to faith in Christ (Acts 24:24), and three times in the letter known as 1 Peter, where Paul’s ideas are directly echoed by the author (1 Peter 3:15; 5:10, 14).

3. The great classic study is Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, translated by William Montgomery (London: A. & C. Black, 1931). Schweitzer successfully argued that one does not need to go to “pagan” Greco-Roman religions to find close parallels to Paul’s mysticism. Paul’s thinking is rooted in Jewish apocalyptic traditions of the late Second Temple period (300 B.C. to A.D. 70).