Carey Baptist College
Mystic or Sarcastic?: 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 as Greco-Roman Parody of Jewish Mysticism
In this paper I suggest a solution to the puzzle of the Apostle Paul’s vision in 2 Corinthians 12. The account’s distinctive use of the third person, its disjointed syntax, its disregard for the body, and its contradiction of Paul’s previously espoused anthropology and cosmology, have generated a range of proposals. However, the general consensus is that Paul is describing his own visit to the third heaven in the third person. Consequently, the experience of 12:2-4 becomes data to be included in Paul’s anthropology, cosmology, and biography. This study will combine two minority proposals that have previously been kept separate: 1) that Paul is making use here of mockery and irony (Betz), and 2) that Paul is speaking of someone else rather than himself (Hermann/Goulder). Utilising recent research on the Greco-Roman rhetorical technique of sarcasmos and on early Jewish heavenly ascent traditions, I will argue that, rather than an account of his own vision, Paul is mocking his opponents in order to expose what he considers to be their vague and incoherent mystical boasting.