Abstract
In Second Corinthians 12:2-4, Paul relates a mystical
experience in which he was caught up into the third heaven. In
relating this experience, Paul assumes that his audience would have
found his language intelligible. If so, in what
ways was--and is--his language intelligible? In the first chapter
of this study, I guide my readers through the text while engaging
with modern New Testament scholarship, providing parallel accounts
of ancient heavenly ascents. In the process, I demonstrate that the
rhetorical force of Paul's argument hinges on the element of the
subjective; that is, Paul's contemporaries were both familiar with
and experienced such "mysticism." In the second chapter of this
study, I look at the function of words, such as "heaven," in Paul's
relating of his experience. I then apply Wittgenstein's philosophy
of language, focusing on the Tractatus
and Philosophical Investigations in
particular, to mystical religious experiences. I conclude this
project by arguing that while the experience, as related to us
using human language, is inexpressible, the words employed function
as "limits" on what can and what cannot be said; that is, in
showing us what cannot be communicated, Wittgenstein's philosophy,
nonetheless, illuminates and expands our understanding of Paul's
comment that he "heard inexpressible things, things that no one is
permitted to tell."
Table of Contents
- Preface..........Page 1
- Chapter 1: Paul's Heavenly Ascent in 2 Cor. 12:2-4: Its
Background, Context, and its Modern Interpreters..........Page
5
- Introduction........Page 5
- Second Corinthians Context: Paul the Boaster--Pauline Irony and
"Boasts of Weakness"..........Page 5
- Paul and "The Gospel": Of Non-Human Origins and
Revelations..........Page 14
- The Mystical Experience as Inexpressible and
Unutterable..........Page 27
- The Rhetoric of Mystical Religious Experience and the Function
of Language: Paul's Heavenly Ascent as a Test Case..........Page
30
- Chapter 2: Wittgenstein's Philosophy and Paul's Mysticism
- The "Early" Wittgenstein: Using the Tractatus to Navigate
Mystical Experiences..........Page 34
- The "Late" Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations,
Language-Games, and Forms of Life..........Page 43
- Language-Games..........Page 44
- Forms of Life..........Page 47
- Paul's Mystical Experience Vis-a-vis Wittgenstein: How Do
Proximal Contemporaries and Distant Moderns Relate to
Paul?..........Page 49
- The Myth of the Soul: To Lose One's Soul and Gain
Another's?..........Page 52
- Of Beetles and Bogus: The Private Language
Argument..........Page 58
- Philosophical Remarks Within a Penultimate
Conclusion..........Page 61
- Conclusion: What Can Be Said Regarding That Which Refuses to
Remain Unsaid?..........Page 65
- Bibliography..........Page 69
About this Master's Thesis
Rights statement
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