currents in biblical research 2011 batluck 339 63

http://cbi.sagepub.com/Currents in Biblical Research

http://cbi.sagepub.com/content/9/3/339The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/1476993X10383201

2011 9: 339Currents in Biblical ResearchMark Batluck

Religious Experience in New Testament Research

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:Currents in Biblical ResearchAdditional services and information for

http://cbi.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://cbi.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://cbi.sagepub.com/content/9/3/339.refs.htmlCitations:

What is This?

- Jun 1, 2011Version of Record >>

by Aras Roxana on October 9, 2012cbi.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://cbi.sagepub.com/

http://cbi.sagepub.com/content/9/3/339

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://cbi.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://cbi.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://cbi.sagepub.com/content/9/3/339.refs.html

http://cbi.sagepub.com/content/9/3/339.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml


Currents in Biblical Research9(3) 339–363

© The Author(s) 2010Reprints and permission: sagepub.

co.uk/journalsPermission.navDOI: 10.1177/1476993X10383201

cbi.sagepub.com

Corresponding author:Mark Batluck, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UKEmail: [email protected]

Religious Experience in New Testament Research

Mark BatluckUniversity of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

AbstractInitiated by Gunkel in 1888, and again by Dunn in 1970, research on religious experience in the New Testament has developed into four distinct streams, all of which address the matter from a different vantage point. Mystical/revelatory experience examines early Christian texts that are ecstatic or disclose new information to the recipient. A second group equates religious experience with encounters of the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, historical Jesus studies investigates historical dimensions of the religious experience described in the Gospels. Fourthly, others address religious experience categorically, trying to account for the grand scope and effect of religious experience recorded in the writings of the New Testament. Each approach offers a great deal to scholars and will be a fruitful line of inquiry in studies to come.

Keywordsinnovation, mysticism, pneumatology, religious experience, revelation

Religious Experience in Biblical TextsIdentifying the boundaries of religious experience in biblical texts is notoriously difficult. Ancient descriptions of experiential phenomena, which often lack cru-cial detail, can leave scholars wondering how best to define or categorize such accounts. Yet scholars readily acknowledge the ‘creative force’ of such experi-ences, and therefore in recent years scholars have labored to understand religious experiences as they are recounted in extant texts (Dunn 1975: 4).

Johnson’s Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity recognizes the impor-tance of such research and offers a working definition of religious experience: ‘that which is perceived as ultimate, involving the whole person, characterized by a peculiar intensity, and issuing in action’ (1998: 60). Johnson’s definition is

Article



340 Currents in Biblical Research 9(3)

one among many and draws primarily on Wach’s research in his 1958 The Com-parative Study of Religions (pp. 31-40). However, biblical studies, with its con-sciously inductive approach, has yet to produce a textually derived definition. In NT texts, religious experiences come to us in various forms and therefore often defy definitions like Johnson’s above. Paul’s experience of being caught up in the ‘third heaven’ in 2 Cor. 12, for example, is a lengthy description of a Pauline religious experience. Such an event describes his perception of the divine, has a peculiar intensity, and issues forth in the action of telling the Corinthian believers about it. Yet it is difficult to tell if Paul’s experience involved his ‘whole person’ or if it was reduced simply to his mind, emotions, or will. Despite the valuable information the apostle gives us, he does not tell the reader what the scope of this experience may have been, but only that the experience happened in some way.

As another example, Jesus’ cry on the cross in Mk 15.34, ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι; (eloi eloi lema sabachthani, ‘My God, my God, why have you for-saken me?’) could appear to be an obvious example of a religious experience. However, Jesus is lamenting the absence of God’s presence, not experiencing the fullness of it. Johnson’s definition above would need to be modified to accom-modate apophatic experiences where the subject is experiencing a ‘dark night of the soul’ (Johnson acknowledges as much; see 1998: 61, n. 37).

Although passages like the ones above do not fit clearly into existing models or paradigms, numerous other passages fit Johnson’s categories of religious experience quite well. The accounts of Jesus’ baptism in the Synoptic Gospels, for example, provide a classic example of a religious experience. In Mark’s baptism account, Jesus is spoken of as being in the water and looking up to heaven as the Spirit descended on him. He is engaged with the ultimate (the ‘voice from heaven’); his whole person is involved (i.e. physically, spiritually); the experience is characterized by a particular intensity (he is having visions and hearing voices); and it issues forth in action (the Spirit immediately leads him to the temptation event with Satan). All the elements Johnson expects to find in religious experience accounts exist in the narrative of Jesus’ baptism in Mark.

Biblical literature is filled with such accounts and a thorough understanding of the dynamics of religious experience only aids scholarly research on these pas-sages. The remainder of this article will outline the emergence and development of research on religious experience over the last century. It should also be noted that, though some scholars have undertaken study on early Christian religious experiences in extra-biblical literature (e.g. Cohn-Sherbok 1994; Verbeke 1945), this discussion will be limited primarily to research in the New Testament.

The Emergence of Research on Religious ExperienceDespite the prevalence of religious experience accounts in ancient texts or the need for research in this area, religious experience (or ‘RE’) in biblical studies



Batluck: Religious Experience in New Testament Research 341

has received comparatively little attention in the last century. Only in the last forty years have scholars begun a more serious effort to analyze the experiential dimension of ancient religious literature. The scholarly neglect prior to this time may be due to the fact that religious experience is rather difficult to pin down. Some have suggested that the lack of biblical research on religious experience is due to the tendency of scholars toward the study of theology in their work (Hurtado 2000: 184).

Whatever the reason, since the end of the nineteenth century, biblical studies has begun to see a shift to include an emphasis on the experiential as well. This shift can be traced to the development of philosophical theology in the seven-teenth century, when two influential philosophers-theologians began to assert the importance of experience in one’s knowledge of God. The work of Schelling (1797) asserted that God is comprehended primarily through experience or per-ception (see also Marx 1984). And Schleiermacher (1799; 1821) wrote on the significance of God-consciousness and feelings as a fundamental element of Christian religion. These philosopher-theologians set the stage for Hermann Gunkel’s 1888, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes (The Influence of the Holy Spirit,1979). In this landmark study, Gunkel analyzed the experience of the Holy Spirit in the writings of Paul and the apostles, believing that New Testa-ment pneumatology has its background in the Old Testament and Second Tem-ple period. Wirkungen covers a number of topics related to religious experience of the Holy Spirit, including how such experiences affected the individual, how the apostles’ teaching about the Spirit was influenced by earlier Christians’ experiences, and how visions or appearances were particularly influential among early Christians. Gunkel’s research helpfully guides the reader through an analysis of the symptoms of believers’ experiences of the Holy Spirit, dis-cussing the way early Christians were influenced individually, as a community, and the way they differentiated between the Spirit and demons. Gunkel then compares and contrasts these findings with what one reads in the Pauline cor-pus. Especially strong in the Epistles is a robust doctrine of the spiritual gifts. Gunkel discusses Paul’s dichotomies between the Spirit and the concept of holi-ness and between the Spirit and the flesh—elements common in the Epistles.

Gunkel’s effort to view early Christian pneumatology through the lens of Juda-ism set the trajectory for RE research from that point forward. His suggestion that NT authors differed in their views of the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit also guided scholarly inquiry and shaped the questions that researchers would ask in future work on spiritual experience in the Bible (Levison 2009: xxi).

Nearly fifteen years after Gunkel’s work on the Holy Spirit, William James published The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902); a study that inaugu-rated a new era of research on religious experience in twentieth-century scholarship. The Varieties is widely viewed as the most influential book of




the last 150 years in the field, in part because James was the first to suggest a definition and introduce categories for better understanding religious experi-ence. The Varieties influences a great deal of later work in philosophy, psy-chology, and theology, yet its social-scientific approach limited its influence on biblical research (for social-scientific works that engage with James, see Bond 2005; Graham 1992; Proudfoot 1985; see also Starbuck 1899, a con-temporary of James, that addresses religious experience from a psychologi-cal perspective).

The remainder of this paper will be an analysis of major trends in New Testa-ment research in religious experience.

Early Twentieth-Century ResearchTwo decades after Gunkel’s Wirkungen, Deissmann published Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History (1911). Deissmann’s work located Christianity’s early momentum in its identity as a movement of worship and experience, rather than theological formulations. Gardner in his The Religious Experience of Saint Paul (1911) and Swete in The Holy Spirit in the New Testament (1909) were also formative works. Gardner contended that the influence of Greek and Oriental mysticism on Paul had a profound influence on the development of Christianity. Paul, he argued, was primarily responsible for introducing the mystical into the early Christian church. Similarly, Swete’s work aimed to expose the way in which New Testament authors wrote about the Holy Spirit in connection with their own experience (1909: vii).

Leisegang followed ten years later with a two-volume work on the Holy Spirit in early Christianity (1919). Leisegang used the history of religions approach as well, concluding that Hellenistic mysticism, not Judaism, was responsible for Christianity’s view of the Holy Spirit. Leisegang’s work was largely unpersuasive to scholars, and gave way to Büchsel’s 1923 Der Geist Gottes im Neuen Testament (The Spirit of God in the New Testament). Büchsel supported Gunkel’s conclusions by situating the Spirit of early Christianity in Judaism; however, he differed from Gunkel by saying that the Spirit of Israel, Paul, and the apostles were unified by the experience of sonship the Spirit offered (1923: 165; for a more extended discus-sion on the above, see Levison 2009: xiv-xxvii, and Kuecker 2008: 3-4).

In 1928, Robinson published The Christian Experience of the Holy Spirit, which covers religious experience in a variety of time periods and ways. The last half of the book is devoted to the role of spiritual experience in the New Testa-ment. In this section, he demonstrates that the focus of Christian Scripture has always been on the experiential rather than the propositional. Robinson attaches great significance to believers’ rhetoric of their experience of the Holy Spirit throughout the Old and New Testaments.




The Lapse in Research on Religious ExperienceRobinson’s work above was the last publication on the subject for forty years. In the years between the great wars, much of the general populace became disillu-sioned with nineteenth-century Liberal Protestantism, which rejected metaphysi-cal claims and focused on the historically conditioned nature of biblical texts (a movement of which Gunkel was a strong part). This post-WWI cynicism caused scholars to refocus their research more on the theological/propositional elements of Scripture than the historical. Crisis theology, as it has been termed, returned to a strong view of the transcendence of God and pursued the study of theologie over the religion preferred by nineteenth-century scholars. By their emphasis on the metaphysical, crisis theologians lost sight of the earthly and experiential dimension of the biblical texts, gravitating instead to research on the theological formulations of these authors.

A Resurgence of Research In 1970, Dunn sparked new interest in the experiential nature of New Testament with Baptism in the Holy Spirit. This monograph continues to be cited as one of the more critical and timely works in religious experience research. Baptism demon-strates that the experience of the Holy Spirit was ‘part of the process’ of becoming a Christian—this ‘decisive and climactic experience in conversion-initiation’ became a defining mark of entrance into the NT community of faith (1970: 4). Dunn’s work was a reaction to those who separated the NT believer’s experience of the Holy Spirit from salvation. Spiritual experience, he says, is right at the heart of what it meant to be initiated into the community of faith.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit fittingly begins with an exposition of the John–Jesus interaction at the Jordan. He then works through the miracles at Pentecost and the other religious experiences in the book of Acts. The final half of his book probes the letters of Paul and the Johannine Gospel/letters. Dunn maintains throughout his research that NT texts show that personal interaction with the Spirit was necessary to early Christian spiritual experience and was part-and-parcel to what they would call ‘faith’ (1970: 226). Accordingly, Dunn’s research concludes that NT Christians held religious experience as the sine qua non of being a Christian—a statement that significantly advanced the need for further research on religious experience in early Christian studies.

Dunn followed Baptism with Jesus and the Spirit in 1975, a book ‘written out of the conviction that religious experience is a vitally important dimension of man’s experience of reality’ (1975: ix). Spurred on by his inquiry into the origins of Christianity, Dunn asks, ‘what were those [religious experiences] which consti-tuted a new faith of such dynamic and durable vitality’ and ‘in particular, how did Jesus’ own experiences relate to those of his followers?’ (1975: 1-2). Dunn believes




religious experiences in the earliest believing communities fell into one of two categories: (1) events where believers claimed to have seen the risen Lord, and (2) religiously ecstatic events in which believers experienced what they believed was the eschatological Spirit (1975: 357). Both types of religious experience were foundational to the deepening of conviction and the spread of the early church.

In the Gospel of John and the Epistles, Dunn sees a wide-scale moderation taking place in the way the Apostle views religious experience. In the earlier epistles of Paul, spiritual experience was manifest in different ways, ‘both in non-rational ecstasy and through the mind, both in experiences of dramatically effective power and in compulsion to serve, both in inspiration to pray and praise and in inspiration to preach and teach’ (1975: 357-58). The Pastorals preserve this moderation but emphasize the preservation of heritage over the practice of the charismatic. In John’s Gospel, the ‘eschatological tension is gone and the confrontation of life and death has been simplified into the straight either-or of faith’ (1975: 358).

The above observations on attitudes about religious experience in NT litera-ture coalesce in the spiritual experience of Jesus in the Gospels. Were it not for Jesus’ experience of sonship through the Holy Spirit, the above may not be able to be called ‘Christian’ at all. The resurrection, for Dunn, is the most critical of Jesus’ religious experiences, because through this event, the Spirit became ‘the life-giving power of the crucified and risen Jesus’ (1975: 358).

Dunn ends his work with an analysis of the ‘corporate dimension of religious experience within the first two generations of the Christian movement’ (1975: 359). The corporate element that Dunn addresses here influences some of his conclusions. Luke’s uncritical acceptance of spiritual experiences, for example, ignores the difficulties and tensions that arise in communities as believers have religious experiences. Therefore, Luke’s model may portray the very inception of the Christian community and its apprehension of spiritual experience, but the evangelist ‘provides no lasting paradigm or norm for Christian experience indi-vidual or corporate’ (1975: 359).

The apostle Paul, Dunn asserts, is more discerning in light of his diverse and fledgling churches, seeking to balance spiritual experience and acts of service and love. He did so, however, using apostolic authority and charisma as the means of influence for the community—a model that could not last beyond the generation in which it was established (i.e. Paul’s last generation; 1975: 359).

In the post-Pauline NT writings, the preservation of tradition seems to be the utmost concern, as these writings deemphasized the need for the living voice of prophecy in the community of faith. Dunn believes this emphasis on tradition ran the risk of stifling the work of the Spirit and of institutionalizing the faith of second-generation communities. As an attempt to moderate the emphases of these post-Pauline influences, the Johannine writings firmly established that tradition was




subordinate to the Spirit (1975: 360). John fought against the institutionalization of Christianity, intending rather to keep the focus on worship for the individual.

Because religious experience was fundamental for early Christians and an integral part of early Christian communities, Dunn believes research on RE is critical to any study of New Testament theology. Baptism in the Holy Spirit and Jesus and the Spirit are modern classics on the subject and should be the starting place for anyone interested in researching religious experience in the biblical writings. The scope and depth of these two studies became a catalyst for further studies and paved the way for the next four decades of work on religious experi-ence in the New Testament.

Four Streams Emerge in Religious Experience ResearchShortly after Dunn’s monographs were published, four discernible streams of research on religious experience developed in New Testament studies: (1) mysti-cal/revelatory religious experience, (2) religious experience as an effect of the Holy Spirit, (3) religious experience in historical Jesus studies, and (4) religious experience as a broad category. These streams will be outlined in detail below and represent the different angles scholars have taken when analyzing biblical texts. Each of these approaches, however, makes valuable contributions to reli-gious experience research and helps better explain such experiences in early Christian texts.

1. Mystical/Revelatory Religious ExperienceBroadly speaking, the terms ‘mystical’ and ‘revelatory’ describe types of reli-gious experience that are ecstatic or enlightening in some way, though these terms are not mutually exclusive (DeConick 2006b: 2). Mystical experiences are those that produce particularly intense feelings of joy or excitement (i.e. ‘rapture’) in the individual (DeConick 2006b: 2). Revelatory experiences are those that designate ‘any divine disclosure communicated by visionary or pro-phetic means … the manifestation of heavenly realities in a historical context’ (Bockmuehl 1990: 2). Mystical experiences often have revelatory properties—illuminating the subject to divine wishes or intentions. And revelatory experi-ences often have mystical properties—involving feelings of ecstasy or rapture. Because mystical and revelatory experiences have considerable overlap and describe specific types of religious experience, they will be treated here under the same subheading. (‘Merkabah mystical religious experience’ denotes texts that portray visits to the throne room [or ‘throne chariot’ from Ezekiel 1] of God. Yet because these experiences are not prominent in New Testament literature, they will not be covered extensively in this article [see Elior 2006; Arbel 2003; Bauckham 1999; Bowker 1971].)




New Testament research on mystical experience accelerated with the publica-tion of Segal’s ‘Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity and their Environment’ (1980) and Rowland’s The Open Heaven (1982). Segal’s article investigates how ascent patterns figure in mystical experience accounts. Rowland’s monograph is a full-length treatment on mysticism where he argues that RE is the impetus for the apocalyptic worldview seen so clearly in the New Testament. He concludes that New Testament scholars have failed to recognize the effect that religious experiences of angels has had on christological formula-tions in the ancient world (other works that connect apocalypticism with mysti-cal experience are Fletcher-Louis 2008; Kee 1972).

In 1988, Hurtado’s One God, One Lord began to explore how such mystical experience mediated by heavenly/angelic figures influenced the development of Christology in early Christianity. Although One God, One Lord focuses on the emergence of early Christology and not on mystical experience per se, Hurtado cites such experience as a leading factor in the emergence of the cultic venera-tion of Jesus (1988: 17).

Bockmuehl’s Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (1990) deals with revelatory experience in the New Testament. Revelation covers a massive amount of material, beginning with Jewish apoca-lyptic literature, revelation in the Qumran documents, sages in wisdom litera-ture, Philo, Josephus, the Targums, the Septuagint, and early rabbinic works before moving through the Pauline corpus. Bockmuehl sets out to show how the concept of revelation developed among the Jews and influenced the same in the writings of Paul.

In the mid-90s, Collins and Fishbane edited Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys (1995b), a volume on mystical texts that spans ancient to mediaeval texts. Chapters 3–9 feature prominent biblical scholars writing on mystical accounts in early Jewish and Christian texts, notably Segal’s ‘Paul and the Begin-ning of Jewish Mysticism’ (1995) that covers how the apostle was influenced by Jewish mysticism. Segal details Paul’s use of mystical vocabulary in his letters and traces these words back to their Jewish origins. He also compares Paul’s mystical experiences (e.g. his journey to heaven in 2 Cor. 12) and demonstrates similarity with Jewish mystical ascents and showing Paul to be the ‘first witness to Jewish mysticism’ (1995: 115).

Eskola then published his Messiah and the Throne in 2001, which links Merk-abah mysticism with messianic exaltation. The first section of his books relates Jewish mystical accounts to New Testament Christology (2001: 1-42). He then dis-cusses the way the heavenly throne (i.e. ‘Merkabah’) is portrayed in Jewish escha-tological texts, before suggesting messianic parallels (2001: 43-157). Eskola then concludes with two chapters that discuss the way New Testament texts depict an early ‘enthronement Christology’ (2001: 158-375).




Then in 2006, DeConick edited a volume called Paradise Now, the opening chapter of which contains an essay defining early Jewish and Christian mysti-cism. This compilation is one of the more comprehensive that has been pub-lished to date on mystical experience in biblical studies, though not all the research presented here is confined to canonical literature. Chapters cover visionary experiences (Rowland et al. 2006: 41-56), ancient apocalypses and Hekhalot literature (Davila 2006: 105-126), mysticism in dream literature (Flannery-Dailey 2006: 231-48), and baptism and mystical experience in the book of Revelation (for more on mystical experience, see Gieschen 2006: 341-54; see also Deutsch 2008; Afzal 2006; Bautsch 2006; Boustan 2006; Deutsch 2006; Lesses 2006; Morray-Jones 2006; Orlov 2006; Sullivan 2006; Boustan 2005; DeConick 2004; Arbel 2003; Fanning 2001; Draper 1997; Tabor 1986; Schäfer 1984; Aune 1983; for more on revelatory experience, see Miller 2008; Thompson 2007; Guillet 1982; Kim 1981; Hagner 1971).

2. Religious Experience of the Holy SpiritThe second stream of RE research is that which views spiritual experience pri-marily as an expression of the work of the Holy Spirit. This approach to RE research is significant in the study of Christian origins, since ‘the success of earliest Christianity and its appeal and credibility in the eyes of converts seem to have been very heavily connected with its ability to provide religious experi-ences that correspond to its rhetoric of being “gifted,” “filled,” “anointed,” and “empowered” by the Spirit of God’ (Hurtado 2000: 183). Though these experi-ences figure more prominently in some texts than others (e.g. Luke–Acts con-tains a disproportionate number among other New Testament books), one may still claim that the New Testament is full of language about the ‘filling(s)’ of the Holy Spirit (Levison 2009: xxv). The works below comprise some of the most substantial in this field and have contributed a great deal to research on religious experience in the New Testament.

F. W. Horn’s Das Angeld des Geistes (1992) and Fee’s God’s Empowering Pres-ence (1994) are each rigorous treatments of the Holy Spirit in the Pauline corpus. Fee’s work is particularly exhaustive (nearly 1000 pages) and traces references to the Holy Spirit throughout the Epistles and concludes that experience of the Spirit is crucial to Paul’s theology in his letters. In the same year, Welker’s God the Spirit (1994) addresses the role of the Spirit both in the New Testament documents and also as a central motif in the modern Charismatic movement. The author calls this work a ‘biblical theology of the Holy Spirit’ (1994: xii), discussing spiritual expe-rience in the testimony of biblical authors. A large part of Welker’s work is given to the liberating function of spiritual experience in ancient culture.

New Testament pneumatologist Max Turner published both Power from on High (1996a) and The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts (1996b). The latter cites the




development of NT pneumatology from its background in Judaism, through the works of the New Testament, and finishes by showing how language of the ‘out-pouring’ of the Spirit is proto-Trinitarian (1996b: 1-184). Turner then interacts with specific categories of spiritual experience in the New Testament (e.g. tongues, healings, etc.), before discussing their relevance for Christians today (1996b: 185-361). The former begins with an overview of research on the Spirit in Lukan scholarship and continues with an in-depth analysis of the way Luke–Acts describes the experience of the Holy Spirit throughout the narrative (1996a: 20-81). His treatment is topical, however, covering gifts of the Holy Spirit (1996a: 82-139), the messianic implications of the Spirit’s work (1996a: 140-317), and how the disciples interact with the Spirit (1996a: 318-418).

Most recently, Levison’s Filled with the Spirit (2009) builds on Gunkel’s 1888 work and explores in greater depth the way Israelite and Jewish literature may have influenced the way NT authors view the Holy Spirit. Levison divides his book into three sections: the first interacts with Israelite literature and the way themes of wisdom, Spirit, and new creation are related. Part two addresses Jew-ish literature and the way themes of knowledge, visions, and ecstasy are emblem-atic of spiritual experience in Judaism. Part three takes up New Testament literature and discusses the way the topics of the first two parts are evidenced in these early Christian authors.

Levison argues that the experiential language of being ‘filled’ encompasses more about the way early Christians understood the ministry of the Holy Spirit than any other (2009: xxv, 62-67, 278-79, 328). He sees this spirit-filling/breathing language throughout Israelite, Jewish, and early Christian literature and therefore builds his case in part on this assertion (other works in this category are Kuecker 2008; Levison 2007; Gaventa 2004; George 1953).

3. Religious Experience in Historical Jesus StudiesHistorical Jesus scholarship also examines religious experience in the Gospels, albeit in a more limited way. Approaching the texts anthropologically and asking about the historical significance of Jesus’ religious experiences, Historical Jesus scholars wonder if Jesus ‘drew people to himself and his ideas by virtue of his…superior experience’ rather than his divine identity (McKnight 1995: 58). His-torical Jesus studies, then, see Jesus as a religious genius that offered his follow-ers a prototypical experience of God.

Following the publication of Dunn’s Baptism in the Holy Spirit and Jesus and the Spirit, Bauckham ‘The Sonship of the Historical Jesus in Christology’ (1978), contested some of Dunn’s Historical Jesus arguments on the significance of Jesus’ religious experiences for his sense of sonship. Bauckham argues that Jesus’ son-ship can be understood both as a statement of divinity and a product of his




religious experiences. He states, ‘While the Fathers tended to restrict the meaning of his sonship to his divinity, many modern writers have restricted it to the reli-gious experience of the man Jesus… But in the light of the interconnexions of being and mission, and of uniqueness and representativeness in Jesus’ sonship, this dilemma is unreal’ (1978: 260). For Bauckham, the interplay between Jesus’ being and mission requires that his divinity and religious experience both be enter-tained as appropriate categories for understanding Jesus’ concept of sonship.

O’Collins’s ‘Luminous Appearances of the Risen Christ’ (1984) argues that the resurrection appearances were religious experiences—not with a ghost or apparition—but with a physical being (1984: 249). ‘Luminous Appearances’ is a polemic against the idea that, by the time of the writing of the Gospel of Mark, Gnostic ideas had already permeated the early Christian community as a reflec-tion of the incorporeal resurrection appearances of Jesus (see Robinson 1957: 9-12). Bauckham’s and O’Collins’s articles illustrate the burgeoning effort of scholarship in that time to situate religious experience within a historical and christological framework (see Evans [ed.] 2004).

Stevan Davies’s Jesus the Healer (1995) takes a psycho-anthropological approach and sees Jesus as a spirit-possessed exorcist and healer who was not aware of his ‘Spirit-Son of God’ status prior to his religious experiences. Davies’s work is a full-length treatment of Jesus’ religious experiences in Historical Jesus scholarship, covering exorcism, baptism, healings, ‘sayings of the spirit’, proph-ecy, and other matters in religious experience. He contends that, although most scholars see Jesus’ teaching ministry as central, his ministry as a spirit-filled healer is more defining for Jesus and his followers than anything else.

Borg in his Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (1994) sees Jesus’ ‘God-intox-icated’ religious experiences as that from which everything else flowed. His min-istry of healing, teaching, his death, and his vision were all a product of Jesus’ personal experience of God (1994: 152). Borg asserts that the religious experi-ences both of Jesus and his followers were integral in ‘generating the tradition’ from which Christianity flowed (1994: 137).

Margaret Barker in The Risen Lord (1996) contends that Jesus’ resurrection was the most fundamental of his experiences, upon which everything else is built. Barker’s argument hinges on two premises—first, she classifies the resur-rection itself as a religious experience for Jesus and, second, she argues that the Gospels are a record of the life and teaching of the risen Lord (1996: xii). For example, Barker suggests that the Markan account of Jesus’ baptism is his resur-rection (1996: 35, 41, 55). That is, she wonders whether these two religious experiences, linked in literature outside the New Testament, should be seen as one. If so, the events that come after are a record of a ‘risen’ Son of God. To substantiate her claim, she draws on the Odes of Solomon, Ps. 74.13, Cyril of Jerusalem, Shepherd of Hermas, 2 Esdras, and Gospel of Peter, all of which




connect the concepts of baptism and ascent. Furthermore, Barker believes that early Christians may have understood their own baptisms similarly, as a resur-rection and identification with their ‘risen’ Lord (1996: 27-41).

Other Historical Jesus research on the ‘messianic consciousness’ or ‘self-under-standing’ of Jesus is tangentially related to the religious experience work done above, yet will not be covered in depth here. Bird’s 2009 Are You the One Who is to Come? is one recent example. Bird’s stated aim is to argue that Jesus did understand himself to be the messiah, contrary to much of the research that had gone before (Wrede 1971 is his primary dialogue partner). Bird does address the more signifi-cant of Jesus’ religious experiences (i.e. the baptism and transfiguration), but does not discuss these at length. Instead, he draws out what is most pertinent to his study (namely, the significant ‘Son of God’ language) and moves on to other pericopae (see also Lee 2005; Jonge 1993; Blevins 1981; Betz 1963; Harnack 1912).

4. Religious Experience in GeneralThose who have published studies on religious experience in general are schol-ars whose research on religious experience examines, the topic as a whole and its influence in New Testament texts. For example, L.T. Johnson’s Religious Experi-ence in Earliest Christianity (1998) examines the spiritual encounters of Chris-tians in the first few decades after the life of Jesus and investigates the influence of religious experience on the broader movement. He begins by asserting that RE study in early Christianity is a ‘missing dimension’ from research on Christian origins and New Testament studies altogether (1998: 1-37). Johnson believes that understanding the spiritual experiences of early Christians is the key to understanding the power of this new faith and its community.

Johnson approaches the topic by taking up three case studies—baptism, tongues, and common meals—to show how much can be learned from analyzing the above phenomenologically. He writes, ‘power [is] a key element in religion, both as a component of experience, and as the organizing point of the social expressions of experience’ (1998: 46; emphasis original). Therefore, he also believes that RE research is necessary to understand many ancient texts (as opposed to simply historical or theological treatments) because many such texts are fundamentally religious documents. The capacity of these religious texts to ‘surprise’ scholars by their peculiarity and their innovative power is precisely what is minimized by systematic/theological and/or historical approaches. John-son’s phenomenological reading of NT literature attempts to allow the unique-ness of each religious experience to stand on its own and speak for the way in which ancients were accustomed to apprehending their own faith.

As Johnson begins his book by making a case for RE as a ‘missing dimension’ of research on Christian origins, he analyzes how and why the academy has unsuccessfully held together Christianity’s ‘world of formal discourse [i.e.




theology] and the world of informal power [i.e. religious experience]’ (1998: 1-37). He then discusses the language used in texts to describe religious experi-ence and how different schools of thought (i.e. religionsgeschichtliche Shule or ‘history-of-religions school’) approached RE (for classic examples of this approach, see Eliade 1965; Otto 1917). In this chapter, Johnson shows that schol-arship has both been (1) unduly focused on theology and propositions in New Testament studies and (2) that many in the history-of-religions school asserted all too quickly the dependence of Christianity on Hellenism, which colored its conclusions about experiential Christianity (1998: 12-22).

Johnson not only addresses approaches which wrongly take account of reli-gious experience in the New Testament; he also addresses those that dismiss accounts of spiritual experience altogether. Two such methodologies cited are social-scientific criticism and ‘ideological criticism’ (1998: 24-26). Social-sci-entific criticism is rich with ideas and yet has a tendency to analyze biblical texts etically not emically (that is, from an outsider’s position, not an insider’s). What this means is that social-scientific criticism, with its interest in explaining sociological phenomena using contemporary scientific models, fails to account for experiences that do not fit their scientific framework. Such religious experi-ences must be analyzed by taking the text on its own terms rather than by allow-ing modern criteria to determine one’s conclusions (other examples of social-scientific research on RE are Rohrbaugh 2003; Horrell 1999; Elliott 1995; Esler 1995; Stark 1991; Theissen 1983; Batson and Ventis 1982; Stark 1965; Glock 1959).

The second unsympathetic approach that Johnson highlights is what he calls ‘ideological criticism’ (1998: 24-37). This hermeneutically ‘suspicious’ approach views New Testament ‘power’ language as a veiled claim to political authority. He writes:

If religious symbols generally are taken to be epiphenomenal to human struggles for social and political position, then power, rather than a transcendental reality that is encountered as Other is invariably an instrument of control wielded in behalf of inter-ested parties. Claims to the experience of transcendent power should be demystified as camouflage for political position-taking within religious traditions (1998: 24-25).

Johnson mounts three arguments against the above methodologies. First, he believes these methodologies to be anachronistic, using modern categories to prop-up ostensible ancient ideologies. Second, these approaches are simplistic—literary production is not entirely and fundamentally ideological. Third, the above hermeneutical paradigms are reductionistic in their claims that religious experience accounts are little more than a ‘code’ to be cracked or unlocked to find the real meaning of the experience. This reductionism misses the con-sciously religious dimension of early Christianity (1998: 26).




Johnson’s analysis above is a good reminder that all scholars must be aware of the limits of their methodologies. His criticism also shows why and how the experiential dimension of biblical research may have been missed in recent research. Johnson’s book proceeds from this basis to explain why research on religious experience in antiquity is so important for the future of biblical scholar-ship. The experiential is the world in which ancient persons inhabited and that from which Christianity first began to grow. Notwithstanding the problems and pitfalls of research in this area, Johnson examines baptism, tongues, and religious meals in an effort to contribute to the way ancients participated in the spiritual.

Hurtado’s Lord Jesus Christ (2003), coupled with his ‘Religious Experience and Religious Innovation in the New Testament’ (2000), have made significant headway in research on religious experience and Christian origins. Hurtado’s work suggests that religious experience in the early church was one of the most significant factors in generating Christian religious innovation, namely the cul-tic veneration of Jesus. The scholarly study of Jesus, he says, should therefore ‘include the recognition that among the important chief historical factors that helped generate the religious innovations of the movement were powerful reli-gious experiences perceived by the recipients as “revelations”’ (2000: 183).

Though Hurtado’s work is not limited to RE, his elevation of the importance of religious experience in the development of Christianity stands in stark con-trast to much research that has gone before. The best extant evidence shows that Christianity grew at an astonishing rate early on and that Jesus came to be wor-shipped as God in these Christian circles. Accounting for such phenomena, Hurtado notes that religious experiences, which corresponded very closely to their language of being indwelt by the divine, are the best explanation for the rapid development of this movement (2003: 65). Most studies published to-date deal more with the origins of written sources, the circumstances that prompted the texts, or the sociological characteristics of early churches—much of which fails even to comment on the existence/significances of religious experiences in early Christian communities. Rather than viewing religious experiences as sig-nificant factors in religious practice and innovation, these approaches tend to see REs as ‘derivative phenomena, the (dysfunctional) outcomes of stressful social circumstances and the manifestation of psychopathology…characteristically, social science approaches assume one or another form of “deprivation theory”’ where an individual’s or community’s personal and social stresses give rise to religious delusion (2003: 66-67).

Hurtado continues by examining early Christian sources for the evidence of significant religious experience in these texts, demonstrating that these sources show religious experiences ‘were perceived by recipients to have a new quality and frequency in their lives’ (2003: 71). Hurtado uses RE as one of the lenses through which he examines these texts and evaluates the role of these




experiences in early Christian innovation. He spends a great deal of time in Paul’s epistles, Q, canonical and non-canonical Gospels, and other first- and second-century Christian texts (2003: 79-649). Many of these texts contain accounts of religious experiences themselves and others of experiences that have inspired a character’s understanding of biblical texts (e.g. 2 Cor. 3.12-16; Lk. 24.27, 31-32, 44-47). The corpus of early Christian texts illustrates the validity of Hurtado’s approach and the need to make religious experience a foremost consideration when researching Christian origins.

Perhaps the most recent and comprehensive work on religious experience is Flannery’s (ed.) Experientia, Volume 1, in the SBL Symposium Series (2008). Experientia is the first ‘sustained, collective scholarly inquiry into the topic of “religious experience” in the field of early Jewish and early Christian studies’ (2008a: 1). The volume is a compilation of essays from biblical scholars research-ing biblical religious experience accounts. These scholars generally approach RE research sympathetically, aiming to emically explore the textual reasons and methods for including the religious experiences under consideration.

In the first section, Flannery, Segal, Horsley, and Werline cover ‘body and self’ in religious experience (Flannery 2008b: 13-18; Segal 2008: 19-40; Horsley 2008: 41-58; Werline 2008: 59-71). In these four essays, scholars research the way the notion of self fits into the biblical authors’ views on religious experi-ence. The afterlife, Pauline mysticism, demon possession in Mark, and prayer experience are all explored in these chapters as these experiences incorporate the physical body.

In the second section, Wasserstrom, Deutch, Griffith-Jones, and Fletcher-Louis discuss how certain authors record their religious experience accounts (Wasserstrom 2008: 75-82; Deutsch 2008: 83-104; Griffith-Jones 2008: 105-24; Fletcher-Louis 2008: 125-44). These essays investigate how scholars interpret vision and mystery accounts in Philo and Clement, the Gospel of John’s por-trayal of Jesus, and apocalyptic REs. In this section scholars also look at the most appropriate ways for historians to treat textual representations of spiritual experiences.

In section three, Engberg-Pedersen, Peerbolte, Miller, Shantz, and Ramsaran conclude the volume with five essays on Pauline RE (both in Paul’s epistles and in Luke–Acts; Engberg-Pedersen 2008: 147-58; Peerbolte 2008: 159-78; Miller 2008: 177-92; Shantz 2008: 193-206; Ramsaran 2008: 207-12). Some of these articles consider Paul’s concept of religious experience, as well as how Paul described his own experiences in specific texts. Others discuss Paul’s view on trauma across the Pauline corpus and how the author of Luke–Acts describe Paul’s religious experiences.

The efforts of Flannery et al. in Experientia, Volume 1 (2008) represent a major step forward in organized efforts to address religious experience in




biblical texts. These essays make a certain contribution to the secondary litera-ture on RE and move scholarly inquiry in this field forward.

ConclusionThe research outlined in this article is an excellent foundation for future work on religious experience in New Testament research. Still, a vast amount of research remains to be done. Early Christian studies has yet to propose an inductively sub-stantiated definition for religious experience. Although social-scientific definitions and models for religious experience may be a helpful place to start, if these conclu-sions are not corroborated by textual data, such a definition is only a provisional solution for New Testament researchers.

Furthermore, research on the panorama of religious experience in the New Testa-ment badly needs attention. In 1965, Stark produced a ‘taxonomy’ of religious expe-rience in the sociological study of religion where he identified four major types of religious experience: confirming, responsive, ecstatic/mystical, and revelatory. It remains to be seen if Stark’s taxonomy can be supported by NT data. But no attempt within biblical studies has been made to inductively reconstruct the religio-experien-tial worldview of New Testament authors.

New Testament scholarship needs to clarify terminology and bring together the data from the varying streams to develop some consensus on the presence, use, and effect of REs in early Christian literature.

BibliographyAfzal, C.C.

2006 ‘Wheels of Time in the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 195-210.

Arbel, V.D. 2003 Beholders of Divine Secrets: Mysticism and Myth in the Hekhalot and Merka-

vah Literature (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press).2006 ‘Divine Secrets and Divination’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays

on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 355-80.Aune, D.E.

1983 Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Barker, M. 1996 The Risen Lord: The Jesus of History as the Christ of Faith (Edinburgh: T &

T Clark).Barton, Stephen

1992 The Spirituality of the Gospels (London: SPCK).Batson, C.D., and W.L. Ventis

1982 The Religious Experience: A Social-Psychological Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press).




Bauckham, R. 1978 ‘The Sonship of the Historical Jesus in Christology’, SJT 31.3: 245-60.1999 ‘The Throne of God and the Worship of Jesus’, in J. Davila, C.C. Newman

and G. Lewis (eds.), The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (Leiden: Brill): 43-69.

Bautsch, K.C.2006 ‘Situating the Afterlife’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on

Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 249-64.Betz, O.

1963 ‘Die Frage nach dem messianischen Bewusstsein Jesu’, NT 6: 24-48.Bird, M.

2009 Are You the One Who is to Come? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic).Blevins, J.L.

1981 The Messianic Secret in Marcan Research: 1901–1976 (Washington, DC: University Press of America).

Bockmuehl, M.N.A.1990 Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (WUNT,

2.36; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Bond, G.I.

2005 Paul and the Religious Experience of Reconciliation: Diasporic Community and Creole Consciousness (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press).

Borg, M.1994 Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International).

Boustan, R.S. 2005 From Martyr to Mystic (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism, 112; Tübin-

gen: Mohr Siebeck).2006 ‘Rabbi Ishmael’s Priestly Genealogy in Hekhalot Literature’, in A.D.

DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 127-43.

Bowker, J. 1971 ‘“Merkabah Visions” and the Visions of Paul’, JSS 16: 57-73.

Büchsel, Friedrich1923 Der Geist Gottes im Neuen Testament (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann).

Capes, D.B., A.D. DeConick, H.K. Bond and T.Miller (eds.) 2007 Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Essays in Honor of Larry W. Hurtado

and Alan F. Segal (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press).Cohn-Sherbok, D., and L. Cohn-Sherbok

1994 Jewish and Christian Mysticism: An Introduction (New York: Continuum).Collins, J.J., and M.A. Fishbane (eds.)

1995a Ascent to the Stars in a Mesopotamian Ritual: Social Metaphor and Religious Experience (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press).

1995b Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press).

Davies, S.L. 1995 Jesus the Healer (London: SCM).




Davila, J.R.2006 ‘The Ancient Jewish Apocalypses and the Hekalot Literature’, in A.D.


DeConick, A.D.2004 Voices of the Mystics: Early Christian Discourse in the Gospels of John and

Thomas and Other Ancient Christian Literature (JSNTSup, 157; London: T & T Clark).

2006a Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism (Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series, 11; Atlanta, GA: SBL).

2006b ‘What is Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism?’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 1-26.

Deissmann, A. 1911 Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History (New York: Harper & Bros).1923 The Religion of Jesus and the Faith of Paul (London: Hodder & Stoughton).

Deutsch, C.2006 ‘The Therapeutae, Text Work, Ritual, and Mystical Experience’, in A.D.


2008 ‘Visions, Mysteries, and the Interpretive Task: Text Work and Religious Experience in Philo and Clement’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Expe-rience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 83-104.

Draper, J.A.1997 ‘Temple, Tabernacle and Mystical Experience in John’, Neot 31.2: 263-88.

Dunn, J.D.G. 1970 Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-Examination of the New Testament Teaching

on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pentacostalism Today (Studies in Bibli-cal Theology, 2; London: SCM).

1975 Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Eliade, M. 1965 The Two and the One (trans. J.M. Cohen; London: Harvill Press).

Elior, R.2006 ‘The Emergence of the Mystical Traditions of the Merkabah’, in A.D.


Elliott, J.H. 1995 Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament (London: SPCK).

Engberg-Pedersen, T.2008 ‘The Construction of Religious Experience in Paul’, in Frances Flannery,

Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into




Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 147-58.

Eskola, T. 2001 Messiah and the Throne: Jewish Merkabah Mysticism and Early Christian

Exaltation Discourse (WUNT, 2.142; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Esler, P.

1995 ‘Introduction: Models, Context, and Kerygma in New Testament Interpreta-tion’, in P. Esler (ed.), Modeling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in its Context (London: Routledge): 1-22.

Evans, C.A. (ed.) 2004 The Historical Jesus: Jesus Mission, Death, and Resurrection, III (London:

Routledge).Fanning, S.

2001 Mystics of the Christian Tradition (London: Routledge).Fee, G.D.

1994 God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson).

Flannery, F. (aka Flannery-Dailey)2006 ‘Lessons on Early Jewish Apocalypticism and Mysticism from Dream Lit-

erature’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 231-48.

2008a ‘Introduction: Religious Experience Past and Present’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 1-10.

2008b ‘The Body and Ritual Reconsidered, Imagined, and Experienced’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 13-18.

Fletcher-Louis, C.2008 ‘Religious Experience and the Apocalypses’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen

Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Expe-rience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 125-44.

Forbes, C.B. 1995 Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and its Hellenistic Envi-

ronment (WUNT, 2.75; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Gardner, P.

1913 The Religious Experience of Saint Paul (Crown Theological Library, 34; London: Williams & Norgate).

Gaventa, B.R.2004 ‘Initiatives Divine and Human in the Lukan Story World’, in G. Stanton, B.W.

Longenecker and S.C. Barton (eds.), The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D. G. Dunn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

George, A.R. 1953 Communion with God in the New Testament (Peterborough: Epworth).




Gieschen, C.A.2006 ‘Baptismal Praxis and Mystical Experience in the Book of Revelation’, in

A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 341-54.

Glock, C.Y. 1959 ‘The Sociology of Religion’, in R.K. Merton, L. Broom and L.S. Cottrell, Jr.

(eds.), Sociology Today (New York: Basic Books).Graham, G.P.

1992 William James and the Affirmation of God (New York: Peter Lang).Griffith-Jones, R.

2008 ‘Transformation by a Text: The Gospel of John’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 105-24.

Grudem, W.A. 1982 The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians (Washington, DC: University Press of

America).Guillet, J.

1982 ‘Révélation: II. Nouveau Testament’, Supplément au Dictionaire de la Bible Paris 56: 600-618.

Gunkel, H.1888 Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach der populären Anschauung der

apostolischen Zeit und nach der Lehre des Apostels Paulus (Göttingen: Van-denhoeck & Ruprecht).

1979 The Influence of the Holy Spirit: The Popular View of the Apostolic Age and the Teaching of the Apostle Paul (trans. R.A. Harrisville and P.A. Quanbeck II; Philadelphia: Fortress).

Hagner, D.A.1971 ‘The Vision of God in Philo and John: A Comparative Study’, JETS 14: 81-93.

Harnack, A. von1912 ‘“Ich bin gekommen”: Die ausdrücklichen Selbstzeugnisse Jesu über den Zweck

seiner Sendung und seines Kommens’, ZTK 22: 1-30.Hengel, M.

1974 Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (London: SCM).

Hengel, M., and A.M. Schwemer (ed.) 1991 Königsherrschaft Gottes und Himmlischer Kult im Judentum, Urchristentum

und in Der Hellenistischen Welt (WUNT, 55; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Hill, David

1979 New Testament Prophecy (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press).Horn, F.W.

1992 Das Angeld des Geistes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).Horrell, D.G.

1999 Social-Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation (London: T & T Clark).




Horsley, R.A.2008 ‘“My Name is Legion”: Spirit Possession and Exorcism in Roman Palestine’,

in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz, and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 41-58.

Hurtado, L.W. 1988 One God, One Lord (London: Augsburg Fortress).2000 ‘Religious Experience and Religious Innovation in the New Testament’, JR

80: 183-205.2003 Lord Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).2007 ‘Remembering and Revelation: The Historic and Glorified Jesus in the Gos-

pel of John’, in A.D. DeConick, D.B. Capes, H.K. Bond and T. Miller (eds.), Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press): 195-214.

James, W. 1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience (Charlottesville, VA: University of

Virginia.Johnson, L.T.

1998 Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress).

Jonge, H.J. de1993 ‘The Historical Jesus’ View of Himself and of His Mission’, in M.C. de Boer

(ed.), From Jesus to John: Essays on Jesus and New Testament Christology in Honour of Marinus de Jonge (Sheffield: JSOT Press).

Kee, H.C. 1972 ‘The Transfiguration in Mark: Epiphany or Apocalyptic Vision?’, in R. Reumann

(ed.), Understanding the Sacred Text (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press).Kim, S.

1981 The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (WUNT, 2.4; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Kuecker, A.J.

2008 ‘The Spirit and the “Other”: Social Identity, Ethnicity and Intergroup Recon-ciliation in Luke-Acts’ (PhD dissertation, University of St Andrews).

Lampe, G.W.H.1955 ‘Work of the Holy Spirit in History’, London Quarterly and Holborn Review

180: 196-201.1972 ‘The Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ’, in S.W. Sykes and J.P. Clayton (eds.),

Christ, Faith, and History (Cambridge Studies in Christology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 111-30.

Lee, A.H.I.2005 From Messiah to Preexistent Son: Jesus’ Self-Consciousness and Early Christian

Exegesis of the Messianic Psalms (WUNT, 2.192; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Leisegang, H.

1919 Der Heilige Geist: Das Wesen und Werden der Mystisch-Intuitiven Erken-ntnis in der Philosophie und Religion der Griechen (2 vols.; Leipzig: B.G. Teubner).




Lesses, R.2006 ‘Eschatological Sorrow, Divine Weeping, and God’s Right Arm’, in A.D.


Levison, J.R. 2007 ‘The Promise of the Spirit of Life in the Book of Ezekiel’, in A.D. DeConick,

D.B. Capes, H.K. Bond and T. Miller (eds.), Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Chil-dren (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press): 247-60.

2009 Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).Lieber, A.

2006 ‘Jewish and Christian Heavenly Meal Traditions’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 313-40.

Marx, W. 1984 The Philosophy of F. W. J. Schelling: History, System, and Freedom (Bloom-

ington, IN: Indiana University Press).McKnight, Scot

1995 ‘Who is Jesus? An Introduction to Jesus Studies’, in Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland (eds.), Jesus Under Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans): 51-72.

Miller, J.B.F.2008 ‘Dreams/Visions and the Experience of God in Luke-Acts’, in Frances Flan-

nery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 177-92.

Morray-Jones, C.R.A.2006 ‘The Temple Within’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on

Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 145-78.Nestle, E., E. Nestle and K. Aland (eds.)

1998 Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellchaft).Newman, C.C., J.R. Davila and G.S. Lewis (eds.)

1998 The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (Leiden: Brill).

O’Collins, G.1984 ‘Luminous Appearances of the Risen Christ’, CBQ 46: 247-54.

Orlov, A.A.2006 ‘God’s Face in the Enochic Tradition’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now:

Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 179-94.

Otto, R. 1917 The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the

Divine and its Relation to the Rational (trans. J.W. Harvey; London: Oxford University Press).

Peerbolte, B.J.L.2008 ‘Paul’s Rapture: 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 and the Language of the Mystics’, in Frances

Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into




Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 159-78.

Proudfoot, W. 1985 Religious Experience (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).

Ramsaran, R.A.2008 ‘Response to Papers by Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Colleen Shantz, Bert

Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, and John B. Miller’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 207-12.

Robinson, H.W. 1928 The Christian Experience of the Holy Spirit (New York: Harper & Bros).

Robinson, J.M.1957 The Problem of History in Mark (London: SCM).

Rohrbaugh, R.L. 2003 The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation (Peabody, MA:

Hendrickson).Rowland, C.

1982 The Open Heaven: A Study in Apocalypticism in Judaism and Early Christi-anity (New York: Crossroad).

Rowland, C., with Patricia Gibbons and Vicente Dobroruka2006 ‘Visionary Experience in Ancient Judaism and Christianity’, in A.D.


Sanders, S.L.2006 ‘Performative Exegesis’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on

Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 57-81.Schäfer, P.

1984 ‘The New Testament and Hekhalot Literature: The Journey into Heaven in Paul and in Merkabah Mysticism’, JJS 35: 19-35.

2009 The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Schelling, F.W.J.

1797 Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel).Schleiermacher, F.D.E.

1799 Über die Religion: Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co).

1821 Der Christliche Glaube (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co).1996 On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (ed. R. Crouter; Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press).1999 The Christian Faith (trans. H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart; London: T &

T Clark).Segal, A.F.

1980 ‘Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity and their Envi-ronment’, in ANRW II.23.2 (Berlin: de Gruyter): 1333-94.

1990 Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).




1995 ‘Paul and the Beginning of Jewish Mysticism’, in J.J. Collins and M.A. Fish-bane (eds.) 1995b: 95-122.

2006 ‘Religious Experience and the Construction of the Transcendent Self’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 27-40.

2007 ‘Paul’s Religious Experience in the Eyes of Jewish Scholars’, in A.D. DeConick, D.B. Capes, H.K. Bond and T. Miller (eds.), Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press): 321-44.

2008 ‘The Afterlife as Mirror of the Self’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 19-40.

Shantz, C.2008 ‘The Confluence of Trauma and Transcendence in the Pauline Corpus’, in

Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 193-206.

Starbuck, E.D. 1899 The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Study of the Growth of Religious

Consciousness (London: Walter Scott).Stark, R.

1965 ‘A Taxonomy of Religious Experience’, JSSR 5: 97-116.1991 ‘Normal Revelations: A Rational Model of “Mystical” Experiences’, in D.G.

Bromley (ed.), Religion and Social Order (Greenwich: JAI Press): I, 239-51.Sullivan, K.

2006 ‘Sexuality and Gender of Angels’, in A.D. DeConick (ed.), Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Early Christian Mysticism (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 211-28.

Swete, H.B. 1909 The Holy Spirit in the New Testament: A Study of Primitive Christian Teach-

ing (London: Macmillan).Tabor, J.D.

1986 Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise in its Greco-Roman, Judaic, and Early Christian Contexts (Lanham, MD: University Press of America).

Theissen, G. 1983 The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress).

Thompson, M.M.2007 ‘Jesus: “The One Who Sees God”’, in D.B Capes, A.D. DeConick, H.K. Bond

and T. Miller (eds.), Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children (Waco, TX: Word Books): 215-26.

Turner, M. 1996a Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-

Acts (JPTSup, 9; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).1996b The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts: Then and Now (Carlisle: Paternoster).




Verbeke, Gérard1945 L’Evolution de la Doctrine du Pneuma du Stoicisme a S. Augustine (Paris:

Desclée de Brouwer).Wach, J.

1951 Types of Religious Experience, Christian and Non-Christian (London: Rout-ledge and Kegan Paul).

1958a The Comparative Study of Religions (New York: Columbia Press).1958b ‘The Nature of Religious Experience’, in J.M. Kitagawa (ed.), The Compara-

tive Study of Religions (New York: Columbia University Press).Wasserstrom, S.M.

1999 Religion After Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

2008 ‘The Medium of the Divine’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rod-ney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 75-82.

Welker, M. 1994 God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress).

Werline, R. 2008 ‘The Experience of Prayer and Resistance to Demonic Powers in the Gospel

of Mark’, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz and Rodney Werline (eds.), Experientia. I. Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Atlanta, GA: SBL): 59-71.

Wrede, W.1971 The Messianic Secret (trans. J.C.G. Greig; Cambridge: James Clark).



currents in biblical research 2011 batluck 339 63

Documents