2Cor 12:2-3 | PNT | STEP | I knew a man in Christ . "Know", as in the Revised Version, not "knew". He knows the man and could name him, since the man was himself. See . Above fourteen years ago this man was caught up, etc. This letter was written A.D. 57. The being caught up was then in A.D. 43. This is about the time that Paul was at Antioch with Barnabas, or at Tarsus ( ). It could not have been at conversion, for that was about twenty years earlier than A.D. 57, nor could it be the trance in the temple for that was too late ( ). Whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell . A person could then be caught up, see and hear, without his body, in Paul's view. Hence the human spirit is not material. The third heaven . A Jewish expression for that heaven which was beyond (1) the air, and (2) beyond the sun and stars; the secret place of the Almighty.

2 Corinthians 12:2-3

I knew a man in Christ. "Know", as in the Revised Version, not "knew". He knows the man and could name him, since the man was himself. See 2Co 12:7.

Above fourteen years ago this man was caught up, etc. This letter was written A.D. 57. The being caught up was then in A.D. 43. This is about the time that Paul was at Antioch with Barnabas, or at Tarsus (Ac 9:29,30). It could not have been at conversion, for that was about twenty years earlier than A.D. 57, nor could it be the trance in the temple for that was too late (Ac 22:17).

Whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell. A person could then be caught up, see and hear, without his body, in Paul's view. Hence the human spirit is not material.

The third heaven. A Jewish expression for that heaven which was beyond (1) the air, and (2) beyond the sun and stars; the secret place of the Almighty. I knew such a man. "Know", as in the Revised Version. Why does he not use the first person? Because it would seem more like he was glorying in his own exaltation.