concepts rather than in terms of semantic and episodic memories. It seems
that the theological ideas of the Corinthians focused on spiritual influence,
which Paul cleverly used to suggest a more integrated theological system about
the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. (4) Fourth, both theories make predictions
about social structures. In the Modes Theory, sociopolitical structures can
be either centralized or noncentralized; the Lobes Theory makes predictions
about the complexity of social networks. Whereas the Modes Theory
addresses additional sociopolitical features, including cohesion, leadership,
inclusivity, spread, scale, and uniformity, the Lobes Theory only makes
predictions about the stability of social networks and the mechanisms of
growth in the movements. It appears from both canonical letters of Paul to
Corinth that the community was lacking a stable group structure. This was,
however, not caused by a lack of authority or leaders, as the Modes Theory
would suggest. In contrast, we read of various leaders competing for primacy
in an unclear andfluid power structure. We do not know exactly how easy it
was to join or leave the group, but the ethical chapters of thefirst letter (1 Cor.
5 – 6) suggest that the boundaries of the community were porous at least when
it came to customs and behavioral standards.
7.5 TOURS OF HEAVENIn academic parlance, the termascent to heavenhas been used to identify a
theme or genre in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern literature
(Himmelfarb, 1993; Bremmer, 2013), especially in Jewish and Christian
texts, such as the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, the Testament of Abraham, and
the Apocalypse of Paul. Until recently, biblical scholars usually assumed that
the journeys described in these texts represent cultural conventions and
literary traditions rather than actual experience. Based on the general model
of religious experience outlined in section 7.2, we can say that texts describing
tours of heaven can have various types of connections to subjective experience.
The most obvious way to think about that connection is to ask whether the
author had perceptual experiences of the kinds mentioned in the text. Atfirst
sight, this implies a literal reading of the text as well as the acceptance of a pre-
modern worldview in which thephysical worldactually had multiple levels and
superhuman beingsactually inhabited those realms. However, as we will see in
a moment, perceptual experience can in fact arise under natural conditions
without respective physical stimuli. Further, the texts are replete with refer-
ences to bodily sensations, felt reactions, and moods, all of which have
phenomenal aspects and thus make subjective experience with religious qual-
ities possible without the intervention of external superhuman and supernat-
ural realities. Instead of speculating further about the experiential aspect of
Religious Experience 155