@LeeWoofenden Fun fact: on PPCG, there was another user (who joined after Kenny Lau/Leaky Nun) whose username was Kevin Lau. Accordingly, he changed his username to avoid the confusion (and changed it to an anagram).

Updating user access...

@El'endiaStarman no, I just changed it for fun.

@LeeWoofenden Oops, I made a typo:

> people often notice the text after “breathed out by God”, which is that the purpose of the Bible is “for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”, not for acting as a Science textbook.

should be:

> people often ignore the text after “breathed out by God”, which is that the purpose of the Bible is “for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”, not for acting as a Science textbook.

@LeakyNun Fixed.

@LeeWoofenden lol, thanks

@LeeWoofenden why didn't I get email notification for your reply?

@LeakyNun Did you request email notification of replies when you left the comment?

I didn't have that option; only for comments and for posts

@LeakyNun The comments one should have done it.

But then I don't want to be notified of new comments

@LeakyNun The Wordpress.com-hosted blog software does have its limitations. I'll probably go to outside hosting at some point, but I'm still at Wordpress.com.

@LeeWoofenden oh, alright

@LeeWoofenden I didn't express myself all that well in that comment, but I'd be interested in hearing how you'd interpret the three quotes in the section "What is the rapture" in my answer.

To be clear, I don't have a major issue with Flimzy's exegesis – I can understand the argument that 1 Th 4:17 should be understood primarily as a metaphor and that a physical carrying off or rising from the earth was not in view. But the question asks for the early church's view, and I have a much harder time believing that the three fathers I quote did not have a physical carrying off/raising in mind.

@Nathaniel In the biblical languages, the same word is used for "sky" and "heaven." And my sense is that the early church didn't have a really clear idea of the distinction. Paul talks about the body being sowed physical and raised spiritual, but it's not clear that he had a clear idea of what that meant. He seems to think that someone could possibly be caught up to the third heaven in the body, but maybe it was in the spirit.

Words such as "air" and "clouds" have a similar lack of complete clarity because they are associated with "sky/heaven," and could be referring to either. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the early church fathers to have a clear grasp of their view of these things. But I suspect that the current literalism in Christianity generally, and Protestantism specifically, is causing us to read them in a more doggedly literal way than they themselves would have insisted upon.

@Nathaniel @flimzy's answer would have been improved if he had made reference to early church fathers beyond Paul and commented on them. His answer points to a reasonable answer to the question, but doesn't provide the level of documentation from early church writers to really solidify that answer.

@LeeWoofenden Yes, my bias probably shows when I see words like "sky" and "clouds" and don't automatically think of spiritual realms. I'll need to review the context of these quotes, but I don't mean to imply that I exclude the possibility of any metaphor being present in their language. I just strongly suspect that they conceived something physical as well.

@Nathaniel As I said, I don't think the people of the early church made a very clear distinction in their mind between the physical and the spiritual--between the sky and heaven. The very fact that their language didn't have separate words for "sky" and "heaven" suggests that this was not a well-made distinction in their minds.

Fair enough. I'll have to think about that and (naturally) read more :)

However, for us today, who do have distinct words for "sky" and "heaven," to attribute to ancient writers only the "sky" meaning and not the "heaven" meaning is not very reasonable, and represents our own sort of anachronism in reading those ancient writers.

Although it's always risky to attribute any thinking to earlier thinkers and writers based on later developments in thoughts and conceptions of the universe, I suspect that if one of us went back and tried to pin them down as to whether they meant literally "the air and the clouds" or whether they meant some spiritual (metaphorical) meaning, they would be confused by the question, and wonder why we were making such an artificial distinction.

For them, the sky was heaven.

Hmm... granted, they wouldn't have examples of space ships and airplanes to make the distinction, but I wouldn't think that they'd say that a soaring eagle was in heaven in the same way that Jesus was in heaven... they'd have to make a distinction somewhere.

@Nathaniel Really, I'm not sure they would. Their religion prior to Christ was quite physical-minded. It's not until very late in the OT that anything like a conception of an afterlife and perhaps another world makes an appearance--especially in Daniel. Throughout most of the OT, "salvation" is a distinctly physical thing. See:

It's clear to me that Jesus himself understood clearly that there is a higher, spiritual realm of existence. But it's also clear that he had a hard time communicating that to his hearers, even his own disciples, because there simply wasn't much of a basis for it in their thinking, which was steeped in the OT paradigm. He had a bit to work from in Daniel and from Greek philosophy, but it was slim pickings.

Jesus actually did not mention "cross" in his prediction

so what would "take up his cross" mean to the audience?

I suspect that not only the disciples themselves but the early church fathers were just barely beginning to be able to conceive of a distinct, spiritual realm of existence. Some were more able, some less. John seems to have been more able than the others, as shown in the highly spiritual nature of his writings, and his spiritual experiences recorded in the book of Revelation.

But for the most part, I don't think the early church fathers really did have a distinct understanding of a spiritual or heavenly realm. They just thought of it as being "up in the sky."

Keep in mind that the universe was generally conceived as a rather small place compared to our conception of it today. The earth was the center of it, and then there were "higher realms" that were up in the sky. It would seem perfectly reasonable to them that God and the angels lived up in the sky, beyond where their sight could see.

@LeeWoofenden you may find this a good read

And every once in a while, the sky would open up so that they could see those higher realms that are normally hidden from their eyes. The shepherds saw the skies open and an angel choir there. John saw heaven open up to him. And it's unclear whether even he realized (from my perspective) that he was actually experiencing an entirely distinct, non-physical realm of existence.

@LeakyNun Yes, I've seen that page before. It confirms that the early Jews had no really clear understanding of the afterlife, such that the debate was not so much what it was like but whether it existed. And a common view was that it would be a physical resurrection on this earth, which would be transformed into a better version of itself by the returning Messiah.

That article is, in fact, one of the pieces I've drawn on in reaching my conclusions about ancient biblical views of the afterlife.

@LeakyNun If you read on from there, you will see that Jesus follows this with his statement about his followers taking up their cross and following him. This makes it pretty clear what type of death he was predicting for himself.

@LeakyNun Oh, I see that you did actually quote that part.

As I said before, I think his listeners would have understood that he was talking about crucifxion. What exactly they understood by "taking up their cross" I don't know for sure. They certainly seemed to be confused by it. Peter didn't like it one little bit. The Matthew version is more specific about his response:

> And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." (Matthew 16:22)

@LeeWoofenden Definitely thought-provoking. Thanks for the feedback.

At that point I doubt they understood Jesus' words much at all. That probably remained for later rumination. Certainly his words made an impression upon them, since they made it into the Gospels.

@Nathaniel To complete the thought, though I agree with flimzy that they saw these things as metaphors, for them taking these things "literally" meant rising up to the higher realms of the sky where the angels lived. In our day we've been up into those realms in spaceships and haven't found any angels. So we really can't think about Paul's words in the way his ancient hearers did. Our conception of the universe is too different.

But their conception of the universe allowed them to get by without having a clear conception of a distinct spiritual realm. "Up in the sky" worked just fine for them.

Even fundamentalist Protestants today really can't think of "the sky" in the way the early Christians did. So they're taking Paul's words and giving them a very different sense than Paul and his listeners would have given to them.

For those ancient listeners, "air" and "clouds" would not have been thought of as atmospheric conditions and visible locations in the visible sky, but as the realm of the angels.

Angels, after all, were behind the clouds, which is why we couldn't see them.

@LeeWoofenden Yeah, that makes sense.

@Nathaniel Or really, they were both: visible locations in the sky and the realm of angels. The physical imagery and the metaphor were the same in their mind. They had one word for "sky" and "heaven." So as I said, they would likely have been confused if we tried to pin them down as to which one they meant.

I have not come across any fundamentalists today arguing that angels live in the sky. Even for today's literalists, that particular literalism no longer works. So they simply can't resurrect in their minds what Paul and his listeners were thinking when he said:

> Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

That last line, "and so we will be with the Lord forever," is the give-away. Paul expected to live with the Lord in the sky, forever. There would be no coming back to earth.

I doubt any fundamentalist Christians today think that they will be living with the Lord forever in the sky. Their conception seems to be that once they meet the Lord in the air and clouds, they'll all come back down to earth and Christ will establish his new kingdom here.

@LeakyNun That's a lot. Are you Chinese born and live in the USA, or something like that?