Religious Experience of the Pneuma

CLINT TIBBS
Religious Experience of the Pneuma
Communication with the Spirit World in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14
[Religiöse Erfahrung des Pneuma. Kommunikation mit der Geisterwelt in 1 Korinther 12 und
14.]
Published in English.
Clint Tibbs explores the Christian religious experience of the Pneuma given in 1 Corinthians 12
and 14. First Corinthians 12 and 14 is often read as concerning “spiritual gifts”. This heading,
however, does not make clear the scope of Paul's text because it highlights only one component
of Paul's polemic, “gifts”, to the neglect of other and equally important terms. The experiences
Paul mentions in these texts, “speaking in a spirit,” “prophecy”, and “glossolalia”, as well as the
mention of “spirits” in three di erent places, suggest that Paul was actually writing about
communicating with the spirit world. The main religious experience of the earliest Christians
was communication with the spirit world that ful lled the promise of the sending of the Spirit
in the Gospel of John, that which o cially began the Christian movement abroad in Acts 2, and
through which the gospel was meant to be preached as recorded in 1 Peter 1:12. Spirit
communication of a Christian nature is also recorded in the Didache 11, Shepherd of Hermas,
Mandate 11, and the accounts of Montanism. The author uses these texts, as well as those
from Plutarch, Josephus, Philo and Pseudo-Philo, to illustrate the kind of spirit communication
that Paul depicts in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, that of spirits speaking through mediums.
2007. XXII, 368 pages.
WUNT II 230
ISBN 978-3-16-149357-7
sewn paper 74,00 €
Clint Tibbs Born 1971; 2006 PhD (the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.); teaching
Religion, Bible and Philosophy at Delta State University.
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