This post has a Claude.ai summary of three posts by Bart Ehrman addressing the different levels in heaven one couold reach as described in the Bible and later texts. PDF’s of the three papers are in the Levels of Heaven directory of Barts’s directory in DropBox.
In addition to the citations below, Jesus in the parable of the rich ruler in Matthew told him to have riches in heaven, sell all he had and follow Jesus. IMO the words Jesus is recorded as saying means some will be richer in Heaven than others.
Prompt: The attached three pdf files are to be read in the date order based on the first 8 numbers of the file name. Provide a summary of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s explanations and evidence of the biblical portrayal of different levels in heaven. Prepare the summary in a talking points or teaching style.
Response: Differentiated Rewards in the Age to Come: Ehrman’s Argument
Order used: “Are People Treated Equally in the Age to Come?” → “How Much Reward Do You Want? The Tiers of Heaven” → “A Head-Scratcher in the Sermon on the Mount.” I couldn’t see the file names, so I inferred this order from the posts’ internal cross-references. The first two are clearly sequential. The third reads as a separate, later post. Tell me if your dates say otherwise.
1. The Question and the Starting Assumption
- Ehrman admits he long assumed that Jesus favored equality, so that everyone who is saved would be equally rewarded. He now calls this a “pure assumption” he never examined (Ehrman, “Are People Treated Equally in the Age to Come?”).
- The assumption came from a popular view of heaven as a perfect place, so no one could have it better than anyone else.
- Jesus’ own view was apocalyptic. He expected a coming judgment, the destruction of evil powers and their followers, and a kingdom on earth that restores paradise.
- The question: does equal entrance into the kingdom mean equal experience in it?
2. Differentiated Glory Is an Old Christian Idea
- Ehrman notes that the idea of tiered glory is “remarkably long” in the tradition, and that he recognized this as a young scholar.
- His anecdote from Armageddon is a humorous illustration: diners hoping for mansions and golf courses, one conceding, “my golf course won’t be as nice as Billy Graham’s.”
3. Background Text: The Apocalypse of Peter (2nd century)
- It is our earliest surviving Christian tour of heaven and hell. Many churches treated it as part of the New Testament for its first three centuries.
- Hell is differentiated: punishments are tailored to each person’s characteristic sin.
- Heaven is generalized: the saved are beautiful, joyful, and surrounded by fragrant fruit trees. One version says “the glory of those who dwelt there was equal.”
- This is the contrast Ehrman sets up. Punishments vary, but the earlier text does not make heavenly rewards vary.
4. Key Evidence: The Apocalypse of Paul (late 4th/early 5th century)
- What it is: a fictional tour attributed to Paul, apparently inspired by his claim in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 to have been taken to the “third heaven.” The author reveals what Paul himself said he was not permitted to tell. It was hugely popular in the Middle Ages and influenced Dante. (Ehrman cites the translation in J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 616-44.)
- Changed historical setting: Christianity is now the imperial religion, so the worst torments are reserved for insiders, namely slack Christians, church officials, and heretics, rather than pagan persecutors (cf. chs. 34-41).
- Graduated punishments: believers stand in a river of fire up to their knees, navels, lips, or eyeballs depending on their sin. Clergy and monastics are treated with special severity.
- The worst punishment of all (“seven times greater”) is reserved for heretics who deny Christ’s full humanity or the Eucharist (ch. 41). Ehrman’s quip is that you’d be better off pagan.
- The theological shift: faith alone is not enough, and a Christian must not fall short in any way.
5. The Tiers of Blessing in the Apocalypse of Paul
Ehrman summarizes this from his book Heaven and Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020):
- Third heaven, the “land of promise” (ch. 21): rivers of milk and honey, fruit trees, and abundant vines. This is the reward for those who stayed sexually pure outside marriage.
- Higher reward (ch. 22): lifelong virgins who “afflicted themselves for the sake of the name of God” receive blessings seven times greater.
- The City of Christ (ch. 23): a golden city with twelve concentric walls, for those who fully repented.
- Mourners outside the gates (ch. 24): zealous, fasting Christians who were proud of their good deeds. They are admitted at the end of time but not at the same level of ecstasy.
- Inner walls: each interior wall is higher than the last, so the further in a saint goes, the greater the reward. The innermost places defy description.
- Ehrman’s conclusion: all are saved, but not equally glorified, and some are dissatisfied with what they receive. This became a standard view in the Christian tradition.
6. The Biblical Text: Matthew 5:17-20
This is the only passage in these three posts that Ehrman treats as biblical evidence for tiers.
- The key line (NRSV): whoever breaks “one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:19).
- Verse 20 adds a condition: one’s righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees to enter at all.
- The puzzle: if the kingdom follows the destruction of evil and a return to paradise, how can there be “least” and “great”? And how can some be more superlatively righteous than others?
- Matthew’s emphasis on the law: Jesus did not come to abolish the law, and not one letter or stroke will pass away. Matthew 23:2-3 (found only in Matthew) has Jesus tell his followers to follow the Pharisees’ teachings, while attacking their practice.
7. Ehrman’s Proposed Resolution
- Jesus demands the most rigorous observance of the law, including its spirit as shown in the Antitheses (anger, lust).
- Those who regularly and consistently flout the law, as Matthew portrays the Pharisees, are excluded (v. 20).
- Those who keep the law rigorously are “great.”
- Those who occasionally break it, and even claim that is acceptable, are admitted but “least.”
- His conclusion: “there will not be equality in the coming Kingdom of Heaven.”
- Supporting context: the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls accused the Pharisees of using legal workarounds. His example is the transfer of debts to a court to avoid the sabbatical-year cancellation required by Deuteronomy 15. He asks whether this is the kind of hypocrisy Matthew’s Jesus has in mind. He frames this as a question, not a settled claim.
- The kingdom is still on earth, after the resurrection and judgment, and Matthew’s “heaven” language partly reflects “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Teaching Cautions
- Distinguish the evidence. The detailed tiers come from a late, non-canonical text (the Apocalypse of Paul). The biblical evidence in these posts is essentially Matthew 5:19, plus the hint in 5:20.
- The argument is unfinished. Ehrman promises further posts: other “difficult teachings of Jesus” that this reading would clarify, and his view of what Jesus himself thought. He also suggests the apocalyptic reading is “none of the above” relative to the heaven-based views. None of that is covered here, so avoid presenting it as his final position.
- Ehrman himself is tentative. He says he has had trouble getting his mind around Matthew 5:19 and describes his reading as one that “can be understood” coherently.
- The earlier “equal” glory in the Apocalypse of Peter appears only in one version of that text, per Ehrman.
