Models Of Heaven

Many people nowadays are confused about the topic of heaven, skeptical about it, or think it beyond description. This book argues that, without venturing into the esoteric or fanciful, we can know more about heaven than we think. Did you know, for instance, that heavenly rest will be exciting and dynamic? That we will be overwhelmed and transformed by the beauty of God? That we will dance with the Trinity, sing with the angels, and enjoy the delightful company of the saints (including the saints we have known and loved on earth)? The book will deal with what we will be doing in the Holy City and in the magnificence of the new creation, and what it means to say that we will feast at the heavenly banquet. If you want answers to these questions, at once inspired by Christian tradition and modern insight, and presented in a fresh and compelling manner, this book is for you. It is written not only for theologians and specialists but also for inquiring Catholics and other Christians seeking to deepen their understanding of life after death. It will serve theology students, seminarians, clergy, religious educators, and parish study groups. Readers willing to invest time and energy in the book will find their view of heaven deepened and expanded.

Explores how distinctive themes in the early Christianity of the British Isles might be applied in practical terms to Christian life today.

The Victorians were obsessed with death, bereavement, and funeral rituals, and speculated vigorously on the nature of heaven, hell, and divine judgment. This popular abridgement of Michael Wheeler's award-winning Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology looks at the literary implications of Victorian views of death and the life beyond, and recreates vividly the fear and hope embodied in the theological positions of the novelists and poets of the age. Now accessible to a wide readership, Heaven, Hell, and the Victorians offers a wide-ranging and attractively illustrated cultural history of nineteenth-century religious experience, belief, and language in the face of death.

When we think of "heaven," we generally conjure up positive, blissful images. Heaven is, after all, where God is and where good people go after death to receive their reward. But how and why did Western cultures come to imagine the heavenly realm in such terms? Why is heaven usually thought to be "up there," far beyond the visible sky? And what is the source of the idea that the post mortem abode of the righteous is in this heavenly realm with God? Seeking to discover the roots of these familiar notions, this volume traces the backgrounds, origin, and development of early Jewish and Christian speculation about the heavenly realm -- where it is, what it looks like, and who its inhabitants are. Wright begins his study with an examination of the beliefs of ancient Israel's neighbors Egypt and Mesopotamia, reconstructing the intellectual context in which the earliest biblical images of heaven arose. A detailed analysis of the Hebrew biblical texts themselves then reveals that the Israelites were deeply influenced by images drawn from the surrounding cultures. Wright goes on to examine Persian and Greco-Roman beliefs, thus setting the stage for his consideration of early Jewish and Christian images, which he shows to have been formed in the struggle to integrate traditional biblical imagery with the newer Hellenistic ideas about the cosmos. In a final chapter Wright offers a brief survey of how later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions envisioned the heavenly realms. Accessible to a wide range of readers, this provocative book will interest anyone who is curious about the origins of this extraordinarily pervasive and influential idea.

When we think of "heaven," we generally conjure up positive, blissful images. Heaven is, after all, where God is and where good people go after death to receive their reward. But how and why did Western cultures come to imagine the heavenly realm in such terms? Why is heaven usually thought to be "up there," far beyond the visible sky? And what is the source of the idea that the post mortem abode of the righteous is in this heavenly realm with God? Seeking to discover the roots of these familiar notions, this volume traces the backgrounds, origin, and development of early Jewish and Christian speculation about the heavenly realm -- where it is, what it looks like, and who its inhabitants are. Wright begins his study with an examination of the beliefs of ancient Israel's neighbors Egypt and Mesopotamia, reconstructing the intellectual context in which the earliest biblical images of heaven arose. A detailed analysis of the Hebrew biblical texts themselves then reveals that the Israelites were deeply influenced by images drawn from the surrounding cultures. Wright goes on to examine Persian and Greco-Roman beliefs, thus setting the stage for his consideration of early Jewish and Christian images, which he shows to have been formed in the struggle to integrate traditional biblical imagery with the newer Hellenistic ideas about the cosmos. In a final chapter Wright offers a brief survey of how later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions envisioned the heavenly realms. Accessible to a wide range of readers, this provocative book will interest anyone who is curious about the origins of this extraordinarily pervasive and influential idea.

Heaven to Eden is a dramatic epic in rhyming verse in the tradition of poets Dante, Milton, and Goethe. It reveals why God granted life, depicts the meaning of living, the reason for existence, the origin and destination of souls, the formation of the universe, the creation, rebellion, and fall of angels and humans, the existence of other worlds and UFOs, as well as free will and the lack of it. It takes place eons ago when God was alone in a beautiful, but unpopulated heaven. The book is an enjoyable read as well as adaptable for the stage, film, and opera. It is adorned with a musical language that speaks to the soul. “As I read the pages, I was transported to a special realm. In all the books I have read, plays, poems, and prose works of great writers, I was never transported this way to hear the plans and discussions of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… I could not talk for a while after reading these pages …Lives will change through this writing.” – Flora Williams, poet, rabbi, TV host

There's been a curious upsurge in interest about the afterlife lately, but we're too often limited in our concept of heaven. The reality is we all do have questions about heaven: What does a resurrected person look like? What does a resurrected earth look like? Do we get our heart's desire in heaven? In What on Earth Do We Know about Heaven?, Randal Rauser considers twenty thought-provoking questions, each of which winds back to the core concept of heaven: what it is and what it isn't. Rauser uses Scripture to remind us that God's ultimate purpose is that the whole creation will be transformed and renewed, guiding readers through a vision of a glorious afterlife, consisting of a perfected earth, perfected bodies, perfected human culture, and perfected relationships.

On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 39 men and women were found in an opulent mansion outside San Diego, all victims of a mass suicide. Messages left by the Heaven's Gate group indicate that they believed they were stepping out of their 'physical containers' in order to ascend to a UFO that was arriving in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. The Heaven's Gate suicides were part of a series of major incidents involving New Religions in the 1990s, as the new millennium approached. Despite the major attention that Heaven's Gate attracted at the time of the suicides, there have been relatively few scholarly studies. This anthology on Heaven's Gate includes a combination of articles previously published in academic journals, some new writings from experts in the field, and some original Heaven's Gate documents. All the material is expertly brought together under the editorship of George D. Chryssides.