Heaven

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This article is about the divine abode in various religious traditions. For other uses,
see Heaven (disambiguation).
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Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heavens; from Gustave Doré's illustrations to the Divine

Comedy.

Heaven, or the heavens, is a common religious

cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such
as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate,
be enthroned, or reside. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings
can descend to Earth or incarnate and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in
the afterlife or, in exceptional cases, enter Heaven alive.
Heaven is often described as a "highest place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in
contrast to hell or the Underworld or the "low places" and universally or conditionally
accessible by earthly beings according to various standards
of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply divine will.
Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a world to come.
Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the
terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, heaven is considered
as Svarga loka,[1] and the soul is again subjected to rebirth in different living forms
according to its karma. This cycle can be broken after a soul
achieves Moksha or Nirvana. Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or
deities, outside the tangible world (Heaven, Hell, or other) is referred to as
the otherworld.
At least in the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Islam, and some schools of Judaism,
as well as Zoroastrianism, heaven is the realm of Afterlife where good actions in the
previous life are rewarded for eternity (hell being the place where bad behavior is
punished).

Etymology[edit]

"heofones", an ancient Anglo-Saxon word for heavens in Beowulf

The modern English word heaven is derived from the earlier (Middle

English) heven (attested 1159); this in turn was developed from the previous Old
English form heofon. By about 1000, heofon was being used in reference to
the Christianized "place where God dwells", but originally, it had signified "sky,
firmament"[2] (e.g. in Beowulf, c. 725). The English term has cognates in the
other Germanic languages: Old Saxon heƀan "sky, heaven" (hence also Middle Low
German heven "sky"), Old Icelandic himinn, Gothic himins; and those with a variant
final -l: Old Frisian himel, himul "sky, heaven", Old Saxon and Old High
German himil, Old Saxon and Middle Low German hemmel, Old
Dutch and Dutch hemel, and modern German Himmel. All of these have been
derived from a reconstructed Proto-Germanic form *hemina-.[3] or *hemō.[4]
The further derivation of this form is uncertain. A connection to Proto-Indo-
European *ḱem- "cover, shroud", via a reconstructed *k̑emen- or *k̑ōmen- "stone,
heaven", has been proposed.[5] Others endorse the derivation from a Proto-Indo-
European root *h₂éḱmō "stone" and, possibly, "heavenly vault" at the origin of this
word, which then would have as cognates ancient Greek ἄκμων (ákmōn "anvil,
pestle; meteorite"), Persian ‫( آسمان‬âsemân, âsmân "stone, sling-stone; sky, heaven")
and Sanskrit अश्मन ् (aśman "stone, rock, sling-stone; thunderbolt; the firmament").
[4]
 In the latter case English hammer would be another cognate to the word.

Ancient Near East[edit]

See also: Category:Conceptions of heaven and Religions of the ancient Near East
Mesopotamia[edit]
Ruins of the Ekur temple in Nippur, believed by the ancient Mesopotamians to be the "Dur-an-ki", the
"mooring-rope" of heaven and earth [6][7]

Main article: Ancient Mesopotamian religion

The ancient Mesopotamians regarded the sky as a series of domes (usually three,
but sometimes seven) covering the flat Earth.[8] Each dome was made of a different
kind of precious stone.[9] The lowest dome of heaven was made of jasper and was
the home of the stars.[10][11] The middle dome of heaven was made of saggilmut stone
and was the abode of the Igigi.[10][11] The highest and outermost dome of heaven was
made of luludānītu stone and was personified as An, the god of the sky.[12][10]
[11]
 The celestial bodies were equated with specific deities as well.[9] The
planet Venus was believed to be Inanna, the goddess of love, sex, and war.[13]
[9]
 The Sun was her brother Utu, the god of justice, and the Moon was their
father Nanna.[9]
In ancient Near Eastern cultures in general and in Mesopotamia in particular,
humans had little to no access to the divine realm. [14][15] Heaven and Earth were
separated by their very nature;[11] humans could see and be affected by elements of
the lower heaven, such as stars and storms,[11] but ordinary mortals could not go to
Heaven because it was the abode of the gods alone. [15][16][11] In the Epic of
Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh says to Enkidu, "Who can go up to heaven, my friend? Only
the gods dwell with Shamash forever."[16] Instead, after a person died, his or her soul
went to Kur (later known as Irkalla), a dark shadowy underworld, located deep below
the surface of the earth.[15][17]
All souls went to the same afterlife,[15][17] and a person's actions during life had no
impact on how he would be treated in the world to come. [15][17] Nonetheless, funerary
evidence indicates that some people believed that Inanna had the power to bestow
special favors upon her devotees in the afterlife. [17][18] Despite the separation between
heaven and earth, humans sought access to the gods through oracles and omens.
[6]
 The gods were believed to live in Heaven, [6][19] but also in their temples, which were
seen as the channels of communication between Earth and Heaven, which allowed
mortal access to the gods.[6][20] The Ekur temple in Nippur was known as the "Dur-an-
ki", the "mooring-rope" of heaven and earth. [21] It was widely thought to have been
built and established by Enlil himself.[7]
Zoroastrians[edit]
Further information: Zoroastrian mythology
Zoroaster, the Zoroastrian prophet who introduced the Gathas, spoke of the
existence of Heaven and Hell.[22][23]
Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its conception of heaven,
hell, angels, monotheism, belief in free will, and the day of judgement, among other
concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including
the Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Northern Buddhism, and Greek philosophy. [24][25]
Canaanites and Phoenicians[edit]
Main article: Canaanite religion
Almost nothing is known of Bronze Age (pre-1200 BC) Canaanite views of heaven,
and the archaeological findings at Ugarit (destroyed c. 1200 BC) have not provided
information. The first century Greek author Philo of Byblos may preserve elements
of Iron Age Phoenician religion in his Sanchuniathon.[26]