THE THIRD HEAVEN—God Himself dwells in the third Heaven. This was the
In the non-canonical Second Book of Enoch, Third Heaven is described as a location "between corruptibility and incorruptibility" containing the Tree of Life, "whereon the Lord rests, when he goes up into paradise." (
McConkie said: “Speaking of himself, Paul says he was 'caught up to the third heaven,' which is the celestial kingdom” (The Mortal Messiah, 4:394).
In the Talmud, it is suggested that the upper part of the universe is made up of seven heavens (Hebrew: shamayim):
On February 16, 1832, while working on translation of the New Testament passage John 5:29 in the upstairs bedroom of the John Johnson home, Smith and Rigdon received what was known to early Latter Day Saints as "the Vision." It detailed a heaven divided into three degrees of glory, the Celestial, Terrestrial, and ...
The telestial kingdom is the lowest of the three degrees or kingdoms of glory in heaven. The scriptures compare the glory of the telestial kingdom to the glory of the stars.
The fourth heaven is the world of positive souls. They have a positive system of beliefs. They follow love, peace, and truth.
Divisions. The book can be divided into four sections: In the first section (chapters 1–22), Enoch, at the age of 365, is taken by two angels through the ten heavens , one by one.
The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to man. it is we who extol the LORD, both now and forevermore. Praise the LORD.
The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that three other persons were taken bodily into heaven: Enoch, Elijah (Elias) and the Theotokos (Virgin Mary).
Hebrew Bible
In Second Temple era Judaism, "paradise" came to be associated with the Garden of Eden and prophecies of restoration of Eden, and transferred to heaven.
noun. (especially in Islam and the cabala) the highest heaven, where God and the most exalted angels dwell. a state of intense happiness; bliss: We were in seventh heaven in our new home.
And those men took me from there, and they brought me up to the third heaven, and set me down |there|. Then I looked downward, and I saw Paradise. And that place is inconceivably pleasant. And I saw the trees in full flower.
Thought to be the main content of Jesus's preaching in the Gospel of Matthew, the "kingdom of heaven" described "a process, a course of events, whereby God begins to govern or to act as king or Lord, an action, therefore, by which God manifests his being-God in the world of men."
He says the heavenly city has four sides, each with three gates, corresponding to the 12 tribes of Israel. Then he mentions 12 huge foundation stones, which correspond to the 12 apostles. After this, John says the heavenly city is a perfect cube, each side being 12,000 stadia, or 1,400 miles.
One possible reason for Jewish rejection of the book might be the textual nature of several early sections of the book that make use of material from the Torah; for example, 1 En 1 is a midrash of Deuteronomy 33.
In the Sefer Hekalot, Rabbi Ishmael is described as having visited the Seventh Heaven, where he met Enoch, who claims that earth had, in his time, been corrupted by the demons Shammazai, and Azazel, and so Enoch was taken to Heaven to prove that God was not cruel.
The Book of Enoch describes the revolt of angels against God before the Great Flood. The fallen angels came to Earth to cohabit and give divine knowledge to man. Scholars theorize that the Book of Enoch lacks authenticity due to the different time frames in which Enoch supposedly wrote the sections.
THE FIRST HEAVEN—We learn about this in Isaiah 55:10, which says, “For as the rain and the snow come down from Heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater…” This is talking about the atmosphere surrounding our planet.
Heavens, Earth, and underworld
The Hebrew Bible depicted a three-part world, with the heavens (shamayim) above, Earth (eres) in the middle, and the underworld (sheol) below.
Eventually settling in Rome, he was executed by the Romans some time between 58 and 64 C.E. The Roman Catholic Church regards Peter as their first Pope. Later Christian tradition attributed the duty of greeting the souls of the faithful at the Gates of Heaven to Saint Peter.
Ezekiel's four living creatures
Each of Ezekiel's cherubim have four faces, that of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. However, the fact that they manifest in human form sets them apart from the griffin-like cherubs and lamassu of Babylonia and Assyria.
Idris' unique status inspired many future traditions and stories surrounding him in Islamic folklore. According to hadith, narrated by Malik ibn Anas and found in Sahih Muslim, it is said that on Muhammad's Night Journey, he encountered Idris in the fourth heaven.
Cherubim: The Ox, Lion, Eagle and Man.