The Early History Of Heaven

This book traces the backgrounds, origin, and development of early Jewish and Christian speculation about the heavenly realm. Wright begins his study with an examination of the beliefs of ancient Israel's neighbours 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.

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 neighbours 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. Review: The breadth of the book is refreshing and his discussion informative ... the importance of this work lies in its broader description of the early models of heaven and should serve as a necessary foil for any serious, future studies on the topic. The Historian Clear, wide-ranging, and reasonably priced study of an important topic. Journal of Early Christian Studies