Work in Progress:

Jesus Mortal

jesusstatue

heaven

Traditionally, heaven is the afterlife reward that Christ has prepared for his faithful. Those who die in right standing go to (or at least toward) heaven, while those not in good graces go to hell. For Roman catholics, only those with a positive balance on the merit scorecard get to heaven, so those who die in good graces but with black marks on their records suffer in purgatory before entering the pearly gates.

For Jesus, heaven wasn’t an afterlife destination but the seat of the LORD’s authority and the realm of the divine beings. At Herod’s temple, heaven touched the earth and the LORD was miraculously present. For Jesus in particular, the LORD’s heavenly kingdom seems to have been secretly present, especially in his exorcisms. But heaven, to Jesus, was actually the sky (the “heavens”) above him. Educated pagans knew that the world was round, but Jesus may well have believed it to be flat, surrounded by water, with sheol (hades, the underworld) underneath, and the firmament and heavens above.

For Jesus, when good people died they went to the underworld (sheol) like everyone else, but they were given a pleasant place to wait, the “bosom of Abraham.” There they waited until they were raised for their final judgment. Bad people went to sheol to. Everyone did. But the bad people suffered fiery torments while waiting for judgment day.

The more tangible heaven is, the more is seems like a myth, like the pagan stories about the Elysian fields. Several Christian visions of a blissful afterlife made their way into church tradition, but the idyllic scenes of meadows, glowing clothes, crowns for virgins, and such eventually gave way to the abstract. In the middle ages, it was settled that those in heaven spend their time apprehending the beatific vision, that is, perceiving god as he perceives himself.

See also earth, hell.

 

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contents

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table of contents you're already looking at it

introduction for the inquisitive reader

biographical overview who he was and wasn't

 

afterlife not Jesus' concern

animal sacrifice bloodless religion

apocalypse did Jesus preach hellfire?

baptism sin wash for Jesus and others

beatitudes Jesus' words and others' words

beloved disciple witness for the un-gospel

bible scripture old and new

bishop the unjesus

body focus on the physical

Buddha Jesus' close kin

charity key Christian virtue and legacy of Jesus

The Da Vinci Code secret (and false) messages

divorce women's status

dreams convenient literary device

Elijah Jewish prophet with his own second coming

equality ancient source of modern egalitarianism

exorcist Jesus and demons

failure reinterpreting Jesus as a failure

faith from trust to blind belief

father Jesus on titles of honor

Francis of Assisi the most Christlike Christian

Gandhi the 20th century's most Christly holy man

Galilee Jesus' inauspicious homeland

gentiles Jesus' inadvertent audience

god how Jesus became god

golden rule key to Jesus' success

gospels competing accounts

heaven from sky to spiritual home

hell revenge fantasy

humanism Jesus' legacy

inerrant Christian treatment of scripture

Thomas Jefferson ethics of Jesus

Jewish guilt Christian libel

John's gospel the un-gospel

John the baptist, see John the washer

John the washer Jesus' apocalyptic mentor

Judaism libeled religion of Jesus

kingdom of god what Jesus promised

Lao Tzu poet of the cosmic way

logos jesus as the word of god

C. S. Lewis famous, flawed trilemma

little drummer boy Luke beats Matthew

logos Jesus as the divine word

LORD Yahweh transitioning to the one god of all

Luke's gospel the all-around best gospel

Mark's gospel the gospel that lost its point

Mary of Magdala women, visions, and sex

massacre of the innocents bloodshed starts early

Matthew's gospel best gospel for church reading

Mormon, see Joseph Smith

Moses Jewish lawgiver

Muhammad a prophet who got it right

mystery Orpheus and transubstantiation

oppression origin of Jesus' compassion

The Passion of the Christ Luke as buzzkill

Paul revealer of the revealer

private and public public Jesus and secret Christ

relativism the secret power of the golden rule

sacrifice Jesus' death and Christian sacrament

Albert Schweitzer Jesus as a failure

sheol dark pit of death

show Jesus' deeds as put-ons

slavery abolished by Jesus' efforts

Joseph Smith flesh-and-blood Jesus

Socrates secular Jesus

son of god on close terms with the man upstairs

soul, see body

synoptics three gospels that agree

temple center of Jewish religion

trinity unifying and divisive doctrinre

vision, see dreams

Yahweh, see LORD

Zoroaster Persian dualistic holy man