To Infinity and Beyond
Heavenly Journeys and Stratified Cosmology in Jewish and Christian Traditions
The expansive literary theme of heavenly journeys and a stratified cosmology are nearly universal themes and concepts found early in the ancient world and which persisted beyond antiquity. It traverses a vast expanse of cultural and historical landscapes, spanning from Ancient Near Eastern literature to the Hebrew Biblical, to the Pseudepigrapha, the Deuterocanon, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and finally into the New Testament and Rabbinic periods.
This theme's resonance in ancient literature is not merely an artifact of cultural storytelling but reflects a unique and intriguing engagement with philosophy, metaphysics, and the very structure of the cosmos in a pre-scientific era. Theologically, it reflects developing traditions of apocalyptic and mystical themes that use the imagery to attempt to explain what authors may have been felt to be inexpressible or to motivate readers to move their thinking beyond what may have been considered to be the mundane of daily life. It may have also played a significant role for rhetorical goals and for providing authors with a kind of authority or social clout to reinforce and give weight to their arguments in their writings.
At the heart and beginning of this theme, ancient Babylonian (relatedly, Akkadian and Sumerian) cosmology expresses many themes that will be repeated in later literary families. This description of the universe as they imagined it includes the idea of multiple heavens and earths existing in the cosmos and is articulated in the creation myth Enuma Elish where the goddess Tiamat's body was fashioned into the cosmos. Her upper body formed the vault of heaven secured by gates, which celestial bodies passed through in their motions. Her waters filled the heavens still tied to the earth below by cosmic bonds or ropes preventing uncontrolled rain. Under this model, there is heaven (or heavens) above, earth in the middle for humans, and an underworld below.
The upper heaven is composed of luludanitu-stone of Ann. Marduk made the 300 Igigi gods take up residence there. The middle heaven is of saggilmut-stone of the Igigi. The lord Marduk occupies the throne dais there. He sits on a throne of lapis lazuli. With busu-glass and crystal, he made it shine there. The lower heaven is made of jasper of the stars. He drew the divine constellations on its surface. On the firmness of the upper earth he settled the souls of humankind. He made Ea, his father, reside in middle earth ... He confined the 600 Anunnaki gods within lower earth. (KAR 307)1
Over time, the cosmos in Babylonian, Akkadian, and related cultures evolved into a structured system of three distinct heavens and three earths. Each realm was associated with different deities as places of dwelling, and the heavens were seen as layers of differing construction for the sky gods. The upper and lower earths were the domains for humans and the dead, respectively. These strata reflected in early incantation texts persisted as an important component of imagined geographies.
In the Hebrew Bible, we see this concept expressed similarly, if more simply, in what many scholars call the “three-tiered cosmology”2 which is often used in terms of heaven above, the earth below, and the waters below the earth. Exodus chapter 20 is such an expression:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me, and showing covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)
Other notable expressions of this cosmology in the Hebrew Bible include Genesis 49:25 (“with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb…”), Psalm 115, and Amos 9.
Along with the descriptions of this cosmology that began to develop in these early traditions is the development of humans and divine figures who in some sense crosses these specified boundaries between heaven and earth. In Mesopotamian literature, particularly in the Sumerian King List, we have a brief mention of a king named Etana who ascended to heaven:
Etana, a shepherd, the one who to heaven ascended,
the one who consolidated all land,
became king and reigned 1,560 years;
Balih, son of Etana, reigned 400 years.3
In the Hebrew Bible, the story of Jacob’s dream is an example of divine beings crossing from heaven to earth:
Jacob left Beer Sheba and set out for Haran. He reached a certain place where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones and placed it near his head. Then he fell asleep in that place and had a dream. He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it … (Genesis 28:10-12)
In this same theme and in the middle of an early Hebrew genealogy, we have the enigmatic description of Enoch being taken “with God” in a manner incongruous with the rest of the noted patriarchs:
When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God for 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. The entire lifetime of Enoch was 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and then he disappeared because God took him away. (Genesis 5:21-23)
This brief story will become a key text for the inverse tradition of humans crossing the boundary from earth to heaven. However, before the traditions surrounding Enoch began to develop, we have other traditions in the Hebrew Bible that center on heavenly journeys or visions, including Ezekiel:
In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles at the Kebar River, the heavens opened and I saw a divine vision. On the fifth day of the month—it was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile - the Lord’s message came to the priest Ezekiel the son of Buzi, at the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. The hand of the Lord came on him there. (Ezekiel 1:1-3)
Likewise, there are traditions surrounding the prophet Isaiah experiencing extraordinary heavenly visions. From a literary standpoint, what is likely happening with the Hebrew prophets is an emphasis on affirming a God-given authority given their ability to see beyond the boundary of earth into Heaven.
In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord seated on a high, elevated throne. The hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs stood over him; each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and they used the remaining two to fly. (Isaiah 6:1-2)
By the time that this apocalyptic movement during the period of the exile was heading in pseudepigraphal directions (by utilizing notable Biblical characters such as the books of 1 Enoch or later writings such as the Apocalypse of Abraham) there was an overabundance of emphasis not just on heavenly visions but rather full-blown cosmic journeys and “tours” of both the heavenly and underworld realms:
And they took and brought me to a place in which those who were there were like flaming fire, and, when they wished, they appeared as men. And they brought me to the place of darkness, and to a mountain the point of whose summit reached to heaven. And I saw the places of the luminaries and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunder and in the uttermost depths, where were a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and a fiery sword and all the lightnings. (1 Enoch 17:1-3)
Following the exilic period, when the community near Qumran by Dead Sea was producing their literature, this apocalyptic language, the heavenly ascent tradition, and an emphasis on its use in establish authority was well understood and used to the same effect, here in a Dead Sea scroll known as the Self-Glorification Hymn:4
Who is like me among the gods ... who can measure what issues from my lips, who will summon me with the tongue ... I am friend of the king, companion of the holy ones, and not shall come to me ... and can not be compared to my glory, for I, with the gods, is my position and my glory is with the sons of the king. I will not crown myself with pure gold, and gold from Ophir they will not place on me ... will not be considered for me. Sing, favoured ones, sing to the king of glory, rejoice in the assembly of God, exult in the tent of salvation, praise in the holy residence, exalt together with the eternal host, ascribe greatness to our God and glory to our King ... (Scroll 4Q491c)5
As the literature took new paths into the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman periods, we see continued references to a stratification of heaven in the Life of Adam and Eve:
Yet, I assure you, I will transform their happiness into sorrow and your sorrow into happiness. I will restore you to your former glory and place you on the throne once held by your deceiver. He, on the other hand, will be cast down here, forced to watch you rise above him. He will face judgment along with his followers and be filled with deep regret when he sees you in his esteemed seat. And there he lay for three hours. Afterward, the Father of All, seated on his sacred throne, reached out his hand, picked up Adam, and entrusted him to Archangel Michael, saying, 'Raise him up to Paradise, to the third Heaven, and let him remain there until the daunting day of my final judgment, which I will execute upon the world.' (Life of Adam and Eve)6
… and likewise in one of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs:
There fell upon me a sleep, and I beheld a high mountain, and I was upon it. And behold the heavens were opened and an angel of God said to me, Levi enter And I entered from the first heaven, and I saw there a great sea hanging. And further I saw a second heaven far brighter and more brilliant, for there was a boundless light also therein. And I said to the angel, Why Is this so? And the angel said to me, Marvel not at this, for thou shalt see another heaven more brilliant and incomparable. (Testament of Levi)7
Throughout all of these eras, it has become ubiquitous in the literature that the divine realm is not a simple heaven, but rather one that has multiple layers, levels, or spheres. References to three, five, or even seven heavens, with God himself found at the highest level, are abundant and narratives of those granted access to these realms use more and more exceptional language to describe their journeys.
Continuing into the New Testament we see Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians, written to partially affirm his own authority that was being challenged, utilizing the theme of a heavenly vision or visitation into a stratified heaven:
It is necessary to go on boasting. Though it is not profitable, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven. And I know that this man (whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows) (2 Corinthians 12:1-3)8
Written at roughly the same time as the New Testament, the second book of Enoch continues the motif:
Those men took me from there and led me up to the third heaven, placing me there. I looked down and saw the produce of these places, the goodness of which was unparalleled. I saw all the sweet-flowering trees and noticed their fruits, which smelled sweet, and all the foods they bore were bubbling with fragrant aromas. (2 Enoch 8:1-2)
Rabbinic literature, which continued to develop inherited traditions well into antiquity and even into the early medieval period, held on to these themes as they were put to use in establishing their own community authority. They put their stamp on them in both Talmud and Midrash:
Finally, when angels of destruction, resentful of his presence in heaven, sought to burn Moses with the breath of their mouths, God spread something of His own splendor about Moses and told him to explain to the ministering angels why he was in heaven. His reply was accepted, and the angel of death even taught Moses how to stand between the dead and the living. God then opened the seven firmaments and showed Moses the Sanctuary on high and the four colors He had used for the Tabernacle. (Pesikta Rabbati)
Here we see the notable Rabbi Avika utilized in a narrative of a heavenly journey to establish his noteworthy wisdom:
The Sages taught: Four entered the orchard, i.e., dealt with the loftiest secrets of Torah, and they are as follows: Ben Azzai; and ben Zoma; Aḥer, the other, a name for Elisha ben Avuya; and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva, the senior among them, said to them: When, upon your arrival in the upper worlds, you reach pure marble stones, do not say: Water, water, although they appear to be water, because it is stated: “He who speaks falsehood shall not be established before My eyes” (b. Chagigah 14b)9
This literary survey, while quick, depicts consistent themes connected to cosmology and their role in heavenly visions and journeys, beginning with some of the earliest Ancient Near Eastern literature and persisting all the way into New Testament and Rabbinic literature beyond antiquity.
It serves as a reminder that these texts, although representing at times very different traditions, remain deeply connected at some of the most fundamental levels. Themes of the grandest cosmologies and the literary world that they shaped through millennia of reception and reinterpretation remain a significant and meaningful starting point for readers who wish to understand the people and the cultures that produced them.
Hetherington, Norriss S. Cosmology: Historical, Literary, Philosophical, Religious, and Scientific Perspectives (p. 43) Garland Pub, 1993
Wright, J. Edward The Early History of Heaven (p. 53) Oxford University Press, 2000
Jacobsen, Thorkild The Sumerian King List University of Chicago Press, 1939
Goff, Matthew “Heavenly Mysteries and Otherwordly Journeys Interpreting 1 and 2 Corinthians in Relation to Jewish Apocalypticism” in Boccaccini, Gabriele and Carlos A. Segovia (eds.) Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle Paul as a Figure of Second Temple Judaism (p.143) Fortress Press, 2016
García Martínez, Florentino The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (p. 897) Brill, 1999
Kim, Doosuk Appraisal in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 and Examining Intertextual Relations to Jewish Mystic Texts (pp. 28-29) McMaster Divinity College, 2020
Scholem, Gershom G. Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (pp. 14-19) Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965