[Wondergirl]

John Hagee, Les Fel, Joseph Prince, Charles Stanley, John Darby Jack VanEmp..Perry Stone

I'm in mainstream Christianity and have heard only of Hagee from the news about his anti-gay beliefs and that Hurricane Katrina was God's judgment on New Orleans.

[dwashbur]

No speculation at all, there are dozens of verses in the bible, we could go on to Rev also.

I don't have my text book, actually just studied the three heavens in a college class this summer but I packed the book away, it is for from obscure and it is a fairly well set doctrine about the use of the word heaven throughout the bible.

The firmament, Earths Atmosphere -which is the immediate sky, where the “fowls of the heaven” (Genesis 2:19; 7:3,23; Psalms 8:8, etc.), “the eagles of heaven” (Lamentations 4:19), it is our atmosphere that surrounds the earth.

I don't see anything here that describes this as a "first" heaven. I don't see any numbers at all.

The second heaven is the starry heavens, where our atmosphere ends. It is the heavens in which the sun, moon, and stars are fixed in orbit. The stars are seemingly endless and the distance between all of them is staggering no wonder the Bible states Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” In ancient times people were in awe of the starry expanse, today we know how immense this really is.

You have a big problem here. You just called both your "first" and "second" heavens by the term "firmament," better translated as "expanse," and both use the Hebrew word RAQIA`. We know from other ancient sources that people of that time considered the sky to be basically a big bowl set over the earth, and the RAQIA` included both the dome with the stars and sun etc. embedded in it, and the space below it all the way down to the earth. There's also the matter of Hebrew poetry in Psalm 19:1. I'll try to explain this for those readers who aren't Hebrew geeks like me.

Hebrew poetry used parallelism, which is to say, you write a line, then the second line says something about it. The most common, and the one we have here, is a restatement: say the same thing as the first line, but in different words. So we have:

The heavens declare the glory of God
The expanse shows his handiwork.

Two sides of a coin, both saying the same thing. But just so there was no mistake, the writer used a device called chiasmus. In this, you say the first line normally, but you say the second line in reverse, making it clear that you are saying the same thing over again. In Hebrew it comes out

The heavens declare the glory of God
His handiwork shows the expanse

It really doesn't work in English because word order is a lot more important in English than it was in Hebrew. Better English to show how this works would be

His handiwork is shown by the expanse.

The important thing about this is, in this verse the "heavens" and the "firmament" are the same thing. There's no difference between this "heavens" and the one in Genesis 1 where the birds fly. So looking at the Hebrew of the verses you use, there's no way to get two different heavens out of this.

I might also point out that again, there's no number associated with any of these "heavens."

Third Heaven - This is where God and the holy angels (and creatures) and spirits of just men dwell. It is called “The heaven of heavens,” (Deuteronomy 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Psalms 115:16; 148:4). (1Kings 8:27) - “The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.” (Psalm 2:4) The One enthroned in heaven laughs; The LORD scoffs at them.”

Again there's no number. The truth is, we have no idea how many "heavens" there might be. Paul said the man he was talking about was caught up to the "third heaven." We still don't know what that means. For all we know there's 21,840 of them. The Bible does indeed call God's dwelling place "heaven" but that's as much as we know. That maybe Paul's "third heaven" or it may be scads of heavens beyond it. We just don't know. We do know, though, that the first and second ones that you mentioned above are the same thing, so there's no real way to get two numbered heavens out of those passages. Sorry.

[Fr_Chuck]

I don't see anything here that describes this as a "first" heaven. I don't see any numbers at all.



You have a big problem here. You just called both your "first" and "second" heavens by the term "firmament," better translated as "expanse," and both use the Hebrew word RAQIA`. We know from other ancient sources that people of that time considered the sky to be basically a big bowl set over the earth, and the RAQIA` included both the dome with the stars and sun etc. embedded in it, and the space below it all the way down to the earth. There's also the matter of Hebrew poetry in Psalm 19:1. I'll try to explain this for those readers who aren't Hebrew geeks like me.

Hebrew poetry used parallelism, which is to say, you write a line, then the second line says something about it. The most common, and the one we have here, is a restatement: say the same thing as the first line, but in different words. So we have:




The heavens declare the glory of God
The expanse shows his handiwork.

Two sides of a coin, both saying the same thing. But just so there was no mistake, the writer used a device called chiasmus. In this, you say the first line normally, but you say the second line in reverse, making it clear that you are saying the same thing over again. In Hebrew it comes out

The heavens declare the glory of God
his handiwork shows the expanse

It really doesn't work in English because word order is a lot more important in English than it was in Hebrew. Better English to show how this works would be

His handiwork is shown by the expanse.

The important thing about this is, in this verse the "heavens" and the "firmament" are the same thing. There's no difference between this "heavens" and the one in Genesis 1 where the birds fly. So looking at the Hebrew of the verses you use, there's no way to get two different heavens out of this.

I might also point out that again, there's no number associated with any of these "heavens."



Again there's no number. The truth is, we have no idea how many "heavens" there might be. Paul said the man he was talking about was caught up to the "third heaven." We still don't know what that means. For all we know there's 21,840 of them. The Bible does indeed call God's dwelling place "heaven" but that's as much as we know. That maybe Paul's "third heaven" or it may be scads of heavens beyond it. We just don't know. We do know, though, that the first and second ones that you mentioned above are the same thing, so there's no real way to get two numbered heavens out of those passages. Sorry.

Sorry, no, you are just not trying to see it, no surprise but it is a common teaching of every Christian faith I know of, there are dozens of verses, and use of various terms for heaven in the OT.



http://www.cupofwrath.com/risen-dust/03-heavens.php

http://www.kjvbible.org/firmament.html

http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow....eaven-is-like/

[Athos]

I don't see anything here that describes this as a "first" heaven. I don't see any numbers at all.. Sorry.

Always nice to have a genuine scholar here to wade through the uninformed, although always fervently believed, bad Biblical interpretation.

I know little about the technical aspects of the Psalms, but I do know about chanting them in a monastery in the dark of the night and being moved by this wonderful religious poetry.

[dwashbur]

Sorry, no, you are just not trying to see it, no surprise but it is a common teaching of every Christian faith I know of, there are dozens of verses, and use of various terms for heaven in the OT.

Trust me, I've seen them. And I've examined them minutely. And they don't say what you think they say.

The Three Heavens in the Bible

"So biblical heaven can refer to either the sky, outer-space, or Paradise depending on the context in which it is used."

Excuse me, but the ancient Hebrews had no concept of outer space. As far as they knew, the sun, the moon and the stars were affixed to the dome above the earth, probably no further away than the birds could fly. This page really doesn't prove anything; it just says something and cites a bunch of KJV verses that supposedly support it. But they don't; not one of them says anything akin to "this is first heaven, this is second heaven" etc. Most of them are poetic, and using hyperbolic language to express the inexpressible. And of course, somebody tries to interpret them literally even though literal interpretation of passages like these winds up just looking silly.


The Firmament, Third Heaven, and Structure of Things Biblical

Seriously? You're going with this one? Ooooookay. Here we go.

'On the second day of the creation, the Lord God "divided" the waters (plural) of the great "deep" into two parts with a "firmament" in the midst. According to Genesis 1:10, both the waters that were upon the face of the Earth and the waters which He placed ABOVE the firmament He called "Seas":

"And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good."
(Gen 1:10 KJV)

This is important to understand. We know that the waters on the Earth are called "
(Gen 1:10 KJV)

This is important to understand. We know that the waters on the Earth are called " in the Bible, but there is also another "Sea" in the Bible, but there is also another "Sea" that is spoken of in the Scriptures, and that one is above the firmament. (Special note: Notice that the word "above the firmament" is capitalized at Genesis 1:10 in the KJV Bible). '

You do realize that this person thinks the waters "seas." are actually surrounding God's throne, and not clouds like any good interpreter would conclude? Talk about a cure for which there is no known disease; yes, it says "Cantonese" and that's about it. That's this guy's level of Hebrew knowledge. He can copy something out of Strong's and cite the King James. That gets him precisely nowhere, and makes the page a joke.

What Does the Bible say Heaven is Like?

This one doesn't even try to explain the first two, it just takes figurative language in the end of Revelation and tries to make it literal. No help there, either.

And you haven't answered my question about the " These people knew there was more than one sea on the earth! Duh. I'm sorry, Chuck. I have a lot of respect for you, but I can't take this page seriously. This guy knows as much about Hebrew as I know about Cantonese. Which is to say, nothing; I can spell " How do you justify giving it two different meanings in essentially the same sentence, when there are no linguistic indicators to suggest that it's so?