Date Published: 29 May 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/heaven
Access Date: August 19, 2019
Additional Reading General works
Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A History, 2nd ed. (2001), treats the idea of heaven from ancient Judaism to contemporary Christianity. Jeffrey Burton Russell, A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence (1997), explores views of heaven from late antiquity to the Middle Ages, culminating in Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Alan F. Segal, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in the Religions of the West (2004), traces the development of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic conceptions of the afterlife with attention to their social and political implications. J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven (2000), examines ideas of heaven in the ancient world (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Israelite, Persian, and Greco-Roman) and in early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Robert Hughes, Heaven and Hell in Western Art (1968), provides a copiously illustrated introduction to artistic representations of heaven. Carol Zaleski and Philip Zaleski (eds.), The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times (2000), is a collection of primary texts from world literature, including scriptures, myths, prayers, poems, hymns, and fictional treatments. Heaven in world religions
Recent scholarship on ancient Egyptian beliefs concerning heaven and a blessed afterlife is presented in Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, trans. by David Lorton (1999; originally published in German, 1997). Ancient Near Eastern, Israelite, and rabbinic conceptions of a heavenly afterlife are discussed in Klaas Spronk, Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (1986); George W.E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (1972); and Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israeclass="underline" The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (2006), which argues for the biblical roots of Jewish resurrection belief. John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd ed. (1998); Adela Yarbro Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (1996); and Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (1993), discuss the place of heaven in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature.
Medieval Christian visions of heaven are treated in Howard Rollin Patch, The Other World, According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature (1950, reissued 1970). Eileen Gardiner (ed.), Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante (1989), makes available a collection of the major medieval Christian vision narratives in English translation. Robert Easting, Visions of the Other World in Middle English (1997), provides an annotated bibliography of the English tradition. Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (1995), explores the beatific vision along with other aspects of Christian resurrection hope. Jerry L. Walls, Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (2002), brings Christian faith and analytical philosophy to bear upon belief in heaven.
Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (1981, reissued 2002), examines Islamic conceptions of heaven. Wendy Doniger-O’Flaherty (ed.), Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (1980), provides historical perspective on classical Hindu eschatology. Bimala C. Law, Heaven and Hell in Buddhist Perspective (1925, reissued 1973), surveys Buddhist traditions. Luis O. Gómez (trans.), Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light (1996), provides English translations of and commentary on the Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Sukhavati-vyuha sutras, key texts in the Pure Land tradition. Chinese conceptions of heaven and blissful immortality are treated in Michael Loewe, Ways to Paradise: The Chinese Quest for Immortality (1979), which draws upon archaeological findings as well as textual sources. Carol Zaleski