Here is a Spiritual Conundrum submitted to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life by a reader named JoRena:
Hello, Lee. I’ve been reading on your website for a few years since my husband of 47 years went to Heaven. And I cannot wait to be with him again. We had a very deep and abiding love all those years.
My question is, if all the things John saw in Revelation are in the spirit, please explain the part of the second coming of Jesus where it says every eye will see him. Is He coming to earth?
And on another note, is the earth flat? I know heavenly bodies are mentioned in the Bible, but are literal planets mentioned?
Hi JoRena,
First, I’m glad the articles here have given you comfort and hope for reuniting with your beloved husband, who has moved on to the spiritual world. For those reading in, I have posted many articles about marriage as an eternal relationship. Here is one to start with: “How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?”
On to your questions. Really, they’re all connected. Revelation 1:7 says:
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. So it is to be. Amen.
If the earth is flat, this might be physically possible. Jesus could appear very high in the clouds, so that the eyes of everyone on the flat expanse of the earth could see him—especially if he came in “radiance and glory.”
But what if the earth is spherical? (Spoiler: It is!) No matter how high in the clouds Jesus appeared, most of the earth’s population would not see him. Only the eyes of people who were within a few dozen miles of the particular clouds he came in would see him. For everyone else, he would be hidden by the curvature of the earth.
Does this mean the Bible is ridiculously outdated and wrong, as many skeptics and atheists say, while pointing at passages such as this one?
Only if we take it literally. But if we read it spiritually, this verse takes on a whole new—and much deeper—meaning. And if the Bible is the Word of God, as Christians believe, doesn’t it make sense that it is meant to deliver a spiritual message?
The earth is not flat
Let’s dispose of this one right away: The earth is not flat. It’s spherical. (Technically, it’s an oblate spheroid.)
We humans have known this for over 2,000 years. By now there is such overwhelming evidence for a spherical earth that no reasonable person who has any real knowledge of the facts can possibly doubt it.
Of course, some people are absolutely determined to ignore both facts and reality. It’s best just to leave these people to their fantasies. It is not possible to have a rational conversation with them.
Meanwhile, here is an excellent and entertaining video by astronomer Michelle Thaller answering this very question:
And no, the Bible doesn’t mention planets. The Bible was written before we knew that those bright wandering “stars” in the sky are really entire spherical worlds of their own, orbiting the sun together with our planet Earth.
The people of the Bible thought the earth was flat
As covered in the video, two thousand years ago the ancient Greek philosophers already knew that the earth was spherical. They had even calculated how big it is.
However, that knowledge didn’t necessarily filter down to ordinary people. And the earlier books of the Old Testament were written centuries before the Greeks figured out the true size and shape of the earth—not to mention that the Old Testament was written in a place and culture far from Greece.
It would be tedious to go through all the Bible passages suggesting that the people of the Bible thought of the earth as a flat disk covered by a dome that formed the sky. Here are just a few that mention “the corners of the earth”:
Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice
and the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
Under the whole heaven he lets it loose,
and his lightning to the corners of the earth. (Job 37:2–3)He will raise a signal for the nations
and will assemble the outcasts of Israel
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth. (Isaiah 11:12)After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree. (Revelation 7:1)
“Four corners” here doesn’t necessarily mean four literal corners of a square. More likely they mean the far ends of the four cardinal directions—north, south, east, and west—on an earth shaped like a flat disk. Since the sky was seen as a dome, it is likely that the earth was seen as round rather than square.
The main point is that a sphere does not have “corners” or “ends.” It just keeps going. There are no “four corners of the earth” that the four angels could stand at.
But the people of Bible times didn’t know that. They thought of the earth as a flat expanse about 1,400 miles (about 2,200 kilometers) across, surrounded by a great ocean. See: “How Big is the New Jerusalem?” And so, in their poetry and prophecy they pictured the earth as a flat disk.
Many of today’s flat-earthers are not particularly religious. But the ones who are religious often deny the obvious reality that the earth is spherical because they interpret the Bible literally, and think it requires them to believe that the earth is flat.
“Earth” is a mistranslation
However, sticking with the literal meaning of the Bible for a little longer, I should point out that even using the word “earth” is a mistranslation of the Bible in today’s English.
Today, when most people hear the word “earth,” they think of a planet: a huge, solid, spherical object floating in space. But that is not the meaning of the biblical Hebrew and Greek words commonly translated “earth.” As mentioned just above, the people of Bible times did not have any concept of a planet. Even the word “planet” comes from a Greek word meaning “wanderer.” The “planets” were just stars that “wandered around” instead of staying in one place relative to the other stars.
In today’s English, the Hebrew and Greek words commonly translated “earth” should most often be translated “land.” This is a more accurate representation of what the people of Bible times were picturing in their mind when they wrote, and read, these words. They did not picture a spherical earth. They pictured a flat expanse of land on which they and all other people lived.
Also, the biblical Hebrew and Greek words commonly translated “heaven” are the same words that are translated “sky.” Unless a particular verse is clearly talking about what we think of as heaven, or the afterlife, those words should be translated “sky,” not “heaven.”
Putting the two together, when traditional versions of the Bible talk about “the heavens and the earth,” it should be translated “the sky and the land.” This gives a much more accurate and realistic idea of what the Bible writers were picturing in their minds.
For example, the very first verse of the Bible should be translated:
In the beginning, God created the sky and the land.
Or as some scholars would prefer:
When God began to create the sky and the land . . .
And the famous passage near the end of the last book of the Bible should be translated:
Then I saw a new sky and a new land, for the first sky and the first land had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21:1)
If in your mind you substitute “sky and land” for “heaven and earth” in most Bible passages that use those words, you will get a much clearer picture of what the Bible is talking about. Even Revelation 1:7 should be translated:
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes on the land will wail on account of him. So it is to be. Amen.
It is not talking about all the tribes on a spherical earth. It is talking about all the tribes on the flat expanse of the land. Since John was not thinking about “the earth,” but about the land, what he wrote made sense as a visual image.
Revelation was never meant to be taken literally
And yet, even though John was painting a vivid visual image, his words in the book of Revelation were never meant to be taken literally. They are spiritual visions representing spiritual things.
This is not just opinion or speculation. John himself tells us multiple times throughout the book that he saw these things when he was “in the spirit.” In other words, he saw them in the spiritual world, with his spiritual eyes. For example:
I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. (Revelation 1:10)
At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! (Revelation 4:2)
He carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. (Revelation 17:3)
In the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. (Revelation 21:10)
And though I have used a traditional translation here, where it says “heaven” in two of these quotes, John was really seeing a throne in the sky, and the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of the sky. That is the visual scene John is painting for us. Translating it as “heaven” in these passages obscures John’s vivid picture.
“Heaven” and “earth” mean the sky and the land of the spiritual world
Even when John wrote the well-known words, “then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Revelation 21:1), what he really saw was a new sky and a new land, both of which are the sky and the land of the spiritual world. Remember, John saw all these things in the spirit, meaning in the spiritual world. He didn’t see any of this happening in the physical world.
There is no warrant in the book of Revelation itself to read John’s descriptions as if they were something that was going to take place here on earth. He is constantly telling us that he saw these things in the spirit. Even when he talks about “the earth,” he is really talking about the land of the spiritual world.
For example, when he says (in the New Revised Standard Version):
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Revelation 12:7–9)
This is the visual picture John is really painting for us:
And war broke out in the sky; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in the sky. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the land, and his angels were thrown down with him.
John is painting a scene for us of a great battle in the sky, in which the dragon and his followers are defeated and hurled down to the land below.
Of course, all these things do have a spiritual significance. But before we can properly understand the meaning of what John describes in the book of Revelation, we must have an accurate understanding of exactly what he is describing. That’s why it is important to understand that in most places in the book of Revelation, “heaven” really means “sky,” and “earth” really means “land.”
Is Jesus coming in the literal sky?
Now let’s return to these words from Revelation 1:7:
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him.
The clouds, of course, are up in the sky. The visual picture John is painting for us is of Jesus appearing to everyone high up in the sky, in the clouds.
Is this going to happen literally?
As explained at the beginning of this post, that would be literally impossible. There is no place in any of the clouds of this earth that Jesus could appear and be seen by every eye on earth. If the earth were flat, that would be a possibility. But the earth is not flat. It is spherical.
This is one way that we know that these words are not meant to be taken literally.
Another way we know is that everything John describes in the book of Revelation is seen “in the spirit,” meaning in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, it is possible for every eye to see Jesus, because all of heaven is arrayed around the Lord God Jesus Christ, who forms the Sun and Center of everything in the spiritual world.
If John were describing a literal, physical event, what he described would be impossible. But in the spiritual world, what he described is very much possible. It is therefore no coincidence that he keeps telling us that he saw these things “in the spirit.”
Perhaps I’m pounding this point into the ground. If so, I keep pounding away at it because if you don’t understand and accept this very basic point, you will not be able to understand anything John wrote in the book of Revelation.
You will also not be able to understand the prophecies of the end times that Jesus himself gave in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21:5–36. These passages in the Gospels about the end times are sometimes referred to as “the little Apocalypse,” meaning a small versions book of Revelation. In Greek, the word for “Revelation” is Apocalypsis, or the Apocalypse. And just like the book of Revelation itself, the “little Apocalypses” in the Gospels are describing spiritual events, not physical ones.
After all, as the very first words of the book of Revelation say, it is “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 1:1). Why would Jesus say one thing in the Gospels, and a different thing in the book of Revelation?
Based on all of this, I can give you a definitive answer to the question, “Is Jesus coming in the literal clouds of the literal sky?”
The answer to that question is a firm “No.” The Bible itself does not support this interpretation of its words.
To pound this point into the ground: Jesus is never going to appear in the clouds of the sky of this planet Earth. It hasn’t happened for nearly 2,000 years since these prophecies were made, and it’s not going to happen in the next 2,000 years either, or in the 2,000 years after that.
That’s because these prophecies are all about spiritual events. They are about Jesus Christ coming “in spirit and in truth” (see John 4:23–24).
What does it mean for Jesus to come spiritually, not literally? For a few modest thoughts on that huge question, please see:
Is the World Coming to an End? What about the Second Coming?
What is the spiritual meaning of “eyes”?
If all these prophecies are meant to be read spiritually, not literally, what does Revelation 1:7 mean when it says that “every eye will see him”?
Literally, we know that it is impossible for every physical eye on earth to see Jesus if he came physically to this planet.
Is it possible for every spiritual eye to see him?
Yes, as explained above, this is possible. But the reality of the situation is that even all spiritual eyes won’t see him, because some people are spiritually blind, and are looking in the opposite direction. Consider these passages in the Bible:
Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.” (Deuteronomy 29:2–4)
Clearly, the Lord did give the people of Israel physical eyes that could see. So what eyes is this passage talking about that the Lord has not given them?
The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, you are living in the midst of a rebellious house who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house. (Ezekiel 12:1–2)
Here we learn what causes those eyes not to see: being rebellious against God.
They do not know, nor do they comprehend, for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment . . . . (Isaiah 44:18–19)
It is not these people’s physical eyes that are shut. It is their mind’s eyes, so that they cannot understand, and have no knowledge or discernment.
Go and say to this people: Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand. Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed. (Isaiah 6:9–10)
Jesus himself quotes these words in the Gospels:
With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:
“You will indeed listen but never understand, and you will indeed look but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes, so that they might not look with their eyes, and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them.”
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. (Matthew 13:14–16)
Have these people closed their physical eyes? Obviously not. This prophecy is about a people whose heart and mind have grown dull, so that they cannot comprehend with their minds.
In other words, these passages are talking about people’s spiritual eyes. They are talking about the mind’s eyes.
The mind’s eye is our intellect. What we see with our spiritual eyes is knowledge and discernment, comprehension and understanding.
When we read about “eyes” in the Bible, then, we can understand that it means our ability to see and understand things, and to accept them as truth. People who are stubborn and rebellious against God do not have eyes to see because they have closed their eyes to the truth that God reveals to us especially in the Bible, and also in the many sacred writings of humanity.
“Every eye will see him”
Now we’re ready to understand what Revelation 1:7 means when it says, “Every eye will see him.” Here is how Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) explains it:
“And every eye will see him.” This means that everyone who understands divine truth because they love it will accept Jesus.
In the Bible’s spiritual meaning, “eye” does not mean our eyes, but our understanding. That’s why “every eye will see him” means that everyone who understands divine truth because they love it will accept Jesus. After all, these are the only people who both understand and accept him.
Other people may very well see and understand, but they will not accept Jesus. These are the ones referred to in the next line, which says that even the ones who pierced him will see him. “The ones who pierced him” means people who have false beliefs. (Apocalypse Revealed #25)
If our “eye” means our intellect or understanding, then “seeing Jesus” means understanding him, but also accepting him in our mind and heart.
It is true that “every eye will see him” in the sense that anyone and everyone can understand that there was a man named Jesus whom Christians worship as God, or as the Son of God. Even today, very few people in the world are unaware of the name of Jesus, and of what Christians believe about him.
However, not everyone in the world accepts Jesus as God, or as the Son of God. At best, many non-Christians see Jesus as a prophet, or an inspired man, or even an “avatar” of God. These people do have some understanding of Jesus, which means that they do “see” him in a purely intellectual sense.
However, they do not fully understand who Jesus is: that he is “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).
Jesus is not just a wise and enlightened man. He is not one of many “avatars” of God who have appeared over history. He is the only Son of God—which, when understood spiritually, means that he is God’s only human presence with us.
The eyes that will truly and fully see him are the spiritual eyes of people who “understand divine truth because they love it.”
“Every eye,” then, does not mean the physical eyes of every single person on earth. It means the understanding of people whose spiritual eyes—the eyes of their mind—are open to see who Jesus Christ truly is. These are the people who will worship Jesus in spirit and in truth.
For my own testimony to who Jesus Christ truly is, please see:
The Logic of Love: Why God became Jesus
This article is a response to a spiritual conundrum submitted by a reader.
For further reading:
- Is the World Coming to an End? What about the Second Coming?
- The Evangelicals are Right: The World IS Coming to an End!
- How Big is the New Jerusalem?
- According to Emanuel Swedenborg, who is the man Jesus, born of a woman, who died and then was resurrected?
- Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? What about that Holy Spirit?
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
dear Reverend Lee,
hello. I don’t know if I asked you this question before but I might have and if I did please forgive me for the repeat question but in heaven can I have a spiritual body with a female copy of my earthly head/face/hair? I feel like this male face I have is a mask and I feel like if I had a female face I would be much happier and confident in who I am.
sincerely,
Luke/Faye
hi,
I’ve actually started to talk to my therapist about this and I realize now that I just want a clean shaven face with a female hairstyle. I’m just gender nonconforming. Can I have a clean shaven face and female hairstyle forever in heaven?
Hi Luke,
If that reflects your character and personality, then yes.
Why doesn’t the Bible make a clear distinction between the “physical world” and the “spiritual world”? Why doesn’t the Bible give such cosmology as the as the three planes of existence (divine, spiritual, and physical) that are given by Swedenborg? Why isn’t Aion Pneumatikos or Kosmos Pneumatikos (or whatever the Greek phrase would be for “spiritual world”) in the New Testament, and why isn’t the Hebrew equivalent in the Old Testament?
Maybe “Heaven” never the entire spiritual world including land, but ALWAYS means EITHER the sky of the physical world OR the sky of the spiritual world.
Hi World Questioner,
Which has been more successful in reaching the great mass of ordinary people: the Bible, or the many theological treatises that have been written by Christian theologians over the years? Which is read more? Which has had more influence on humanity?
Hands down, the Bible eclipses the entire mass of theological treatises that have ever been written. It eclipses the great mass of sermons that have ever been preached. The Bible has had more influence on people’s individual lives and on human society than all of those human productions put together.
Why?
Precisely because it doesn’t take up its readers’ and listeners’ time defining theological concepts and laying out a structured, orderly cosmology and concept of God. If it did, very few people would read it or pay any attention to it, just as very few people read or pay attention to all the Christian summa theologica that have ever been written.
The Bible speaks, not to the human intellect, but to the human heart, and to human life. There is plenty of material there for intellectuals to analyze and explicate—as they have for over two thousand years now. But the Bible itself is about human experience, and about our relationship with God. That is why it, and not the various theological treatises, is the primary influence on the spiritual life of Western society, and by extension, of much of the world.
Let’s do one at a time. Aion pneumatikos – or would dit be Aionos pneumatikos? Kosmos peumatikos? Aion and Kosmos are the two Greek words for “world,” and pneumatikos is the Greek word for “spirit.”
It seems unlikely that God would leave such important/major/useful (for lack of a better term) information from the Bible.
Hi World Questioner,
The Bible, especially the New Testament, talks about spirit very often. Just because it doesn’t use a lot of technical terms, that doesn’t mean the Bible doesn’t talk about spiritual things as compared to physical things.
Is the definite article ever attached to the Hebrew word for Heaven in the Old Testament, or the Greek word in the New Testament?
Hi World Questioner,
Yes, this is very common in both languages, though the Greek definite article does not always work the same way as it does in English.
In the very first verse of the Old Testament, the very first use of shamayim has a definite article in front of it, hence the traditional translation “the heavens and the earth.”
In the New Testament, in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9, ouranois has a definite article.
These are just two examples of hundreds that could be given.
I checked out https://carm.org/about-science/what-is-the-flat-earth-theory-is-it-true-and-is-it-biblical/. I am preparing an email to send to them linking to this blog post of yours. I also tell them that “ouranos” in the bible simply means “sky.” It doesn’t mean the land of the spiritual world.
Hi World Questioner,
From the linked article:
Gradually, the truth is getting through even to the biblical literalists. If they don’t shut off their brain entirely, and accept that settled science about the universe isn’t some conspiracy of Satan to deceive us, then they can gradually begin to see the deeper spiritual truth within the figurative language of the Bible. This website is a long way from that, but at least it’s not quite as shrouded in darkness as some of the other fundamentalist websites.
Doesn’t the Bible refer to a “Third Heaven”? When the Hebrew or Greek word for Heaven is singular, it means “sky,”, and when it is plural, it means “cosmos,” does it not?
Hi World Questioner,
Paul mentions the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:1–4. In that context, “heaven” clearly means heaven in the spiritual world, not the physical sky.
The Hebrew word for “heaven” is a dual form, which is why it is commonly translated “the heavens.” But that’s just a grammatical thing. It’s not literally talking about multiple skies. Still, it suggests that the spiritual heaven has layers or levels rather than being a single undifferentiated place.
Couldn’t the Bible at least say “all these things happen in spirit” (pneumatikos), even if not “in the spiritual world” (aionos pneumatikos or kosmos pneumatikos)? Or could it say scripture is about events that “happen in spirit”? Or what?
Hi World Questioner,
The Bible could say that. But then everyone who is physical-minded would just ignore it as unreal and irrelevant.
Dear Rev. Lee,
I have two questions: 1. Can you pray for me? I’m suffering from extreme isolation and loneliness and no matter when I try to connect with people I just can’t connect with them. I’ve developed some health problems (like not eating a lot) because of my loneliness and I feel like my autism is a curse.
2. Can my spiritual family be women-only? I ask because I’ve always been more comfortable around women all my life and I feel like my temperament/personality mostly matches a woman’s. That’s why I consider myself nonbinary. Also, could the women possibly look like the female characters in the movies that have given me strength and comfort (ex. Chiyoko Fujiwara from Millennium Actress-a animated kids movie).
Thanks,
Luke/Faye
Hi Luke/Faye,
Yes, I will keep you in my prayers. Autism certainly does make life in this world more difficult. But you will not have to suffer from it forever. In heaven this world’s illnesses and sufferings are taken away.
About your second question, I don’t have God’s eternal vision. I can’t say what your future life will be like. All I can say is that in the spiritual world you will live where you are happiest, and your surroundings will be an expression of your own personality and character. This also means that you will live in community with other people who think and feel similarly to the way you do.
Will it be women-only? Probably not. But the other men there will be compatible with you. Otherwise they would not be in the same community.
Will they be like Chiyoko Fujiwara? Well, they’ll be real people, not fictional characters. But fictional characters are based on the character traits of real human beings. If a particular fictional character represents something of your character and aspirations, it’s reasonable to think that in your heaven there will be real people who have those characteristics.
I should add, though, that this depends upon you developing those characteristics within yourself. The good characters in our movies, novels, anime, and so on are meant to inspire people to have those characteristics in real life. Obviously we ordinary humans are not superheroes who have superpowers. But in our own more ordinary human way we can represent and express similar traits of moral strength and virtue.
What I would say to you, then, is that if you want to live in a heaven where there are humans who represent the strengths and virtues of the fictional characters that inspire you, I would suggest that during your lifetime here on earth you focus on doing the work of developing those virtuous characteristics within yourself, and expressing them in your life.
I realize you have some limitations due to your autism. But clearly you are high-functioning enough to think about moral and spiritual things, and to struggle with the human issues you face in your life. This means that you have human rationality and agency, and can choose what direction you want to take with your life, even if it is within the limitation of your particular mental condition (autism).
Life on this earth is not easy, and it’s not meant to be easy. This is where we engage in the struggle to develop ourselves into good and thoughtful people. If you take inspiration from your favorite characters to face your own difficult struggles with strength and courage, then when your earthly struggles are over, you will enter a realm and a community where you can enjoy the company of people who have ideals similar to yours, and who have also done the hard work of putting their ideals into action in their lives.
If I am apparently poorly designed by God, then it is actually a curse, not simply a poor design. God gave me a poor design on purpose, as a curse of sin.
I’m just biologically impaired. Impulsive, emotionally disregulated, inattentive, and such. All these autistic traits are a curse of sin.
I am cursed. If I never sinned and always obeyed God 100.(infinity-zeros)%, I wouldn’t suffer any of these problems. I would just prosper peacefully for eons, with eternal joy and endless pleasure.
Hi World Questioner,
God did not give you a poor design. Your autistic traits are not a curse of sin, if by that you mean your own sin. It is possible that human evil had an effect upon your genetics, bringing about your autism. It’s also possible that it is simply the result of natural causes, and has nothing to do with sin in the usual way of thinking about it. That’s because the physical world operates according to its own laws, which are often resistant to spiritual laws and to God’s influence. From a broad perspective that is due to human sin. But it doesn’t mean that someone sinned so that you were born autistic. See:
How can we have Faith when So Many Bad Things happen to So Many Good People? Part 2
Start reading at the heading, “2. Violence, pain, and suffering exist in the universe because the universe was created for us.”
On your other point, it’s not realistic to think that you would never sin. But even if you technically didn’t sin, you, like all of us, were born self-centered and greedy, and you must be reborn so that you put love for God and the neighbor first instead. This will involve a greater or lesser amount of pain and suffering in this life because we don’t easily or willingly give up our own selfishness and greed. We have to learn the hard way by experiencing its consequences in our life. Only then do we become willing to be reformed and reborn.
This life is not meant to be a realm of peaceful prosperity and endless pleasure. It is meant to test and challenge us to give up our natural self-absorption and begin thinking about other people’s happiness and well-being as much we think about as our own. And when we start thinking that way, we must roll up our sleeves and do the hard work of evicting the remaining stains of selfishness, pride, ego, and greed from our character, and let the Lord replace them with love, compassion, understanding, and concern for our fellow human beings. Plus we must do the actual work of loving and serving our fellow human beings in practical and useful ways, each in our own unique way.
If we do the work in front of us here on earth, then we will have a life of eternal happiness in heaven. Not an idle, useless life, but a life of active and loving service to others, which will be the source of our greatest satisfaction, happiness, and joy.
Dear Rev. Lee,
Hello. I have one last question: In Heaven can I have a completely biologically female face that is different from my male face but is my true face on my spiritual body. I might have asked you this question before but I really need a female face. I don’t feel complete without it. Also, sorry for asking so many questions.
Hi Luke,
These are not questions I can answer with any certainty. For that, I would need God’s infinite vision into your true character and into your future, which I don’t have. All I can say is that in heaven your face will perfectly express your true inner character.
Do Hebrew and Greek actually use the same words for Heaven and sky? Or are they two Greek words that are homographs and two Hebrew words that are homographs? The words for Heaven and sky are homographs? Can we be sure whether they were homonyms or homophones?
Hi World Questioner,
In both Hebrew and Greek a single word means both “sky” and “heaven.” In Hebrew it is shamayim. In Greek it is ouranos. There’s no difference in spelling, pronunciation, or anything else. In each case, it’s the exact same word that can mean either “sky” or “heaven.”
Here’s an example in English. This language uses the same word “coach” for both a bus and for a sports coach.
Hi World Questioner,
That’s not how it is with the Hebrew and Greek words for sky/heaven. The sky and heaven are closely related to each other, not completely different like a bus and a sports trainer. The sky is a physical image of and metaphor for heaven. In Swedenborgian terms, the sky corresponds to heaven.
Hey Lee, I’m sorry for the fact that my comment has nothing to do with the above article but I have a question for you and I wasn’t sure where to post it. My question is based on chapter 30 of Heaven and Hell about the wisdom of heaven’s angels. Firstly when Swedenborg says “wisdom” and “intelligence” what does he mean by those words? What is wisdom and what is intelligence and how do they differ from each other? I think that intelligence, as the word is commonly used, basically means whatever a person scores on an IQ test and relates to things like learning speed and the ability to solve complex problems. When Swedenborg uses the word “intelligence” does he mean the definition that I used or does he mean something else?
Also Swedenborg uses the term “simple people” . What does he mean by that? Does he mean people who are unintelligent or does he mean people who are uneducated, because I think there can be a difference.
Furthermore, is there any kind of connection between wisdom and intelligence and morality? Swedenborg seems to talk as if there is a connection. Also is there a connection between love or desire and wisdom/intelligence? For example Swedenborg says,
“Yet they are the kinds of things that can be known, and can be understood once they are known, if only the mind takes delight in them; for since delight arises from love, it has a light with it; and for people who love matters of divine and heavenly wisdom, that light radiates from heaven and provides them with enlightenment.”
If there is a connection between love and wisdom/intelligence how does that work in heaven as compared to how it works on earth? I imagine that the interaction of love and intelligence would be much more limited on earth, for example you have some people who are good people but yet they are not very smart and then you have people who are very evil but yet are very smart and vice versa. But I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
Also In the chapter Swedenborg says that people in heaven are tens of thousands of times smarter and wiser than people on earth, roughly speaking. However I’m wondering if a person’s earthly wisdom and intelligence has any connection to how smart and wise they will be in heaven? For example, let’s say a very smart person like Issac Newton and an average person go to heaven. Will Issac Newton still be much more intelligent then the average person or will their intelligence be more equalized?
My last question is what happens to the intelligence of the people in hell? From what I remember Swedenborg seems to go back and forth. On the one hand he says they can rationalize and sometimes says they are crafty but he also says they are insane. Is it possible to be intelligent and insane at the same time? So does the intelligence of the people in hell increase, decrease or stay the same?
Thanks for your time.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and question. As with pretty much everything in Swedenborg’s system, the “truth” side of our mind is divided into three levels, which are mentioned in Heaven and Hell #274 in the chapter you are reading:
Knowledge is what we call information, facts, and data. It is simply things that we know.
Intelligence (traditionally translated “understanding”) is the ability to see all that knowledge as a system, including how different facts relate to each other and what part they play in the whole, not to mention the overall pattern and design that they form.
Wisdom is putting knowledge and understanding to good use in application.
As an analogy, a pile of building materials is like knowledge. It’s just a bunch of materials. A house built from those building materials is like understanding. The facts are all organized into a specific structure, in which each fact has its place. Wisdom is like living in the house. Now the house is actually being used for something good and constructive.
As you can see, each one builds on the one below it in the order. You can’t have intelligence without facts. And you can’t have wisdom without intelligence. Each one takes the one or ones before it to a higher and more complete level.
Wisdom also brings the heart fully into the picture, in that we don’t make good use of our knowledge and intelligence unless we are using them to express some sort of positive love. This is also why angels have wisdom, but evil spirits have only knowledge and understanding; they have no wisdom because they use their knowledge and intelligence only to do evil and selfish things.
To stay on your questions about that for a moment, in hell it seems to be a mixed bag. Some people who were highly intelligent on earth become very stupid in hell. Others seem to retain something of their intelligence, but use it for amassing (impermanent) wealth and power for themselves. Their basic intelligence is still there, but in some it seems to be suppressed and covered over, especially if their knowledge and intelligence was all second-hand from academic type studies, and they had never used any of it to form their own ideas and theories, let alone put any of it into practice in their lives. But people who had developed their own theories, but who were evil at heart, do seem to retain their cognitive abilities even in hell.
But yes, it is possible to be intelligent and insane at the same time. There are Machiavellian types who are brilliant, and use their brilliance to engage in complex and nefarious schemes to gain wealth and power for themselves. This doesn’t entirely disappear in hell. There are some evil spirits who can gain power over others and rally others around them to engage in their schemes because they have more intelligence and drive than the others. But again, their power is impermanent, because as soon as they use it for evil, they are punished, including losing their positions of power.
Hell is just as highly varied as heaven. It’s easy to get a simplistic picture of hell from reading one or another of Swedenborg’s descriptions of it. To get a broader view, it’s necessary to put together all of his descriptions, some of which are quite different from others. This doesn’t mean one or the other description is “wrong.” Just that hell is a huge and highly varied place. I suspect that Swedenborg didn’t spend as much time in hell as in heaven, for obvious reasons, and therefore didn’t provide quite as comprehensive a description of it as he did for heaven. But what he did describe makes it possible for us to put together a pretty good picture of it.
And the picture is that some evil spirits are more knowledgeable and intelligent than others, and they tend to be the ringleaders, whereas others who are less knowledgeable and intelligent tend to be followers. In that way, it is very similar to evil groupings of people here on earth, such as organized crime families.
Knowledge and intelligence also pairs with love and desire, meaning that the smartest people are often the most driven people, and people who don’t have drive tend not to develop even their natural intelligence if they have it.
This touches on your questioning about the connection between love and intelligence. Intelligence does not drive itself. It is driven by love and desire. People who love information and understanding will devote a lot of their time, attention, and energy to acquiring it. People who don’t will not bother learning much. Love is always behind everything we do, including the development of our mind. So people who have great drive commonly gain great knowledge and intelligence compared to people who don’t have much drive.
However, people can have great drive, and become very smart, for selfish and greedy reasons. Someone who wants to become fabulously wealthy, and isn’t living in some “think and grow rich” fantasy world, will devote huge amounts of time and energy to studying money, wealth, markets, and so on, in order to get rich. But if all they want is to get rich, that knowledge will not do them any spiritual good even if it does them material good.
These people are intelligent, but not wise, because wise people devote their lives to making the world a better place for other people in either small or large ways, whereas if selfish and greedy people do any good for the world (which, under divine providence, they usually do), it is only a side-effect of their selfishness and greed, which God and society harness to cause them to, for example, produce useful products and services for other people even if they’re only doing it to make money, and not because they care about the well-being of their company’s customers.
Since we build here on earth the character we will take with us to the spiritual world, yes, people who develop their intelligence here on earth will also be more intelligent in the spiritual world. That’s because they’ve built a character that seeks knowledge and understanding out of a love for it, and this love continues in the afterlife, whereas people who are not very interested in knowledge and intelligence here continue not to be very interested in it in the afterlife either. They may still be good people, but they will be in the lowest “earthly” level of heaven, sort of like blue collar workers here on earth. And yet, even so, as Swedenborg says, they will have more wisdom even than the wisest people on earth, because they have focused their life on doing good, which is what wisdom is all about.
Still, wisdom can do greater things with great knowledge and understanding than it can with only a little. The wisdom of the spiritual angels is whole orders of magnitude greater than that of earthly (traditionally “natural”) angels, and those of heavenly (traditionally “celestial”) angels is whole orders of magnitude greater than that of spiritual angels, based on greater dedication to knowledge and understanding in the case of spiritual angels, and greater dedication to putting that knowledge and understanding to use in serving God and the neighbor in the case of heavenly angels.
I could go on (this is a huge subject!), but I’ll pause for now. I think this much will give you the general idea. If I missed anything important, or you have further thoughts or questions, please don’t hesitate to continue the conversation. I don’t currently have any post on the blog that outlines all of this, so this one is as good a place as any to have that conversation.
Hey Lee, thanks for answering my question. You answered most of it but one thing I’m still wondering about is something that I will call cognitive ability from here on. Cognitive ability is whatever is measured by an IQ test. Some people have a lot of cognitive ability, some people have a small amount of cognitive ability and most people are somewhere in the middle. It seems to be mostly inherited, that is, genetic. Cognitive ability is independent from a person’s motivation but intelligence (as you’ve described it) is related to a person’s motivation. For example if a person is low in cognitive ability but is really driven to learn they won’t get very far no matter how hard they try. It’s like pedaling a bike in first gear, no matter how hard you pedal you’re not going very fast. On the other hand you could have a person who is very high in cognitive ability but has no interest in learning and therefore doesn’t become very intelligent. But if a high cognitive ability person tries even a little bit to learn, they would quickly surpass the low cognitive ability person who is trying as hard as they can. It’s kind of like the high cognitive ability person is riding a bike in high gear while a low cognitive ability person is riding a bike in low gear. The high cognitive ability person could pedal at a leisurely pace and they would go faster than the low cognitive ability person even if they were pedaling their ass off. Intelligence seems to be the product of cognitive ability combined with motivation. Having said all that my question is what happens to a person’s cognitive ability after they die, but more specifically I would like to know if a person’s cognitive ability on earth affects their intelligence and wisdom in heaven. For example someone like Issac Newton obviously had a high amount of both cognitive ability and intelligence, far more than the average person. So if Issac Newton and an average person went to heaven would Issac Newton still be much smarter than the average person or would they be more equal? Furthermore here on earth how intelligent and therefore wise a person can become is limited by their cognitive ability. If they have a lot of cognitive ability they can become quite intelligent. If they have a low amount of it they won’t be able to get as far. Is there any such limitation in Heaven? Or does a person’s cognitive ability expand to enable them to learn whatever wisdom and intelligence they want, in keeping with the quality of their love and desire? My last question is what does Swedenborg mean when he uses the term simple people? Thanks
Hi Bob,
Haha! I knew I would miss a few of your many, many questions! 😀
By “simple people” Swedenborg simply means uneducated and simple-minded people, in comparison to “intelligent” or educated and deeper-thinking people. Think of farmers and blue collar workers who earn their living with their hands, not with their brains. They aren’t necessarily stupid—though some are. They just aren’t people who have learned a lot of things and developed their rational and intellectual capabilities.
This difference does persist after death, not because of natural or genetic limitations, but because people’s character and motives remain the same after death. People who aren’t very interested in intellect and learning here on earth still won’t be very interested in intellect and learning in the afterlife. They’ll still be more interested in working with their hands than in reading books. People who love learning and who have focused on developing their minds will continue to have the same character in the afterlife, so they’ll continue to be studious types and intellectuals in the afterlife also.
In short, what primarily determines people’s intellectual level in heaven is how much or how little interest they have in learning.
This also means that people who really wanted to learn on earth but had little or no opportunity to do so will be able to learn as much as they want in heaven, and develop their intellectual abilities. However, as with your example of the bicycle riders, people who have already developed their intellectual abilities on earth will have an advantage because they will have built a foundation for intellectual development that has become a settled part of their character.
Even so, compared to our level of intelligence on earth, even “simple people” who had no opportunity for education on earth but greatly desired to learn will be smarter than the smartest people on earth. That’s because they will be in the spiritual world, where everything spiritual, including intellectual abilities, is orders of magnitude greater than here on earth.
Basic cognitive ability on earth will have an effect on people that persists into heaven because that is also part of each individual’s character. People who have low cognitive ability generally develop a character for action rather than intellect. That will persist after death.
I suppose it could be said that this “isn’t fair.” But intellect is not the most important thing in human life. Love is. Spiritually, a “simple person” who would do anything for you, and give you the shirt off his back, is miles ahead of an intellectual who is more focused on his own brilliance than on using that knowledge for the betterment of his neighbor and of humanity.
Also, just as on earth, the “economy” of heaven needs all sorts of people. If the body were all brains and no hands and feet, it could accomplish nothing at all. God provides for many different kinds of people to be born, including both wise and simple people, because heaven needs many different kinds of people to do its work. If someone is born with low cognitive ability, this doesn’t mean that person will be useless in heaven. Just that he or she will be one of the ones who gets the work done.
Also, all people in heaven is as happy as they can possibly imagine being. God gives every angel just as much happiness as he or she can imagine, or bear. Any less, and God would be stingy. Any more, and it would start to become painful because it would overload their circuits. Nobody in heaven is saying, “Gee, I wish I were smarter, because I would be so much happier!” They’re all tremendously enjoying the life they’re living because it’s exactly the kind of life they want to live.
For more about wise and simple people in heaven, you can read Swedenborg’s chapter on that subject in Heaven and Hell, which starts at #346.
Superface and Bob are both me by the way lol
It’s an example of polysemy in Hebrew and Greek, right?
Another example: English uses the same word “scooter” for both the kick-driven scooter and the moped. Right?
I asked this to Copilot:
Greek and Hebrew use the same words for both “heaven” and “sky,” as well as as the same words for both “spirit” and ‘breath.” Is that like English using the same words “coach” for both the bus and the sports coach? or using the same word “scooter” for both the kick-driven scooter and the motor scooter (moped)?
Here’s the response:
Yes, you’re on the right track! The use of the same word for different meanings in Greek and Hebrew, such as “heaven” and “sky” or “spirit” and “breath,” is an example of polysemy. Polysemy occurs when a single word has multiple related meanings. It’s similar to how English words like “coach” and “scooter” have multiple meanings based on context.
For example:
Coach: This word can refer to a vehicle used for long-distance travel (a bus) or a person who trains and instructs athletes.
Scooter: This can mean a kick scooter, which is manually powered, or a motor scooter (moped), which has an engine.
In both cases, the word takes on different meanings based on the context in which it’s used. It’s fascinating how languages evolve and adapt this way, right? If you have more linguistic curiosities or any other questions, feel free to ask!
Hi World Questioner,
Yes. Although in the case of “sky” vs. “heaven” and “breath” vs. “spirit,” the two meanings are material and spiritual analogs (or in Swedenborgian terms, correspondences) of one another.
Can you reply to my other comment linking to a picture I uploaded showing the ancestor column of the Codex Sinaiticus? Are you able to access that picture?
Hi World Questioner,
I didn’t comment because you didn’t seem to be asking anything.
II just wanted to know your thoughts on it. How the ancestor columns have whitespace, and they could have put “son of” if they wanted to. Joseph doesn’t have the definite article, but the other ancestors do.
Hi World Questioner,
That is not an original manuscript. Presumably the original manuscripts ran everything together in one continuous stream of letters as usual. Even so, it’s not about saving space on the page. It’s about the author’s desired Greek style.
In the genealogy, Joseph doesn’t have a definite article, but the other ancestors do. What are your thoughts?
Hi World Questioner,
The definite article works differently in Greek than it does in English or even in Hebrew, especially when it comes to applying it to names. Joseph doesn’t need a definite article because “son of” is stated explicitly for him. For the rest of the names in the genealogy, it isn’t. Instead, the definite article in the genitive case serves as a stand-in for “son of.”
Anyway, it’s probably best not to found an entire doctrine based on whether there is or isn’t a definite article in this or that place.
Check out http://superfactful.com/2025/01/31/that-earth-is-round-was-well-known-long-before-columbus/. The Greeks knew that the Earth was round, why wouldn’t the Hebrews?
Hi World Questioner,
Because the Internet didn’t exist back then. Neither did all of the other technological means we’ve developed to rapidly disseminate information all around the world. The ancient Israelites likely had no idea what the Greeks were thinking about. Besides, that kind of knowledge mainly circulated among the educated classes. The common people had no such knowledge. They were not considered worth educating.
You did read the article, didn’t you? That the Earth is round was known long before Christopher Columbus.
Hi World Questioner,
I skimmed it. It’s not that “we” (humanity as a whole) knew that the earth was spherical thousands of years ago. Specifically the ancient Greek philosophers knew that it was spherical. Perhaps a few others did as well, I don’t know. But most of humanity experienced earth as flat, and simply assumed it was flat. Once again, there was no Internet in those days disseminating all human knowledge worldwide to anyone who cares to look for it.
It seems like for the Israelites, God is reinforcing ideas that are not scientifically accurate. God is reinforcing the idea that Heaven is the same as sky, that God’s dwelling place is in the sky, and that the Earth is flat. I don’t see how the Israelites couldn’t make such simple distinction as Heaven from sky, or spirit from breath. I don’t see how the Israelites couldn’t understand something as simple as a round Earth. Those don’t seem too complicated. God doesn’t bamboozle people, does he? Maybe the ancients viewed cosmology as a simple 3D space, rather than a multiverse of parallel universes.
Hi World Questioner,
For the Israelites, science was not a thing. There were no scientists in ancient Israel. This simply wasn’t an area of human knowledge that they were interested in pursuing, similar to most other ancient societies, and even many societies today. Put plainly, they just didn’t care whether we live on a sphere or a flat disk. This was very far from anything that they thought about or that affected their daily lives. If God had said to them, “The earth is a sphere,” they probably would have said, “Huh? So what? Why are you telling us this?”
The Bible deals with issues that were important to the Jews, not with issues that were unimportant to them. More specifically, it deals with issues about their relationships with one another, with the surrounding nations, and with God. The specific scientific nature of the material universe is just not an issue they were interested in. Nor is it something God is particularly interested in telling us about, because God is focused on our eternal life, and not so much on our temporary life here on earth.
Earth as a globe is a matter of science. But the distinction between Heaven and sky doesn’t seem like a matter of science. Neither does the distinction between breath and spirit.
Hi World Questioner,
The ancient Jews themselves didn’t think much, if at all, about heaven. They lived in the world, and focused on the world. They didn’t even have a clear concept of the afterlife (“heaven”), as evidenced by the Sadducees, who denied a resurrection because they didn’t see it taught in their Scriptures. The Sadducees were the biblical literalists of the day. So for them, “sky” meant “sky,” not “heaven.”
“Breath” also meant “breath.” When they read about what is usually translated “the spirit of the Lord,” they didn’t think about spirit. They thought about the Lord’s breath, as in what the Lord breathed out of his mouth. The Lord was seen as a powerful being that inhabited the same realm they do, just as angels were seen as beings who inhabited the same realms they did. Otherwise how could they have visited Abraham (and others) and sat down to a meal with him?
Also, maybe “Heaven” in the Bible (Greek ouranos and whatever the Hebrew word is) doesn’t mean some paradise where we go to after we die. It means “sky” in either the physical or spiritual world. And God dwells in the spiritual sky, right? The land (Greek gaia or gaios) in the spiritual world is not Heaven.
Hi World Questioner,
“Sky” is the root meaning of the word. It also means “heaven” because, in Swedenborgian terms, the sky corresponds to heaven. We humans regularly and mostly unconsciously use words for material objects or processes to talk about corresponding spiritual objects and processes. For example, we say “I see,” and it means “I understand.” Sight corresponds to understanding.
Does the Bible ever say that “Heaven” (Greek Ouranos) is where believers go when they die?
Hi World Questioner,
Not in those specific words. But it does talk about people attaining and entering heaven, or not, based on their character and actions. For example:
These are all from the Gospel of Matthew, which uses the word “heaven” (Greek: ouranos) much more than the other three Gospels. The other Gospels are more likely to talk about “the kingdom of God.” But as the second-to-last quote here suggests, they both mean the same thing.
Mainly, all these quotes make it clear that good people do indeed go to heaven.
The Globe is a matter of science, whereas Heaven as another dimension or parallel universe is not something of science.
The Jews had a materialistic mindset, but maybe because God was reinforcing their materialistic mindset.
Hi World Questioner,
God does not reinforce a materialistic mindset. But God does use the ideas of materialistic people to lead them toward salvation and heaven.
“Otherwise, how could they have visited Abraham 9and others) and sat down to a meal with him?” Maybe they just teleported from the other dimension and later back to it.
I don’t see how the Israelites couldn’t comprehend something as simple as teleportation and warping.
Hi World Questioner,
Yeah! All they had to do was flip on the TV and watch Star Trek! What’s so hard about that? 😀
God could have taught the Jews that there is Heaven distinct from the sky. Or Go could have taught the Jews that there is a spiritual world, or a world beyond the physical. It would be up to the Jews to listen and believe or not.
Hi World Questioner,
Imagine yourself as a kindergarten teacher. What subjects would you teach your students? Would you select trigonometry, cellular biology, and constitutional law? You could teach them about these things. But you wouldn’t, because you would realize that they have neither the basis of knowledge nor the developed mental capacity to understand these subjects. Instead, you would teach them the simple basics of life, upon which later teachers could build as they get older, leading them into more and more complex subjects as their fund of knowledge and mental capacity grows.
The ancient Jews were spiritual kindergarteners. They came out of pagan polytheism, and only gradually even accepted the fundamental truth that there is only one God. They were also originally simple herdsmen concerned mostly with the daily necessities of food, shelter, and so on. Only gradually did they become farmers and eventually city-dwellers that had more complex lives and patterns of thought. God therefore began by teaching them the simple basics of spiritual life, which involve how to behave in their day-to-day life here on earth. The more complex things could, and did, come later, but on a human societal time scale, which operates in centuries, not years.
You made some good points. I’m not sure if it’s a fair comparison.
Maybe God could just mention to the Jews about the spiritual world and Heaven, without going into the details. A kindergarten teacher wouldn’t dig into the details of cellular biology, trigonometry, and constitutional law.
Hi World Questioner,
God did do that. The word “heaven” does occur in the Old Testament. But because the minds of the people of that time were material-world focused, they read it literally as meaning the sky, even when the subject was God and angels. Angels, to them, were simply “messengers” from God, which is the meaning of the Hebrew word commonly translated “angel.” They were clearly seen as human in every way, except they were sent by God. I don’t think they inquired too much into exactly where they came from. Most likely if they thought about it at all, they thought of the messengers as visitors from some distant unknown country. It was only gradually over the centuries that they began to develop some concept of a distinct spiritual world.
You can talk to kindergarteners about cellular biology, trigonometry, and constitutional law. But they’re not going to understand what you’re talking about. They’re going to try to fit at least some of what you say into something that is already part of their thinking, such as the stork bringing babies, 1+1=2, and don’t do bad stuff or you’ll get punished.
When the israelites disobeyed God and contacted the dead, wouldn’t they be aware that these are spirits and not literal, physical, or material breath?
Hi Word Questioner,
Yes, but if they thought about the spirits of dead people at all, they thought of them as sleeping in the grave, not as living an active life. As an example of how they pictured things, here is the scene of Saul having the medium at Endor call up the spirit of Samuel:
Samuel isn’t some active person living an active life in the spiritual world. He’s a “ghostly figure” coming up from the ground (i.e., from the grave), whom Saul has “disturbed” by bringing him up (i.e., Saul has rudely woken Samuel up from a sound sleep).
So yes, there was a concept of the soul still existing after death. But it was in the form of a ghostly, subterranean sleep, not an active life in heaven. The afterlife was not heaven. It was the underworld, represented by the Hebrew word sheol, traditionally translated as “hell,” but mostly incorrectly so. Its meaning is more like “the grave.”
Didn’t Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and other great prophets think spiritually, rather than materially?
Hi World Questioner,
Not really. They lived in a low-level, unspiritual era in human history, and their thoughts were mostly on the things of this world. Read what they wrote, and the stories about them. It’s mostly about events, laws, and actions in this world. There’s hardly anything there about spiritual things. Yes, God figures in the stories, of course. But even God was seen pretty much as a super-powerful human being just like us. He even visited Abraham in the form of three men.
Did the 12 Disciples eventually think spiritually? What about when John was “in spirit”?
Hi World Questioner,
Under Jesus’ teaching and example, I do think that the twelve disciples developed some ability to think spiritually, especially John. See, for example, this article:
Eat My Flesh, Drink My Blood
The disciples were, of course, among the people who did not stop following Jesus because they took his words too literally.
John’s Gospel, in particular, has extended philosophical and spiritual passages that could be written only by someone who has some sense of the spiritual realm, and is not limited to materialistic thinking.
Why couldn’t they just have visions of another dimension or a parallel universe? I’m surprised that the parallel universe is such as modern concept. You’d think that ancients would come up with something so simple. If God provided a word for Heaven separate from the word for “sky,” he would just need to give them a vision instead of just describe it. It’s ironic that the Jews (and other ancients) didn’t think about Heaven just because they don’t experience it, yet the ancients did think about gods even though they didn’t experience them. If they could understand gods, which they never experienced, certainly you’d think they’d understand Heaven and parallel universes. Correct me if I’m wrong – did they experience gods?
Hi World Questioner,
God doesn’t give people words. People originate and use words to express what is in their minds. The very fact that there was not a separate word for “heaven” is an indicator of what was in their minds. They didn’t need such a word, because they had no clear concept of heaven as a distinct, spiritual place.
There were also no words for “another dimension” or “a parallel universe” because that just wasn’t anything that entered their minds. It seems simple to you, but that’s because you grew up in a technological age steeped in such ideas. Ancient Hebrew society barely even had a concept of “universe” let alone “parallel universe.” And “dimensions” were how long and wide and tall an animal or a building was. These were originally nomadic herdsmen. Their lives revolved around their animals and their tents. Why would the even be thinking about other dimensions and parallel universes?
The bible never says “birds of heaven” (Samayam or Ouranos), does it? Itt just says “birds of the air.” Hebrew and Greek do not use the same words for both “sky” and “air,” do they? Samayam and Ouranos never mean “air” do they?
Hi World Questioner,
Yes, those are the regular ways that Hebrew and Greek say “the birds of the air.” The Hebrew of the Old Testament uses shamayim, which is the word for “sky” or “heaven,” and the Greek of the New Testament uses the word ouranos, which has the same meanings.
What are the Greek and Hebrew words for “air.” Greek must be Airos, right? Not Ouranos. What is the Hebrew word? I also don’t understand. The Bible never says “Birds of the sky” (Shamayim or Ouranos), does it?
Hi World Questioner,
The phrase is commonly translated “birds of the air,” but more literally it would be translated “birds of the sky” or “birds of the heavens,” both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament (though the pluralization of the words is different in the NT than in the OT). In the expression “birds of the air,” the word translated “air” is the word for “sky/heaven” in each language, not the word for “air.”
Specifically, in the Hebrew Bible, the expression is עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם (of hashshamayim), literally, “bird of the heavens/skies.”
In the Greek New Testament, it is τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (ta peteina tou ouranou), literally “birds of the heaven/sky.”
Biblical Hebrew doesn’t exactly have a word for “air” as we think of it today, as in “atmosphere.” What it has is a word for wind, breath, spirit, which is רוּחַ (ruach). But that’s not the word used in the expression translated “birds of the air.” It is the word used for the wind, the breath of a human being, and for the spirit of a human being or of God.
New Testament Greek does have the word ἀήρ (aer), “air, atmosphere.” But this is not the word used in the expression translated “birds of the air.” New Testament Greek also has the word πνεῦμα (pneuma), “spirit, breath, wind,” but once again, this is not the word used in the expression commonly translated “birds of the air.”
Bottom line: In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the word used in the expression translated “birds of the air” is the word for “sky, heaven,” not the word for “air, wind.” In fact, when I first looked it up in the usual translations in response to your query, I was surprised not to find “birds of the sky,” or even “birds of the heavens,” because those were the expressions that immediately came to my mind.
Then the Greek word for “air” is not Atmos. That would mean “vapor,” cognate with Sanskrit Atman.
Hi World Questioner,
ἀτμός (atmos), “vapor, steam, breath” is indeed a Greek word, and is the source of the “atmos” in our English word “atmosphere.” However, it is not used in the Greek New Testament. The three Greek words mentioned in my previous reply are the related words that are used in the New Testament.
Why can’t people be born spiritually-minded? Why does spiritual development from a materialistic mindset have to be so hard? Why can’t spiritual mindedness just come naturally?
Hi World Questioner,
This is one of the results of the Fall. Instead of being born in our good natural/spiritual state, as a result of the Fall, we are born with tendencies toward evil of every kind, and with a materialistic mindset. We then have to be spiritually reborn, just as Jesus said, which is the process of changing from being material-minded and selfish to being spiritual-minded and selfless. It is hard because we cling to our materialistic desires and their pleasures, and don’t give them up easily. We give them up only through hard experiences that break those desires in us.
The world would be a better place if the Jews themselves were spiritual-minded. Then the Bible might be better translated and interpreted.
Hi World Questioner,
Not necessarily. If the Bible were written in a highly spiritual culture, and was very spiritual and mystical, it would not be able to reach people at a low, fleshly minded spiritual state. God intentionally caused the Bible to be written in a low and materialistic culture because that way it could reach all the way down to the lowest levels we human stoop to, and reach us there. Meanwhile, within those very human and often very unspiritual stories, there is a deeper spiritual meaning that can reach people even at the highest level of spiritual development.
Once again, God provided for the Bible to be written in such a way that it could reach all of us, from the lowest to the highest.
God should have used spiritual terms to describe Heaven and spirit, etc., not physical terms. Then it would better encourage people to think spiritually. If God uses physical terms to describe Heaven, and spirit, etc., he’s reinforcing the people’s materialistic thinking.
Anyone can think spiritually, right? No one is inherently spiritual or materialistic, right? Any materialistic thinker can start thinking spiritually if they put their mind to it.
About the flat Earth. Did the Israelites bother to notice how ships always disappear hull first with the masts still visible? Perhaps they just dismissed or ignored it? Then they probably ignored or dismissed the shadows the Earth casts on the moon.
Hi World Questioner,
They probably just didn’t think about it much. They didn’t think scientifically as many people do today. The scientific method as we know of it today hardly even existed in that day. They were too busy living their ordinary lives to think about questions like that.