Phlox Pyros

Me too, and I know the Hebrew Bible and multiple Gods is your favorite topic , but I am including ancient Greek and Roman societies (as well as Persian, etc.). Those cultures that might have or would have influenced views in the Bible are what I am interested in (again, not solely Caananite and/or ancient Hebrew please...).

Sure, I can check it. In order to translate this Psalm 115:3a correctly, one needs to take into account the rest of the verse. The verbs of this verse are in the 3rd person singular. Therefore, I would translate this verse as follows:

Our God [is] in heaven. All that he has pleased, he has done.

I hope this helps, even if it is a bit off-topic (to me anyway).

Phlox Pyros

The information given helps somewhat, but I still don't have a good grasp of what the ancients thought these "heavens" really were. If someone ascended to the 5th, 6th, or 7th heaven, what would the ancients say that they would see? If it is some earth-like place, then I wonder what their explanation was for not being able to see it from earth.

Again, any primary references would be greatly appreciated.

Loomis

Have you read these?

Ascension of Isaiah 4 has seven heavens…
The Ascension of Isaiah

1 Enoch has seven heavens…
The Book of Enoch

2 Enoch aka “Slavonic Enoch” has ten heavens …
The Book of the Secrets of Enoch

Phlox Pyros

I have read 1 Enoch, but not the others. Thanks.

Loomis

Marduk was Mesopotamian. He was the “elohim” of Babylon.

Loomis

The “wheels” mentioned in Ezekiel 1 & 10 are insertions. Someone put them there to accommodate the “celestial spheres” of the ancient Greeks.

Loomis

Here is a silver coin struck about 350 BC.

Evidently the text reads YHW.

The round thing below his ass is not a chariot wheel, it's the “celestial sphere” again.

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/godyz.html

Berthold

An easily available pagan text is Cicero's "Somnium Scipionis". Cicero was, in his philosophical writings, an eclectic, and I think he well represented the current opinions of his time.

If I recall correctly (it's more than 30 years ago), the spheres are not geometrical abstractions (like orbits are since Newton), but of substance, although with different properties from earthly substances.

Phlox Pyros

I was wondering whether the spheres were considered of "substance" or not. I'll check into Cicero's text. Thank you.

JoeWallack

JW:
A belief in 7 Heavens was part of some early Christian belief soliar systems:


THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE APOSTOLIC PREACHING

"9. Now this world is encompassed by seven heavens,87 in which dwell powers and angels and 78and angels and archangels, doing service to God, the Almighty and Maker of all things: not as though He was in need, but that they may not be idle and unprofitable and ineffectual.88 Wherefore also the Spirit of God is manifold in (His) indwelling,89 and in seven forms of service90 is He reckoned by the prophet Isaiah, as resting on the Son of God, that is the Word, in His coming as man. The Spirit of God, he says, shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, (the Spirit of knowledge)91 and of godliness; the Spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. Now the heaven which is first from above,92 and encompasses the rest, is (that of) wisdom; 79and the second from it, of understanding; and the third, of counsel; and the fourth, reckoned from above, (is that) of might; and the fifth, of knowledge; and the sixth, of godliness; and the seventh, this firmament of ours, is full of the fear of that Spirit which gives light to the heavens. For, as the pattern (of this), Moses received the seven-branched candlestick,93 that shined continually in the holy place; for as a pattern of the heavens he received this service, according to that which the Word spake unto him: Thou shalt make (it) according to all the pattern of the things which thou hast seen in the mount.94"


JW:
Note that in Against Heresies, which the Christians also attribute to Irenaeus of Lyons (yes "Lyons"), it's written:

Against Heresies

" Chapter XVII.-The Theory of the Marcosians, that Created Things Were Made After the Image of Things Invisible.

1. I wish also to explain to thee their theory as to the way in which the creation itself was formed through the mother by the Demiurge (as it were without his knowledge), after the image of things invisible. They maintain, then, that first of all the four elements, fire, water, earth, and air, were produced after the image of the primary Tetrad above, and that then, we add their operations, viz., heat, cold, dryness, and humidity, an exact likeness of the Ogdoad is presented. They next reckon up ten powers in the following manner:-There are seven globular bodies, which they also call heavens; then that globular body which contains these, which also they name the eighth heaven; and, in addition to these, the sun and moon."


JW:
The Acceptance of 7 Heavens in THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE APOSTOLIC PREACHING and the disdain for such an idea in AGAINST HERESIES
suggests that these were not written by the same author (PJ look out!). The Editors of THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE APOSTOLIC PREACHING Confess the following footnote:

"87
An account of the late Jewish teaching as to the Seven Heavens is given in Mr. H. St John Thackeray’s valuable book St Paul and Contemporary Jewish Thought, pp. 172–179, where three parallel tables of their descriptions will be found. References to them in Christian apocryphal literature are collected in Dr Charles’s Book of the Secrets of Enoch (from the Sclavonic), pp. xliv-xlvii. Hippolytus in his Commentary on Daniel (ed. Achelis, p. 96), referring to εὐλογεῖτε οὐρανοί in the Benedicite, says: τοὺς ἑπτὰ οὐρανοὺς . . . προσκαλούμενοι. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iv. 25) says: εἵτε ἑπτὰ οὐρανοί, οὕς τινες ἀριθμοῦσιν κατ᾽ ἐπανάβασιν. Origen (c. Cels. vi. 21) likewise mentions the Seven Heavens, but without committing himself to the exact number.
Irenæus in I, i. 9 refers to the Valentinian teaching which identified the Seven Heavens with angels of varying degrees of power. In our passage he strangely connects the Seven Heavens with the Seven Gifts of the Spirit. We observe two peculiarities in his description. First, that, numbering from above downwards, he reckons the highest as the First Heaven: secondly, that his Seventh, or lowest, is the firmament. Evil is wholly excluded from these heavens: so it is in the Ascension of Isaiah (for which see Introd. p. 41), where however it is found in the firmament, which is not reckoned as one of the heavens.
The belief in the Seven Heavens soon came to be discredited; and it is curious to find a survival of it, due apparently to Irish influences, in the invocation of the septens cælos in a book of prayers of the seventh or eighth century (Brit. Mus. Reg. 2. A. xx, f. 47 v.)."


JW:
Further, The Demonstration is second century in Style, Philosophical, Apologetic, Recapitulative and non-Gospel based. Similar to what Justin wrote. Against Heresies is third century in style, Detailed, Attacking instead of Defensive, Less superstitous and Gospel based. Similar to what Origen wrote. All again suggesting Different authors.



Joseph

HEAVEN, n.
A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

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