Heaven; A History; Second Edition

by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang

• ISBN13: 9780300091076
• ISBN10: 0300091079
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2001-08-11
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Including a substantial new Preface on changing views of life after death in the new century, this copiously illustrated book describes the ways in which believers--from biblical authors to present-day religious thinkers--have pictured Heaven, not just in doctrine but also in poetry, art, literature, and popular culture.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition	xiii
Preface	xxi
The Dawn of Heaven	1	(22)
The Semitic Background: Communicating with the Dead	2	(5)
Yahweh Alone: No Promise for the Dead	7	(4)
Apocalypticism: The Promise of Resurrection	11	(3)
Hellenistic Judaism: The Promise of Heaven	14	(5)
Jewish Views of the Afterlife in the First Century	19	(4)
Jesus and the Christian Promise	23	(24)
Jesus: No Marriage in Heaven	24	(8)
Paul: Spiritual Bodies	32	(5)
Revelation to John: The Heavenly Liturgy	37	(7)
The Christian Promise	44	(3)
Irenaeus and Augustine on our Heavenly Bodies	47	(22)
A Compensation for Martyrs: The Glorified Material World	48	(6)
The Ascetic Promise: A Heaven for Souls	54	(5)
The Ecclesiastical Promise: Physical Beauty Eternalized	59	(8)
The Varieties of the Patristic Paradise	67	(2)
Medieval Promises	69	(42)
Paradise Garden and Heavenly City	70	(10)
The Empyren Heaven as a Place of Light	80	(8)
Everlasting Contemplation of the Divine	88	(6)
The Promise of Love	94	(14)
Medieval Heavens	108	(3)
The Pleasures of Renaissance Paradise	111	(34)
The Pleasures of a Paradise Garden	112	(11)
Meeting Again in Heaven: Lovers and Saints	123	(19)
The Geography of Heaven	142	(3)
God at the Center: Protestant and Catholic Reformers	145	(36)
Protestant Reformers: Luther and Calvin	146	(10)
The Catholic Reformers	156	(11)
The Pious and Ascetic Middle Class	167	(10)
Theocentric Heaven	177	(4)
Swedenborg and the Emergence of a Modern Heaven	181	(47)
The Immediacy of Life after Death	184	(6)
The Material Character of Heaven	190	(9)
Matter in Motion	199	(10)
Society, Friendship, and Love	209	(15)
Modern Heaven	224	(4)
Love in the Heavenly Realm	228	(48)
Pre-Romantic Precursors: Milton and Swedenborg	229	(4)
Heaven as Union of Lovers	233	(24)
Love and Marriage	257	(7)
Life in the Heavenly Home	264	(9)
The Triumph of Human Love	273	(3)
Eternal Motion: Progress in the Other World	276	(31)
Kinetic Revolution in Heaven	277	(10)
Persisting Theocentric Traditions	287	(5)
Spiritiualism: A Thick Description of Heaven	292	(11)
Anthropocentric Heaven	303	(4)
Heaven in Contemporary Christianity	307	(46)
Modern Heavens: A Wish...	309	(4)
...and a Theology	313	(9)
The Decline of the Modern Heaven	322	(4)
The Symbolist Compromise	326	(6)
Realized Eschatology: Heaven on Earth	332	(3)
Theocentric Minimalism	335	(10)
Theology without Promise	345	(4)
What Happened to Heaven?	349	(4)
Paradise Found: Themes and Variations	353	(6)
Notes	359	(40)
Author Index	399	(4)
Subject Index	403