Size of Heaven

by watersprout 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  watersprout

  Hi everyone,

  Im husband to WaterSprout, we will just call me Carrot for now,

  I read this in a Terry Pratchett book the other day and it made me smile so i thought i would share it

  " Few Religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch.XXI,v.16) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. this is somewhat less than 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essenial services take up at least two thirds of this space this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant, assuming that every creature that could be called human is allowed in, and that the human race eventually totals a thousand times the number of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or - a happy thought- that pets are allowed."

  The last hero by Sir Terry Pratchett

  May you be in peace and your world not fall out of your bottom

  Carrot
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  Nathan Natas

  The size of heaven is best determined from your hat size.
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  Leolaia

  Technically the dimensions in Revelation relate not to heaven itself but New Jerusalem which descends "out of heaven" (ek tou ouranou) in 20:1. So New Jerusalem is part of heaven, not the entirety of heaven itself. As a city, it is quite enormous, roughly the size of Brazil.

  Of course the ancients did not conceive of "heaven" as anything truly vast or large by our modern understanding. ANE cosmology was geocentric and thus heaven's breadth was determined by the size of the earth (see the tours of earth and heaven in 1 Enoch for a good example of this thinking). The size of heaven was thus conceived in vertical terms, of three to seven heavens stacked on top of each other (see the Testament of Levi, 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch, and the Ascension of Isaiah). This is still geocentric at its core; in our modern understanding of the universe, vertical and horizontal directions have no meaning outside of a frame of reference.
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  AGuest

  Greetings, dearest Carrot (and you, too, dear Watersprout) and the greatest of love and peace to you!

  May I respond? Thank you! What you are referring to here is not heaven; rather, it is the "Holy City," New Jerusalem, which comes down OUT of heaven. (Revelation 21:2). That City, dear one, is not a place, per se... but a Body of People, those who make up the Bride of Christ. It is the "temple" of God, made up of those in which God's spirit dwells. Christ is the cornerstone, the apostles are the foundation, the Prophets and others are the pillars, and the rest "living stones." (Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 2:4, 5; Revelation 3:12)

  John's description of the "City" is of it's "beauty"... as perceived by the Most Holy One of Israel, JAH of Armies. Precious beauty. Thus, the apostles are described in the manner of "precious stones" (Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:19). This not unusual, however, as Christ himself was referred to as a "stone" (Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; )... as was Simon, who he called "Cephas" or "Peter", which means stone/rock (John 1:42). Indeed, even the Adversary was described as beautiful precious stones during his period in Eden (Ezekiel 28:13-15).

  "Heaven" dear one (and there are many definitions of "heaven", but I perceive you mean the spirit realm... which encompasses the physical realm)... is far, far vaster than the City you mention: it has no boundaries or limits. It is everywhere. It has different "parts" yes, but there is no where that "heaven" isn't. That is why my Lord said the kingdom (of the heavens)... is among you and inside you... and why David wrote that even if he went to Sheol, there the spirit of the Most Holy One of Israel would be, too!

  I hope this helps and I bid you peace!

  YOUR servant (and dear WS's) and a slave of Christ,

  SA
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  watersprout

  Thanks for all your coments but I just thought it was a nice that pets might be allowed (I really like my dog)

  May you be in peace and your world not fall out your bottom

  Carrot

  P.s Every one should read some Pratchett, it makes me giggle tremendously, but then again so do oddly shaped vegtables
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  thenoblelodge

  Oh my life Watersprout, how do you cope with Carrot? Here have one on me
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  JWoods

  My sister is also an ex-JW. She went to the baptists after leaving.

  She also rushed in and got her baptist preacher to do my father's funeral when he passed away.

  The guy interpreted this to mean that heaven was a cube 1,000 miles between each vertex and existed somewhere around the Pleides star group.

  My thoughts at the time were that this seemed ridiculously small, considering the enormity of the visible universe...childishly small, even.