Abstract: While references to heaven in the Old Testament are sparse, non-explicit, and predominantly cosmological, the New Testament reveals a more complex concept of the afterlife that reflects a rapidly evolving understanding of Heaven. The Jewish apocalyptic literature of the late Second Temple period describes a heaven of multiple degrees that is populated with angels and the righteous dead of varying glories. Those glories also tangibly reflect astral qualities of light and glory comparable to the sun, moon, and stars. Within this worldview of Heaven, several of the Apostle Paul’s writings to Corinth can be read with added insight, including his ascent to the “third heaven.” Paul’s teachings of resurrected bodies assuming astral qualities may reflect the native Corinthians’ metaphysical views of the body and soul, which Paul may have shared himself. While Western Christianity would embrace degrees of glory through the Middle Ages, Reform Theology of the Protestant Reformation would affirm a concept of Heaven that supported only a single habitation. It would take a Restoration-era vision to Joseph Smith to restore the doctrine of degrees of glory original to the Jews and early Christians but lost to those of the modern era.

The current belief in two diametrically opposing post-mortal states — Heaven and Hell — is so ubiquitous within Christendom as to be tacit. However, recent challenges to such a binary conception of the afterlife have sparked debate and discussion in the past few decades.1 While the Old Testament seldom comments on Heaven and the qualities of the afterlife, it does differentiate between the place where [Page 82]God resides (for example, Genesis 28:12; Psalms 11:4) and the physical cosmos around the Earth (Genesis 1:1, 17; Exodus 24:10; Psalms 8:3). New Testament discussions of Heaven, in contrast, show that Heaven is a far more complex idea. As Paul discussed the state of the resurrected in eternity, he taught, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:41– 42). Paul also observed that after Christ’s resurrection he ascended to his Father “up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:8–10). Paul also wrote that a “man in Christ” — who may be Paul himself — was “caught up to the third heaven” in vision (2 Corinthians 12:2). Additionally, The Savior taught that “in my Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2). Several of his parables imply a system of graded rewards among the faithful in Heaven — notably the parables of the Pounds (Luke 19:12–27) and the Sower (Matthew 13:1–9).

The peculiarity of Paul’s symbolism (sun, moon, and stars) to Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15:41 leads the inquisitive mind to seek clarification on the associated worldview of first-century Jews and Christians. What was the prevalent view of Heaven in the centuries before and after Jesus? A greater grasp of the afterlife as they understood it would certainly be of value in understanding the frame of reference that underlies several New Testament utterances.

Previous Latter-day scholarship has examined several aspects of the Plan of Salvation, including the three degrees of glory and many aspects of the Latter-day Saint temple, in light of ancient Jewish and Christian literature. Hugh Nibley’s pioneering work on 1 Enoch and the ancient temple opened the door to many fine recent studies.