Do Mormons Have 3 Heavens?

[Epiphany]

To Life Immortal

I was listening to WZZD AM here and this gentleman from Christian Research Institute Hank Hannegraaf said that Mormons had 3 heavens. Could a Mormon or somebody who knows more about this than I do explain this to me? Thanks. Just trying to understand where Mormons are coming from.

Peace and Long Life
~*~ Epiphany ~*~

 

[twhite982]

To Life Immortal

I was listening to WZZD AM here and this gentleman from Christian Research Institute Hank Hannegraaf said that Mormons had 3 heavens. Could a Mormon or somebody who knows more about this than I do explain this to me? Thanks. Just trying to understand where Mormons are coming from.

Peace and Long Life
~*~ Epiphany ~*~

Doctrine and Covenants section 76 explains this very well.

You can find them @ scriptures.lds.org/dc/76

TW

 

[leeuniverse]

To Life Immortal

I was listening to WZZD AM here and this gentleman from Christian Research Institute Hank Hannegraaf said that Mormons had 3 heavens. Could a Mormon or somebody who knows more about this than I do explain this to me? Thanks. Just trying to understand where Mormons are coming from.

Peace and Long Life
~*~ Epiphany ~*~

Hello.... Here's your answer. http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,11-1-13-58,00.html

Learn from the source, not ones enemys what they believe....
And believe me the critics have us ALL WRONG in everyway.

Lutheran Bishop Krister Stendahl former Dean of Harvard Divinity School has some good thoughts I'd like to share on this issue.
The below description come from home.uchicago.edu/~spackman/

1. If you want to learn about a religion, you should use their sources, and talk to their adherents. After all, you wouldn’t ask a Nazi to explain Judaism to you (a question of bias). Nor would you question a Bible-thumping southerner about Islam, just as you wouldn’t ask an art historian about mechanical engineering (a question of expertise). Go to the source and its native interpretations. (Of course, the average John Doe, Eliezer Cohen, or Mohammed Abdullah Ali may not be the most knowledgeable, literate spokesperson for his tradition.).

2. The second rule was a little more interesting. Don't compare your best with their worst, which is often done. You know, we Christians believe in the ideal of loving everyone, but the Muslims, look at those terrorists in Algeria. What you do is take the worst example of the other guy's religion and compare it to the ideal, almost never reached in your religion and that's apples and oranges, right? If you are going to compare terrorists, you should compare Christian terrorists with Muslim terrorists. If you are going to compare ideals, you should compare the ideal in the other faith with the ideal in your faith. If you are going to compare your saint to something in their religion, find one of their saints and compare them. That's the only fair way to do it.

3. The third one, I think, is even more interesting. His principle was [to] leave room for what he called "holy envy." By holy envy, he intended the idea of looking at another faith and saying, you know, there is something in this other religious tradition that I really envy. I value it. I wish we had it. I can learn something from it.

 

[Rescued One]

Learn from the source, not ones enemys what they believe....
And believe me the critics have us ALL WRONG in everyway.

Why are you so hostile?

 

[Rescued One]

Epiphany, LDS(Mormons) claim there are three heavens by misinterpreting the Bible.

I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; ) such an one caught up to the third heaven" (2 Cor 12:2)

What is "the third heaven"?


Its where God dwells. The first heaven we see by day (the sky), the second heaven we see by night (the stars), the third heaven we see BY FAITH (where God lives).

http://www.raptureready.com/faq/faq358.html

http://www.cresourcei.org/thirdheaven.html

To learn more about Mormonism go here:

http://www.concernedchristians.org/

I have Dutch ancestors.

 

[Kevin Graham]

[Edited by a moderator]

 

[leeuniverse]

Why are you so hostile?

First, I wasn't at all "hostile"..... It is simply the FACTS recognized by someone who is intimately knowledgable of anti-mormonism AND the Church.
Since most of the "ammo" of anti-mormonism comes from us in the first place, it is easy to see the lies, perversions, etc. of our doctrines and history.
Only ONE THING essentially that anti-mormonism has gotten a bit correct is correct, and that is that a couple of leaders of the Church made a few off-color remarks towards the african race, yet, even then, it's not to the DEGREE the anti's falsely create, because several of the quotes are taken out of context and so the "meanings" of the quotes are CHANGED.
Not to mention the fact that anti's NEVER tell the "other-side" of the Story, i.e like with the charge of "racism" from the few quotes, they don't tell you the MANY other quotes which are "complimentory" of blacks, as well as the rest of the history which gives tell that they weren't racist at all, simply giving their views according to the times and trying to explain a difficult policy of the Church.

Second, I have been quit a bit hostile at times in the past, but I'm changing this.
However frankly, if people were lying and spreading falsehoods about your God, Faith, and fellow believers continually all over the place and EVEN in your own face, and even you share the REAL FACTS (yet they still keep lying) wouldn't "YOU" not like it either???

 

[He put me back together]

Paul mentions a 3rd heaven, although I'm certain that most doctrines who refer to him have it screwed up totally. Mormons are not the only people who have beliefs concerning a "3rd heaven"--aparently, Paul believed in SOMETHING that would be translated as such. It's quite a mystery, especially in modern times where we think about everything as planets and kooky ethervescent *dimensions* rather than simply Earth, Sea, and Sky.

 

[Rescued One]

Paul mentions a 3rd heaven, although I'm certain that most doctrines who refer to him have it screwed up totally. Mormons are not the only people who have beliefs concerning a "3rd heaven"--aparently, Paul believed in SOMETHING that would be translated as such. It's quite a mystery, especially in modern times where we think about everything as planets and kooky ethervescent *dimensions* rather than simply Earth, Sea, and Sky.

Paul wrote this in a pre-scientific era. If you would go to the following link, and read the article, you'll get a better picture. No one said anything about earth and sea.

Shamayim (heavens or sky) in the Old Testament is called "heavens" in the New Testament era. There are many other non-Biblical books and writings that also describe these layers.
http://www.cresourcei.org/thirdheaven.html

 

[Rescued One]

First, I wasn't at all "hostile"..... It is simply the FACTS recognized by someone who is intimately knowledgable of anti-mormonism AND the Church.
Since most of the "ammo" of anti-mormonism comes from us in the first place, it is easy to see the lies, perversions, etc. of our doctrines and history.
Only ONE THING essentially that anti-mormonism has gotten a bit correct is correct, and that is that a couple of leaders of the Church made a few off-color remarks towards the african race, yet, even then, it's not to the DEGREE the anti's falsely create, because several of the quotes are taken out of context and so the "meanings" of the quotes are CHANGED.
Not to mention the fact that anti's NEVER tell the "other-side" of the Story, i.e like with the charge of "racism" from the few quotes, they don't tell you the MANY other quotes which are "complimentory" of blacks, as well as the rest of the history which gives tell that they weren't racist at all, simply giving their views according to the times and trying to explain a difficult policy of the Church.

Second, I have been quit a bit hostile at times in the past, but I'm changing this.
However frankly, if people were lying and spreading falsehoods about your God, Faith, and fellow believers continually all over the place and EVEN in your own face, and even you share the REAL FACTS (yet they still keep lying) wouldn't "YOU" not like it either???

You're in the wrong thread. This one is about 3 heavens.

 

[cromis]

Paul wrote this in a pre-scientific era. If you would go to the following link, and read the article, you'll get a better picture. No one said anything about earth and sea.

Having looked at the article, I find one major problem with it. It notes:

The lowest heaven, the core of the "onion," is the visible physical world that all people can see. In most of these models the second heaven is composed of water, a great sea, a firmament dividing the earth from the heavenly beings.

This is simply not the case. It isn't the case for any of the three Enoch texts, or for the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs which records a heavenly journey, or the Assumption of Isaiah, or any of the other contemporary texts which deal with multiple heavens. Instead, the notion of three heavens - with God being found in the innermost heaven - is not based so much on the notion of an onion but rather on the model of the tabernacle and the temple in ancient Israel. The tabernacle had three enclosures - the first was the courtyard, the second was the holy place, and the third was the most holy place (where the ark - the seat of God - was kept). It was in the most holy place that the presence of God rested.

Later traditions added more heavens - first seven and then variously 8, 9, and 10 as the seventh heaven was subdivided.

It seems pretty likely that Paul understood his third heaven in a fashion similar to contemporary authors. And not as a third heaven situated over the visible sky and the firmament. The last couple of paragraphs still apply though. Paul is not attempting to convey a description of the cosmos and place the realm of God within it, he is trying to assert his own particular calling from God. It may even be that he was carried by the Spirit into the presence of God, and simply assumed that he was in the third heaven - because that was how he understood the dwelling place of deity.

Ben

 

[He put me back together]

Paul wrote this in a pre-scientific era. If you would go to the following link, and read the article, you'll get a better picture. No one said anything about earth and sea.

Shamayim (heavens or sky) in the Old Testament is called "heavens" in the New Testament era. There are many other non-Biblical books and writings that also describe these layers.
http://www.cresourcei.org/thirdheaven.html

I was just mentioning the fact that people in Paul's time viewed the universe as Earth, Sea, and Heaven, rather than stars, planets, solar systems, dust, atoms...