Entering Heaven Alive - Judaism

Judaism

In the Hebrew bible the word for "heavens" is shamayim. This is plural - it means "heavens", not heaven" - but seems nevertheless to have a singular meaning (i.e., the older parts of the bible speak of "heavens" in the plural but evidence for a belief in more than one heaven from the bible is lacking. Shamayim also meant "sky", the atmosphere, as it does in modern English. The blue dome of the sky was called the raqia, and was believed to be a solid shield between the atmosphere and the true heaven where God lived. Heaven was the realm of God, earth of mankind, and the underworld was for the dead, and travel between them was generally impossible, although God and his messengers frequently appear on earth and the dead can be summoned up from the underworld as the Witch of Endor summons the shade of Samuel.

There are two possible exceptions to this general rule that humans could not go to heaven, Enoch and Elijah, but neither is clear. The Book of Genesis mentions Enoch as one who "was no more" because "God took him", but it does not explicitly say whether he was alive or dead, and it does not say where God took him. The Book of Kings describes the prophet Elijah being taken towards "shamayim" in a whirlwind, but the word can mean both heaven as the abode of God, or the sky (as the word "heavens" does in modern English), and so again the text is ambiguous.

According to the post-biblical Jewish Midrash, eight people went to heaven (also referred to as the Garden of Eden and Paradise) alive:

• Elijah (Kings II Chapter 2, Verse 11)
• Serach, the daughter of Asher - one of the sons of Jacob (Midrash Yalkut Shimoni (Yechezkel 367))
• Enoch (Genesis 5:22-24)
• Eliezer, the servant of Abraham
• Hiram, king of Tyre
• Ebed Melech, the Ethiopian
• Jaabez, the son of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi
• Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh