Talk:Heaven in Judaism

Merge to main Heaven article
The initial paragraph might make an interesting stand alone article Canaanite views of Heaven, if it was referenced. by more than: ^ Attridge, Harold. W., and R. A. Oden, Jr. (1981), Philo of Byblos: The Phoenician History: Introduction, Critical Text, Translation, Notes, CBQMS 9 (Washington: D. C.: The Catholic Biblical Association of America). Not having read this I have no idea if this matches up with what if refs. But the rest of the article just looks like OR In ictu oculi (talk) 02:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree - I support the the merge. If there's no further comment I'll carry it out next week.PiCo (talk) 02:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The content of the actual Shamayim article, with its discussion of creationism, non-flat earth, etc., would be out of place in an article on the theological concept of heaven.  Esoglou (talk) 11:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. A recent split into Heaven (Christianity) shows that the article was too big already, and a merge would just undo that work that went into splitting it. Elizium23 (talk) 01:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

To much christian stuff
This is a bad article. 1. It tells me nothing really about the Jewish view of heaven. More from the Talmud/ Rabbanim needed. 2. The Jewish holy texts are combined as the Tanakh/ Hebrew Bible- NOT the old testement. 3. To much christian drivel. This is about the Jewish view; put the cristian stuff where it belongs, not here. I hope this aricle is repaired.2.122.125.238 (talk) 12:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Creationism OR content deleted
The following by User_talk:97.106.241.66 appears to be wholly OR so removed here for reference, paste start: Modern assessment Conservative creationists are keen to view the notion of "heavens" into a viewport which tries to update it to modern scientific discoveries. They say that, with modern astronomical theories, this ancient portrayal of Shamayim, or the Heavens, is drawn out from the earth as layered expanses. The only remaining scientific and theoretical approach to these passages is simple and straightforward: the whole of the universe stretches out as a finite (spherical) object according to the Bible, showing that the universe had a beginning — a belief widely dismissed by ancient philosophers and modern scientists until ultimately proven accurate with the observation of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in 1964 showing that the universe had a beginning as stated in the first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1.

The alleged case is that the outermost sky ends beneath a literal "sheet" of what appears to be crystallized (frozen) water (cf. Ezekiel 1:22), (mayim: Hebrew for water) above which is the throne of God and a literal place known in the Bible as the third heaven.

Another creationist allegation claims the symbolic pre-dating of a big-bang-like scenario. The Book of Genesis records that immediately when creation commenced, light and dark were separated. On the second day, the waters were divided by an expanse. These two concepts are important in considerations of the many passages that refer to waters beneath Heaven and the many other division between good and evil, light and dark, and life and death. This of course, is all based upon the words written in the Bible in line with a modern Biblical literary perspective, as opposed to the idea of a flat earth where objects such as the sun, moon, and stars were thought to make their orbit around the earth. The notion of Heaven encompassing the universe all around is a very solid Biblical matter. However, a flat earth was postulated by philosophers, including Jewish scholars, who speculated from their limited knowledge of what was beyond the first heaven, or the sky.

The last classic creationist allegation invoked to prove the biblical scenario, is the occurrence of the "flood". They say that, additionally, the Old Testament speaks of a global flood covering the mountains (their height is not mentioned), as described in Psalm 104:6 (ESV): "the waters stood above the mountains" but after the flood verse 8 mentions the massive geological changes that took place: "The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them." The plain statement of the flood waters standing above the mountains overthrows the notion that the biblical authors believed the earth was a flat disc, like a table top, seeing that the flood waters would flow over the sides of the earth once reaching the mountain peaks and could never "stand above the mountains," as Isaiah records. Only on a globe is a world wide flood that covered the mountains feasible and is taken for granted in its description in Genesis 7:20 (ESV): "The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep." End paste In ictu oculi (talk) 04:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Heaven (Christianity) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:16, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Shamayim, wrong etymology
Sham, lofty, + dual 'ayim'.

or Shamay, sky + plural 'im'

It aint no compount, nor akkadian.

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/8064.htm, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9D

Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 15:58, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

-- Indeed, that is clearly a folk etymology, no matter how popular on the web. The folk etymology helped me understand, though, why the "firmament" is separating the waters (heaven and sea) in Genesis/Bereshith, so this re-interpretation may be very old. Tried to improve the article by presenting both aspects (scholarly and traditional), but I am expecting some nutter to revert it within the next 5 minutes because I contradict what they learned in shul / church / on the internet.

MikuChan39 (talk) 16:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Also deleted this section:

The Hebrew word for the sun is shemesh. It follows the same construction, where "shem" or "sham" (Akkadian: samu) means "sky" and esh (Akkadian: ish) means "fire", i.e., "sky-fire".

Copied it here for politness' sake, but this obviously does not work, esh's got an א in it, where does that go? Sham + 'esh = shamesh only works in English where the alephs don't matter ... And as no source was given (the original link does not support the etymology) I think a straight delete is fair.

MikuChan39 (talk) 17:11, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

The Patriarchs and Matriarchs
If Adam & Eve are in the first realm of Heaven & Mosesis in the second, then which realm do Abraham and all the other Patriarchs & Matriarchs reside?--Splashen (talk) 03:07, 15 August 2021 (UTC)