Customer Reviews

A History of Heaven

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Chapter 1 was BORING but had a few nice questions (but no answers, but enough to make you read on)...
Chapter 2 was terrible and I put the book down

PROS:
- You might get a few ideas about what SOME PEOPLE think heaven MIGHT be like (if you can get through the entire book, because the goodies are scattered far and few between)


CONS:
- All those questions you want to know about heaven? Good luck finding them. He asks questions without answers scattered throughout the whole book.
- Very scattered writings. Nothing seems to be in one place. Hard to follow any logical order to the book. It just rambles.
- Difficult reading, easy to lose track of a thought (and some people think the King James was hard? ha!) Good luck for the average reader.

A History of Heaven by Jeffrey Burton Russell, takes a decidedly Christian approach to the idea of heaven, and its evolution through the ages - up until the writing of Dante, where he says, all things consummate were consociated and reworded into the current popular picture of heaven. Buying the book, I was expecting it to be a survey and evolutionary look at heaven and the idea of paradisiacal afterlife from Neanderthal to present societies, but instead it turned out to take a definite Christian approach. The author mentions in passing the ideas of Islam and Judaism, but informs the reader he knowledge of these cultures is limited so he will maintain his focus on the Christian Ideal. It is a great reader for those interested in the early Church and it's ideas on Heaven, including some speculative origins, but it is not a true "history" of heaven, limited only to the Christian Theology as well as the period 200BCE to about 1500CE. A good reader nonetheless.