A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence

Description

Well-known for his historical accounts of Satan and hell, Jeffrey Burton Russell here explores the brighter side of eternity: heaven. Dispensing with the cliche images of goodness that can make even heaven seem unbearable, the author stimulates our imagination with a history of how the joy of paradise has been conceived by writers, philosophers, and artists for whom heaven was an imminent reality. Russell not only explores concepts found among the ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans as well as early and medieval Christians, but also addresses the intellectual problems heaven poses: how does time "pass" in eternity? is heaven a place or a state? who is in and who is not? what happens to the body and soul between death and Judgment Day? Russell stresses that the best way to approach the logic-defying concept of a place occupying neither space nor time is through poetry and paradox, and through the visions of such mystics as Bernard, Julian of Norwich, and Eckhart. After the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, the most sublime and encompassing portrait of heaven to date has come not from a theologian but from a poet--Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy.Russell's history of heaven culminates in a lively analysis of how Dante described the glories of the indescribable. The unsurpassed images of light, movement, and community that Dante uses so skillfully to convey the presence of God are rooted in the Jewish picture of heaven as a garden or court and in the Greek picture of the Elysian Fields. Using current scholarly insights together with a vast store of knowledge gathered from the past, Russell takes the idea of heaven as valid and important in itself--something to be understood from the point of view of those believing in it. His very use of language immerses us in the thoughts of those who have sought heaven and provides rich material for contemplation.

Jeffrey Burton Russell is Professor of History and Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of fifteen previous books, including most recently Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World, The Prince of Darkness, A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, Pagans, and Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians.

Winner of the 1998 Book Award, Christianity Today One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1997 "An honest, erudite and personal paean to heaven."--Publishers Weekly "At minimum, it is the most rigorous modern study of the various strains of Western tradition that culminate in [Dante's] Paradiso. But its introductory chapter goes beyond that to sketch out an apologia for passionate heavenly belief. In effect, Russell tries to re-establish the honor of the Christian mystical tradition... Like Dante's, Russell's paradise is deeply God-oriented..."--David Van Biema, Time "Russell offers ever deepening insights into the human notion of heaven... His work holds plenty of historical information on heaven drawn from early and medieval Christianity, yet its style is clear and readable."--Library Journal "[T]he book will be a contribution of lasting literary and spiritual significance as well as a contribution to historical scholarship."--Booklist "Thoughtful and elegant... A rare combination of scholarship, poetic sensitivity, and insight."--Kirkus Review "As a survey or overview of Christian (and some Jewish) religious thought about Heaven as the destiny of human life over these 1500 years this is an excellent if necessarily compact history... Clearly Russell knows his subject intimately and his personal devotion to it comes across warmly on every page."--Hugh Dickinson, The Financial Times "[Russell's goal] is to explore the history of 'concepts' of heaven, which he does with encyclopedic knowledge and a lovely gift for language."--Monica Furlong, The Times Literary Supplement "No brief review can begin to do justice to the rich complexity and subtlety of Russell's thought... [T]he book testifies to his exceptional learning and intellectual sophistication, it is written with the utmost consideration for the readers who are not scholars... Russell offers us Christian scholarship at its best, for, without ever falling into condescension, he clearly explains even the most difficult and unfamiliar terms and concepts, and he invites even the uninitiated reader to share his evident delight in exploring the many facets of this pre-eminently important concept."--Christianity Today "A detailed, scholarly work which is alive with passion and poetry. This is a book about joy... Russell clearly believes in heaven and is unashamed if saying so."--Sara Maitland, Commonweal "This book exemplifies the new genre of devotional scholarship...[A]n approach [Russell] hopes will come as a relief to ordinary readers... What he gives us is a mostly chronological survey of ideas about heaven, beginning with Judaism and coming up to Dante, using that theme as the basis for reflections appealing to a contemporary devotional imagination."--Alfred Corn, New York Times Book Review "Russell... offers a fascinating historical analysis of the concept of heaven... [He] provides an insightful and creative study of the visionary, symbolic, poetic, and paradoxical modes of expression... The scope, suggestiveness, and research base of this work make it a significant, even a landmark, study of heaven."--Choice "Extraordinary... Christian scholarship at its best... The entire book pulsates with Russell's own commitment to heaven's ineffable beauty and splendor."--Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Christianity Today "Russell's greatest contribution to the way we see heaven [is] his readiness to slough off the fiction of objectivity and dive straight into pure inspiration."--Greg Burk, L.A. Weekly Literary Supplement