Heaven : A History

New York: Vintage Books a division of Random House, 1990. Soft cover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. xvii 411 pages, annotated, includes author and subject index. The front cover suffers from very minor creasing at the lower outer edge and the pages are lightly tanned, else clean, unmarked and solid. :" What do Christians believe they will experience after a virtuous life? What will an eternity in the hereafter be like? In this copiously illustrated, lively book, Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang describe and interpret the ways in which believers ? from biblical authors to medieval mystics, from Jesus to present-day religious thinkers ? have pictured Heaven, not just in doctrine but also in poetry, art, literature, and popular culture. In so doing, they shed new light on both the private and public dimensions of western culture.:" (publisher) CONTENTS: 1. The dawn of Heaven Semitic background: communicating with the dead Yahweh alone: no promise for the dead Apocalypticism: the promise of resurrection Hellenistic Judaism; the promise of Heaven Jewish views of the afterlife in the First Century 2. Jesus and the Christian promise Jesus: no marriage in Heaven Paul Revelation to John 3. Irenaeus and Augustine on our Heavenly bodies 4. Medieval Pleasures 5. The pleasures of Renaissance paradise 6. God at the center: protestant and Catholic Reformers Luther and Calvin Catholic Reformers Pious and Ascetic Middle class Theocentric Heaven 7. Swedenborg and the emergence of a modern Heaven 8. Love in the heavenly realm Pre-romantic precursors: Milton and Swedenborg Love and Marriage 9. Eternal motion: progress in the other world Kinetic revolution in Heaven Persisting theocentric traditions Spiritualism: a thick description of Heaven Anthropocentric Heaven 10. Heaven in contemporary Christianity.