This is part 2 of the Kingdom Seminar, based on the book Kingdom Journey.
What is heaven? Although it is not the place where the dead go when they die, it is, still, a real place. Today we’ll survey different ways in which the Bible talks about heaven, including the sky, God’s throne, the storehouse, and the heaven of heavens. Next we’ll consider what other religions teach about the afterlife. Finally, we’ll conclude by seeing how the Biblical authors courageously took a radically unpopular view about life after death.
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I was pretty sure that I had a document where I recorded every instance where the NIV mis-translated “heaven,” (at least as far as I can tell. I don’t know Greek. I was comparing it to two literal translations.) but now I can’t find that document. What I remember from doing that exercise, however, is that the NIV is really biased in the way it renders “heaven.” They add or remove the definite article, change singular to plural and vice-versa, sometimes do both of those at once, or they change it to “sky,” or “air.” It was evident to me that in every instance where they changed it, the purpose was to point the reader toward traditional beliefs/doctrines of “heaven.”
Hey Sean,
I think if you haven’t already made up your future podcasts–you need to try to take on a few arguments from David Chilton on “heaven/earth.” As you said, this phrase in the Bible is a bit of a highly debated one and Chilton’s book “Paradise Restored” is offered freely as a PDF online here: https://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/paradise_restored.pdf
It’s a pretty short read and we clearly would disagree with all the Athansius teachings on the Trinity and Deity of Christ, but it’s still formidable to look at his viewpoint on this phrase “heaven/earth” not always being literal but representative of a major change of government/spiritual authorities and powers from their viewpoint.
Still reading your book on my app, but I might get a physical copy cause I really don’t like reading on my phone.
Thanks. Well done.