Life of Adam and Eve 36:4
Apocalypse of Moses
Pseudepigrapha
1 And God said to him: “Adam, what have you done? If you had kept my commandment, there would now be no rejoicing among those who are bringing you down to this place. Yet, I tell you that I will turn their joy to grief 2 and your grief I will turn to joy, and I will transform you to your former glory and set you on the throne of your deceiver. But he will be cast 3 into this place to see you sitting above him. Then he will be condemned, along with those who listened to him, and he will be deeply grieved when he sees you sitting on his honorable throne.” 4 And he stayed there three hours, lying down, and afterward the Father of all, sitting on his holy throne, stretched out his hand, and took Adam and handed him over to the archangel Michael, saying: “Lift him up into Paradise, to the third Heaven, and leave him there until that fearful day of my reckoning, which I will bring about in the world.” Then Michael took Adam and left 6 him where God told him.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
2 Corinthians 12:2
New Testament
1 It is necessary to go on boasting. Though it is not profitable, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven. 3 And I know that this man (whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows) 4 was caught up into paradise and heard things too sacred to be put into words, things that a person is not permitted to speak. 5 On behalf of such an individual I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except about my weaknesses. 6 For even if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I would be telling the truth, but I refrain from this so that no one may regard me beyond what he sees in me or what he hears from me,
Date: 55-57 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... Presumably Paul was operating in a seven-heaven worldview when he said that in his out-of-the-body experience he was taken to the third heaven, where he heard unrepeatable words (2 Corinthians 12:1-4 NEB) ... What are we to make of this jumble of pre-scientific cosmologies? What are we to make of our own cosmology in light of them? Clearly, we have more physical evidence for ours than the ancients (or the Empera) had for theirs, with images from our giant telescopes and our spaceships. But that physical evidence does not make our cosmology 'true' and theirs 'false,' for ours, too, will seem amateurish, primitive, and amusing to people two thousand years from now ... The pseudepigrapha, from which we get our understanding of the development of the cosmology of the Jews in intertestamental and New Testament times. obviously contain contradictions and inconsistencies, especially of detail. But the detail is not the important part for us. WVe need to realize that the universe was geocentric, and that by New Testament times people believed it had seven heavens, the topmost one of which was God's dwelling place. Multiple heavens and God's location in the highest one are consistent views throughout the Bible and are part of the ideological framework through which God's nature and God's relationship to us is revealed in the Bible ..."
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