Where does the word Heaven come from?

Question

Where did the word heaven originate from. Why did they call it heaven? like why is it that word?

Answer 1

Heaven means The Sky. In the Old Testament, ‘heaven’ is translated mostly from the Hebrew word 'shamayim' which means ‘the sky', or 'shamayin', Aramaic for 'the sky'

Answer 2

Why are any words what they are??? There is really no way of knowing. I'm geussing Heaven means something in hebrew or something like that.

Answer 3

According to dictionary.reference.com

[Origin: bef. 900; ME heven, OE heofon; c. MLG heven; akin to ON himinn, Goth himins, G Himmel]

[Middle English heven, from Old English heofon; see ak- in Indo-European roots.]

Answer 4

Heaven is an afterlife concept found in many religions or spiritual philosophies.

Those who believe in heaven generally hold that it (or Hell) is the afterlife destination of many or all humans. In unusual instances, humans have had, according to many testimonies and traditions, personal knowledge of Heaven. They presume this is for the purpose of teaching the rest of humanity about life, deities and notions of the afterlife. [citation needed]


Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven; from Gustave Doré's illustrations to the Divine Comedy.While there are abundant and varied sources for conceptions of Heaven, the typical believer's view appears to depend largely on his particular religious tradition. Various religions have described Heaven as being populated by angels, gods and goddesses, and/or heroes (especially in Persian Zoroastrianism and subsequently Greek mythology). Heaven is generally construed as a place of happiness, sometimes eternal happiness.

In ancient Judaism, the belief in Heaven and afterlife was connected with that of Sheol (mentioned in Isaiah 38:18, Psalms 6:5 and Job 7:7-10). Some scholars asserted that Sheol was an earlier concept, but this theory is not universally held. One later Jewish sect that maintained belief in a Resurrection of the dead was known as the Pharisees. Opposed to them were the Sadducees who denied the doctrine of Resurrection (Matt. 22:23). In much of Christianity, heaven is a return to the pre-fallen state of humanity, a second and new Garden of Eden, in which humanity is reunited with God in a perfect and natural state of eternal existence. [citation needed] Christians believe this reunion is accomplished through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ in having died for the sins of humanity on the cross. [citation needed]

In Eastern religions (and some Western traditions), with their emphasis on reincarnation and moksha (liberation), the concept of Heaven is not as prominent, but it still is present. [citation needed] In Buddhism, for example, there are several heavens, all of which are still part of Samsara (illusionary reality). Those who accumulate good karma will be reborn[1] in one of them. However, their stay in the heaven is not eternal — eventually they will use up their good karma and will undergo a different rebirth into another realm, as humans, animals, or other beings. Because Heaven is temporary and part of Samsara, Buddhists focus more on escaping the cycle of rebirth and reaching enlightenment (Bodhi). In the native Chinese Confucian traditions Heaven (Tian) is an important concept, where the ancestors reside and from which emperors drew their mandate to rule in their dynastic propaganda, for example. In Hindu belief, likewise, heaven—called Swarga loka—is seen as a transitory place for souls who did good deeds but whose actions are not enough for moksha or merging (union) with Brahman.[citation needed]

The popular belief of most faiths is that one enters heaven at the moment of death. This, however, is not part of the doctrine of all of Christianity (see Swedenborgianism for a Christian related religion that does have this doctrine). Some of Christianity along with other major religions maintain that entry into Heaven awaits such time as, "When the form of this world has passed away." [citation needed]

Two related and often confused concepts of heaven in Christianity are better described as the "resurrection of the body", which is exclusively of Biblical origin, as contrasted with "the immortality of the soul", which is also evident in the Greek tradition. In the first concept, the soul does not enter heaven until the last judgement or the "end of time" when it (along with the body) is resurrected and judged. In the second concept, the soul goes to a heaven on another plane immediately after death. These two concepts are generally combined in the doctrine of the double judgement where the soul is judged once at death and goes to a temporary heaven, while awaiting a second and final physical judgement at the end of the world.(*" JPII, also see eschatology, afterlife)

Answer 5

it comes from your ***