In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.?

Question

O.K I got the earth part down, but why is heavens plural? Are there more then one? Are there different levels? or is this a bible translation thing?

Answer 1

This is what the Hebrew Torah I have says. The word here is heaven.

א בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Answer 2

Well the Bible like any other collection of text is open to interpretation. I'm sure that whoever originally interpreted the text of that particular scripture had a very good reason for using heavens in a plural sense. We will never know the intention behind it though. Even though you may be of the same religion as someone your God(s), Heaven(s) etc. will never be precisely the same. Everybody has a different perspective on the subject and quite frankly no one view is any better or worse.

What I'm saying is, why do you think heavens is plural? Whatever answer you decide on is no less valid then even the most acclaimed "Religious Scholars".

Personally I think that whatever you believe heaven will be, it will be. So in that regard I guess heavens being plural makes sense.

Answer 3

In Gnostic cosmology there are a plethora of heavens.The Bible one must remember is the work of many people and if the counter arguement is that it was divinely inspired then I as a man made in the image of the creator containning the divine spark can also state that my truth is also from the Holy Spirit.Create your own heaven now in the body you have and let the rest take care of itself.

Answer 4

Heavens and earth symbolize the Seen and the Unseen. Jesus said,"The Kingdom of Heaven is Within", so there are as many heavens as you could possibly "think" of! Notice that all religions have a "heaven" yet all different, in description. Yet they all have one thing in common. They all have everything a "MAN" could want!!!!!

Answer 5

Im guessing this is from the Bible?

The Quran has similar words as well.

Another interesting correlation between this is the first chapter of the Quran refers to God as: Lord of the Worlds.

Answer 6

There are multiple levels of Heaven, it's a common theme in many religious scriptures and teachings.

Answer 7

Actually, the English translation was sloppily done -- in the original Hebrew, it says that "the GODS created the heavens and the earth"...

Christianity evolved from a Canaanite mystery cult which featured a whole pantheon of gods -- Yahweh, who would later morph into the Christian god, was originally just the god of lightning. The Old Testament was lifted from the cult's original scriptures, and in Hebrew still uses "elohim", the plural form of their word for "god".

This also explains why, in further passages, God seems to be refer to himself in the first person, plural ("Let US do this" or "Let US do that")...

Answer 8

sky, space and the realm where God dwells are all referred to as 'heaven' in one context or another.