Round Trips to Heaven

Doctor of Theology and Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies atJönköping University, Sweden.

In the beginning of the Common Era, a number ofreligious texts were written recounting heavenlyjourney adventures. These narratives have come toconstitute a recurring theme in research regardingancient religions. Round Trips to Heaven featureseveral early Jewish and Christian heavenly journeytexts. The approach of this study serves toilluminate the function of the texts and thecircumstances and settings in which they werecomposed and later passed on, something whichscholars have only recently begun to acknowledge.Two main types of heavenly journeys appear in theaccounts. One type has the function of providing anidentity for the heavenly traveler, and the otherconstitutes a paradigm for the events awaitingmankind after death. The concluding section of thebook is an exposition of 3 Baruch. This text, whichin its entirety portrays a heavenly journey, informsthe reader about death. Moreover, it clearlyreflects a universal perspective. A similarperspective is also found in several otherheavenly journey narratives which provides areasonable explanation for how they could be used inboth Jewish and Christian contexts.