Round Trips to Heaven: Otherworldly Travelers in Early Judaism and Christianity

In the beginning of the Common Era, a number of religious texts were written recounting heavenly journey adventures. These narratives have come to constitute a recurring theme in research regarding ancient religions. Round Trips to Heaven feature several early Jewish and Christian heavenly journey texts. The approach of this study serves to illuminate the function of the texts and the circumstances and settings in which they were composed and later passed on, something which scholars have only recently begun to acknowledge. Two main types of heavenly journeys appear in the accounts. One type has the function of providing an identity for the heavenly traveler, and the other constitutes a paradigm for the events awaiting mankind after death. The concluding section of the book is an exposition of 3 Baruch. This text, which in its entirety portrays a heavenly journey, informs the reader about death. Moreover, it clearly reflects a universal perspective. A similar perspective is also found in several other heavenly journey narratives which provides a reasonable explanation for how they could be used in both Jewish and Christian contexts.