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102-416: In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead . In Christianity and Islam , Heaven is a paradisiacal belief. In Buddhism , paradise and heaven are synonymous, with higher levels available to beings who have achieved special attainments of virtue and meditation. In old Egyptian beliefs, the underworld is Aaru , the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where

204-450: A chorus to the lovers, functioning as an audience whose participation in the lovers' erotic encounters facilitates the participation of the reader. Marvin H. Pope, in his commentary, quotes scholars who believe the Song would have been ritually performed as part of ancient fertility cults and that it is "suggestive of orgiastic revelry". Though scholars have differed in assessing when it

306-437: A Greek poet who wrote in the first half of the 3rd century BCE; as a result of these conflicting signs, speculation ranges from the 10th to the 2nd centuries BCE, with the language supporting a date around the 3rd century. Other scholars are more skeptical about the idea that the language demands a post-exilic date. Debate continues on the unity or disunity of the book. Those who see it as an anthology or collection point to

408-474: A calligraphic frieze, the mosaic depicts symmetrical and vegetal vine scrolls, surrounded by trees of blue, green and turquoise mosaics. Jewel-like embellishments as well as gold pigment complete the mosaic. Not only did mosaics of this kind seek to reflect paradise as described in the Qur'an, but they were also thought to represent and proclaim Muslim victories. The mosaic of The Great Mosque of Damascus, Syria In

510-475: A cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En Gedi ", "an apple tree among the trees of the wood", "a lily among brambles ", while the bed they share is like a forest canopy ). The section closes with the woman telling the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up love such as hers until it is ready. The woman recalls a visit from her lover in the springtime. She uses imagery from a shepherd's life, and she says of her lover that "he pastures his flock among

612-475: A particular kingdom or degree of glory . This may also be termed "paradise". In the Quran , Heaven is denoted as Jannah (garden), with the highest level being called Firdaus , i.e. Paradise. It is used instead of Heaven to describe the ultimate pleasurable place after death, accessible by those who pray, donate to charity, and believe in: Allah , the angels , his revealed books , his prophets and messengers ,

714-547: A reference to "being caught up" as found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, when the "dead in Christ" and "we who are alive and remain" will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord , though Christians differ on interpretation. Scripture indicates that Enoch and Elijah were assumed into heaven while still alive and not experiencing physical death. There is also an idea that Moses was assumed bodily into Heaven after his death; this

816-449: A restored earthly paradise. Joining the survivors will be the resurrected righteous and unrighteous people who died prior to Armageddon. The latter are brought back because they paid for their sins by their death and/or because they lacked opportunity to learn of Jehovah's requirements before dying. These will be judged on the basis of their post-resurrection obedience to instructions revealed in new "scrolls". They believe that resurrection of

918-509: A ruin after the Jewish–Roman wars but was rebuilt beginning with Constantine the Great in the 4th century). Origen likewise distinguished paradise from heaven, describing paradise as the earthly "school" for souls of the righteous dead, preparing them for their ascent through the celestial spheres to heaven. Many early Christians identified Abraham's bosom with paradise, where the souls of

1020-835: A scene of paradise as described in the Qur'an. The Alhambra, Court of the Lions, Grenada, Spain The structural layout of the gardens of the Alhambra in Grenada, embodies the idea of water as a symbol of representing paradise within Islamic gardens. In particular, the Courtyard of the Lions, which follows the Quarter Garden, or the 'Chahar-Bagh' layout, typical to Islamic gardens, features a serene water fountain at its centre. The fountain

1122-568: A similar instance, the mosaic within the Great Mosque of Damascus, constructed within a similar timeframe to the Dome of the Rock, features the most noticeable elements of a paradisiacal garden as described in the Qur'an. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the mosaic on the exterior facade of the Great Mosque of Damascus, was similarly intended to replicate an image of paradise in

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1224-416: A single theme", and thus not worthy of canonization. In fact, "there is a tradition that even this book was considered as one to be excluded." It was accepted as canonical because of its supposed authorship by Solomon and based on an allegorical reading where the subject matter was taken to be not sexual desire but God's love for Israel. For instance, the famed first and second century Rabbi Akiva forbade

1326-466: A system of ten sephirot emanations, each symbolizing a different attribute of God, comprising both male and female. The Shechina ( indwelling Divine presence) was identified with the feminine sephira Malchut , the vessel of Kingship. This symbolizes the Jewish people, and in the body, the female form, identified with the woman in Song of Songs. Her beloved was identified with the male sephira Tiferet ,

1428-514: Is "walled (enclosure)", from pairi- 'around' (cognate with Greek περί , English peri- of identical meaning) and -diz "to make, form (a wall), build" (cognate with Greek τεῖχος 'wall'). The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a PIE root *dheigʷ "to stick and set up (a wall)", and *per "around". By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been borrowed into Assyrian pardesu "domain". It subsequently came to indicate

1530-635: Is a pious belief in the Catholic Church, but not a dogma, that Saint Joseph , too, was assumed into Heaven, since he is among a few saints who left no bodily relics. This pious belief is called the Assumption of Saint Joseph. Many Catholic saints, doctors of the Church , as well as several Popes, such as John XXIII , supported this belief. When the tomb of John the Evangelist (located in

1632-659: Is based on the Epistle of Saint Jude , where Saint Michael the Archangel contends with Satan over the body of Moses. The Catholic Church distinguishes between the ascension of Jesus in which he rose to heaven by his own power, and the assumption of Mary , the mother of Jesus, who was raised to heaven by God's power, or the assumption of other saints. On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII , acting ex cathedra , issued Munificentissimus Deus , an authoritative statement of official dogma of Roman Catholicism . In Section 44

1734-622: Is carved with stone lions, with the water emerging from the mouths of these lions. The static nature of the locally sourced water features within the Courtyard of the Lions at the Alhambra, adds to the atmosphere of serenity and stillness which is typical of Islamic gardens that utilise water features, resembling the image of paradise as found in the Qur'an. There is not yet concrete evidence that Islamic gardens were solely intended to represent images of paradise. However, it can be deduced from certain inscriptions and intentions of structures, that creating an atmosphere of divinity and serenity were part of

1836-578: Is from Kugler and Hartin's An Introduction to The Bible : The introduction calls the poem "the song of songs", a phrase that follows an idiomatic construction commonly found in Scriptural Hebrew to indicate the object's status as the greatest and most beautiful of its class (as in Holy of Holies ). The work is also referred to as the "Song of Solomon", meaning the song 'of', 'by', 'for', or '[dedicated] to' Solomon. The poem proper begins with

1938-475: Is in his garden, safe from harm, and committed to her as she is to him. The man describes his beloved; the woman describes a rendezvous they have shared. (The last part is unclear and possibly corrupted.) The people praise the beauty of the woman. The images are the same as those used elsewhere in the poem, but with an unusually dense use of place-names, e.g., pools of Hebron , gate of Bath-rabbim , tower of Damascus , etc. The man states his intention to enjoy

2040-545: Is in the lowest, Jannah al-Adn is the middle and Jannah al-Firdaus is the highest. Imam Bukhari has also recorded the tradition in which the Prophet said, 'When you ask from Allah , ask Him for Al-Firdaus, for it is the middle of Paradise and it is the highest place and from it the rivers of Paradise flow.' (Bukhari, Ahmad, Baihaqi) In this tradition, it is evident that Al-Firdaus is the highest place in Paradise, yet, it

2142-491: Is its language: Aramaic gradually replaced Hebrew after the end of the Babylonian exile in the late 6th century BCE, and the evidence of vocabulary, morphology , idiom and syntax clearly point to a late date, centuries after King Solomon to whom it is traditionally attributed. It has parallels with Mesopotamian and Egyptian love poetry from the first half of the 1st millennium, and with the pastoral idylls of Theocritus ,

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2244-452: Is most sweet, he is altogether lovely ( mahamaddim )." In his book Demystifying Islam , Muslim apologist Harris Zafar argues that the last word ( Hebrew : מַחֲּמַדִּים‪‬‪‬ , romanized :  maḥămaddîm , lit.   'lovely'), with the plural suffix "-im" (which is occasionally used to indicate intensity, and is normally understood to do so for both of the adjectives in this verse), expressing respect and greatness (as

2346-572: Is never used in the nearly 100 other places in the Gospels where Jesus uses the phrase, "Truly I say to you". In Christian art, Fra Angelico 's Last Judgement painting shows Paradise on its left side. There is a tree of life (and another tree) and a circle dance of liberated souls . In the middle is a hole. In Muslim art it similarly indicates the presence of the Prophet or divine beings. It visually says, "Those here cannot be depicted". Jehovah's Witnesses believe, from their interpretation of

2448-510: Is not as worthy as the day on which Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Writings are holy, but Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies." Other rabbinic scholars who have employed allegorical exegesis in explaining the meaning of Song of Songs are Tobiah ben Eliezer , author of Lekach Tov , and Zechariah ha-Rofé , author of Midrash ha-Hefez . The French rabbi Rashi did not believe

2550-546: Is often read from a scroll similar to a Torah scroll in style. It is also read in its entirety by some at the end of the Passover Seder and is usually printed in most Hagadahs . Some Jews have the custom to recite the entire book prior to the onset of the Jewish Sabbath. The literal subject of the Song of Songs is love and sexual longing between a man and a woman, and it has little (or nothing) to say about

2652-586: Is opposed by the Hebrew terms gehinnom (the source, via Yiddish , of the English "Gehenna") and sheol , figurative names for the place of spiritual purification for the wicked dead in Judaism, a place envisioned as being at the greatest possible distance from heaven . In modern Jewish eschatology it is believed that history will complete itself and the ultimate destination will be when all mankind returns to

2754-557: Is read as an allegory of Christ and his bride , the Church . There is widespread consensus that, although the book has no plot, it does have what can be called a framework, as indicated by the links between its beginning and end. Beyond this, however, there appears to be little agreement: attempts to find a chiastic structure have not found acceptance, and analyses dividing the book into units have employed various methods, yielding diverse conclusions. The following indicative schema

2856-461: Is ready". The next section reports a royal wedding procession. Solomon is mentioned by name, and the daughters of Jerusalem are invited to come out and see the spectacle. The man describes his beloved: Her eyes are like doves, her hair is like a flock of goats, her teeth like shorn ewes, and so on from face to breasts. Place-names feature heavily: her neck is like the Tower of David , her smell like

2958-775: Is said to have dwelt only in the Gan , whereas Eden is said never to be witnessed by any mortal eye. In Rabbinic Judaism , the word 'Pardes' recurs, but less often in the Second Temple context of Eden or restored Eden. A well-known reference is in the Pardes story , where the word may allude to mystic philosophy. The Zohar gives the word a mystical interpretation, and associates it with the four kinds of Biblical exegesis: peshat (literal meaning), remez (allusion), derash (anagogical), and sod (mystic). The initial letters of those four words then form פַּרְדֵּס – p(a)rd(e)s , which

3060-405: Is stated that it is in the middle. While giving an explanation of this description of Al-Firdaus, the great scholar, Ibn Hibban states, 'Al-Firdaus being in the middle of Paradise means that with respect to the width and breadth of Paradise, Al-Firdaus is in the middle. And with respect to being 'the highest place in Paradise', it refers to it being on a height.' This explanation is in agreement to

3162-418: Is the help of Allah ?" Unquestionably, the help of Allah is near. — Qur'an 2:214 (Al-Baqarah) ( Saheeh International ) Other instances where paradise is mentioned in the Qur'an includes descriptions of springs, silk garments, embellished carpets and women with beautiful eyes. These elements can also be seen as depicted within Islamic art and architecture. " The semblance of Paradise (Jannah) promised

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3264-553: The Basilica of St. John , Ephesus ) during Constantine the Great 's reign supposedly yielded no bones, this gave rise to the belief that his body was assumed into heaven (other accounts say that only manna or the saint's sandals was found in the tomb). Augustine of Hippo spoke against the tradition in his Treatises on the Gospel of John (AD 406–420), and Dante attempted to refute the belief in his Paradiso . Altogether,

3366-620: The Bible . Those books reveal an abiding imbalance in the relationship between God and man, ranging from slight to enormous; but reading Songs as a theological metaphor produces quite a different outcome, one in which the two partners are equals, bound in a committed relationship. In modern times the poem has attracted the attention of feminist biblical critics, with Phyllis Trible 's foundational "Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation" treating it as an exemplary text, and

3468-572: The Book of Genesis , that God's original purpose was, and is, to have the earth filled with the offspring of Adam and Eve as caretakers of a global paradise. However, Adam and Eve rebelled against God's sovereignty and were banished from the Garden of Eden, driven out of paradise into toil and misery. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that disobedient and wicked people will be destroyed by Christ at Armageddon and those obedient to Christ will live eternally in

3570-793: The Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon , is a biblical poem , one of the five megillot ("scrolls") in the Ketuvim ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh . It is unique within the Hebrew Bible : it shows no interest in Law or Covenant or the God of Israel, nor does it teach or explore wisdom, like Proverbs or Ecclesiastes —although it does have some affinities to wisdom literature , as

3672-526: The Day of Judgement and divine decree ( Qadr ), and follow God's will in their life. Heaven in Islam is used to describe skies in the literal sense and metaphorically to refer to the universe . In Islam, the bounties and beauty of Heaven are immense, so much so that they are beyond the abilities of mankind's worldly mind to comprehend. There are eight doors of Jannah. These are eight grades of Jannah: Jannah al-Mawa

3774-799: The Dormition of the Mother of God on August 15. The Orthodox teach that Mary died a natural death like any other human being, that she was buried by the Apostles (except for Thomas , who was late), and three days later (after Thomas had arrived) was found to be missing from her tomb. The church teaches that the Apostles received a revelation during which the Theotokos appeared to them and told them she had been resurrected by Jesus and taken body and soul into heaven. The Orthodox teach that Mary already enjoys

3876-671: The Fall of man , having been tricked by the serpent . After the death of Adam, the Archangel Michael carries Adam's body to be buried in Paradise, in the Third Heaven . The Greek word παράδεισος appears three times in the New Testament : According to Jewish eschatology , the higher Gan Eden is called the "Garden of Righteousness". It has been created since the beginning of the world, and will appear gloriously at

3978-565: The Right Hand of God with a promise to someday return to Earth . The fringe views that Jesus did not die are known as the swoon hypothesis and Docetism . Mary, the mother of Jesus is considered in Eastern Orthodoxy to have died prior to being assumed (translated) into heaven. In like manner, Roman Catholicism affirms that Mary, the mother of Jesus, suffered death prior to her assumption which has been "expressly affirmed in

4080-561: The Septuagint (3rd–1st centuries BCE), Greek παράδεισος parádeisos was used to translate both Hebrew פרדס pardes and Hebrew גן gan , "garden" (e.g. ( Genesis 2:8 , Ezekiel 28:13 ): it is from this usage that the use of "paradise" to refer to the Garden of Eden derives. The same usage also appears in Arabic and in the Quran as firdaws فردوس. The idea of a walled enclosure

4182-510: The Sinaitic Palimpsest reads "I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise". Likewise the two earliest Greek codices with punctuation disagree: Codex Vaticanus has a pause mark (a single dot on the baseline) in the original ink equidistant between 'today' and the following word (with no later corrections and no dot before "today"), whereas Codex Alexandrinus has the "today in paradise" reading. In addition, an adverb of time

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4284-412: The allegoric interpretation of Ambrose of Milan , Saint Augustine of Hippo stated that the Song of Songs represents the wedding between Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church, pure and virgin, within an ascetic context. Over the centuries the emphases of interpretation shifted, first reading the Song as a depiction of the love between Christ and Church, the 11th century adding a moral element, and

4386-422: The heavens ( Hebrew : שָׁמַיִם‎ , romanized :  šāmayim ) in a whirlwind, but the word can mean either heaven as the abode of God or the sky (as the word "heavens" does in modern English). According to the post-biblical Midrash , eight people went to (or will go to) heaven (also referred to as the Garden of Eden and paradise ) alive: The Christian Old Testament , which is based primarily upon

4488-480: The "Holy One Blessed be He", a central principle in the beneficent heavenly flow of divine emotion. In the body, this represents the male torso, uniting through the sephira Yesod of the male sign of the covenant organ of procreation. Through beneficent deeds and Jewish observance , the Jewish people restore cosmic harmony in the divine realm, healing the exile of the Shechina with God's transcendence, revealing

4590-537: The 12th century understanding of the Bride as the Virgin Mary , with each new reading absorbing rather than simply replacing earlier ones, so that the commentary became ever more complex. These theological themes are not found explicitly in the poem, but they come from a theological reading. Nevertheless, what is notable about this approach is the way it leads to conclusions not found in the overtly theological books of

4692-591: The Assumption of Mary, while others in these traditions reject the Assumption of Mary. Since the adoption of the Nicene Creed in 325, the ascension of Jesus into heaven, as related in the New Testament , has been officially taught by all orthodox Christian churches and is celebrated on Ascension Thursday . In the Roman Catholic Church, the ascension of the Lord is a Holy Day of Obligation . In

4794-595: The Bible is that the Song of Songs is an erotic poem, and not an elaborate metaphor. In his commentary for the Anchor Bible Series , Marvin H. Pope quotes scholars who believe that the Song described a fertility cult liturgy, rooted in the fertility cults of the ancient Near Eastern cultures of Mesopotamia and Canaan, as well as their sacred marriage rites and funeral feasts. J. Cheryl Exum wrote: "The erotic desire of its protagonists, everywhere evident in

4896-478: The Catholic Church has taught by the universal and ordinary magisterium that Saints Enoch and Elijah were assumed into Heaven, and it teaches dogmatically and therefore infallibly that Mary was assumed into Heaven; that it is acceptable as a pious belief that Saint Joseph was assumed into Heaven; and that it is a pious belief that Moses (after his death) and Saint John the Apostle were assumed into Heaven (though

4998-450: The Day of Judgement and themes of paradise. Similarly, the placement of the tomb structure within the waterscape garden environment heightens the conceptual relationship between tomb gardens and a place of paradise as discussed in the Qur'an. Similarly, the white marble used for the construction of the tomb mausoleum, furthers the relationship between the purity and divinity of the tomb, elevating

5100-792: The Eastern Orthodox Church the ascension is one of twelve Great Feasts . In the Reformed Churches, which teach Calvinist theology , belief in the ascension of Christ is included in the Westminster Confession of Faith , the Heidelberg Catechism and the Second Helvetic Confession . The dispensationalist belief in a "rapture"—a belief rejected by Catholics , Eastern Orthodox and most Protestants—is drawn from

5202-513: The Feminist Companion to the Bible series edited by Athalya Brenner and Carole Fontaine devoting two volumes to it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints specifically rejects the Song of Solomon as inspired scripture. Several Islamic apologists contend that the word mahmaddim in Song of Songs 5:16 mentions Muhammad . Whereas most translators will render the first words of that verse in terms such as "His mouth

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5304-634: The Garden of Eden. In the Talmud and the Jewish Kabbalah , the scholars agree that there are two types of spiritual places called "Garden in Eden". The first is rather terrestrial, of abundant fertility and luxuriant vegetation, known as the "lower Gan Eden". The second is envisioned as being celestial, the habitation of righteous, Jewish and non-Jewish, immortal souls, known as the "higher Gan Eden". The rabbis differentiate between Gan and Eden. Adam

5406-493: The Hebrew Bible, follows the Jewish narrative and mentions that Enoch was "taken" by God, and that Elijah was bodily assumed into Heaven on a chariot of fire. Jesus is considered by the vast majority of Christians to have died before being resurrected and ascending to heaven. Most Christians believe Jesus did initially die , but was then resurrected from the dead by God , before being raised bodily to heaven to sit at

5508-589: The Liturgy of the Church" and is expressly seen in paragraph 20 of the proclamation of this teaching. Protestants generally believe that Mary died a natural death like any other human being and subsequently entered heaven in the usual manner, though certain adherents belonging to the Evangelical Catholic tradition of Lutheranism and the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism affirm

5610-527: The New Testament. The Quran states that people (i.e., the Jews and Romans) sought to kill Jesus, but they could not crucify or kill him, although "this was made to appear to them". Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified but instead he was raised by God unto the heavens. This "raising" is often understood to mean through bodily ascension. Some Islamic scholars have identified the prophet Idris to be

5712-531: The Qur'an's description of paradise, since there are not extensive historical records to reference to. However, many elements of Islamic art and architecture can certainly be interpreted as being intended to reflect paradise as described in the Qur'an, and there are particular historical records which support a number of case studies in this claim. Historical evidence does support the claim that certain Islamic garden structures and mosaics, particularly those of Spanish, Persian and Indian origins, were intended to mirror

5814-466: The Song are read on Shabbat eve or at Passover , which marks the beginning of the grain harvest as well as commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, to symbolize the love between the Jewish people and their God. Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel. The entire Song of Songs in its original Hebrew is read in synagogues during the intermediate days of Passover. It

5916-424: The Song employs a number of literary conventions typical of this didactic literature and that it combines features of both ancient Near Eastern love song and wisdom genres to produce a wisdom literature about romantic love, instructing readers to pursue what she describes as a particular type of 'wise love' relationship, modelled by the lovers of the poem. Likewise, Katharine J. Dell notes a number of Wisdom motifs in

6018-455: The Song of Songs , which are considered the pinnacle of his biblical exegesis . In them, he compares the bride to the soul and the invisible groom to God: the finite soul is incessantly reaching out towards the infinite God and remains continually disappointed in this life due to the failure to achieve ecstatic union with the beloved, a vision which enraptures and can be achieved fully and perfectly only in life after death. Similarly, following

6120-515: The Song of Songs to be an erotic poem. Song of Songs is one of the overtly mystical Biblical texts for the Kabbalah , which gave an esoteric interpretation on all the Hebrew Bible. Following the dissemination of the Zohar in the 13th century, Jewish mysticism took on a metaphorically anthropomorphic erotic element, and Song of Songs is an example of this. In Zoharic Kabbalah, God is represented by

6222-418: The Song such as parallels between the lovers and the advices and conduct of Woman Wisdom and the Loose Woman of Proverbs , among others. The Song was accepted into the Jewish canon of scripture in the 2nd century CE, after a period of controversy in the 1st century. This period of controversy was a result of many rabbis seeing this text as merely "secular love poetry, a collection of love songs gathered around

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6324-421: The Song, leads me, in conclusion, to the Song's unique contribution to the conceptualization of love in the Bible: its romantic vision of love". The historian and rabbi Shaye J. D. Cohen summarises: Song of Songs [is a] collection of love poems sung by him to her and her to him: [– –] While authorship is ascribed to Solomon in its first verse and by traditionalists, [modern Bible scholarship] argues that while

6426-504: The abrupt shifts of scene, speaker, subject matter and mood, and the lack of obvious structure or narrative. Those who hold it to be a single poem point out that it has no internal signs of composite origins, and view the repetitions and similarities among its parts as evidence of unity. Some claim to find a conscious artistic design underlying it, but there is no agreement among them on what this might be. The question, therefore, remains unresolved. The consensus among contemporary scholars of

6528-435: The artists' intentions. Tombs became the metaphorical 'paradise on Earth' for Islamic architecture and gardens; they were a place of eternal peace were devout followers of God could rest. The Taj Mahal Upon the exterior of the tomb mausoleum of the Taj Mahal, inscriptions of passages from the Qur'an adorn the exterior facades, encasing the iwans. These inscriptions rehearse passages of an eschatological nature, referencing

6630-488: The ascription to the 10th-century BCE King of Israel Solomon indicates. Instead, it celebrates sexual love, giving "the voices of two lovers, praising each other, yearning for each other, proffering invitations to enjoy". The two lovers are in harmony, each desiring the other and rejoicing in sexual intimacy . Modern scholarship tends to hold that the lovers in the Song are unmarried, which accords with its near ancient Near East context. The women of Jerusalem form

6732-404: The assumption of Saint John has generally been considered much weaker and less probable). The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that three other persons were taken bodily into heaven: Enoch and Elijah (Elias) entered without dying. However the Theotokos (Virgin Mary, died, was resurrected, and taken to heaven. Unlike the Western "Assumption" of Mary. However, they the Orthodox also celebrate

6834-442: The book may contain ancient material, there is no evidence that Solomon wrote it. [– –] What is a collection of erotic poems doing in the Hebrew Bible? Indeed, some ancient rabbis were uneasy about the book’s inclusion in the canon. Several scholars have also argued that, alongside its condition as love poetry, the Song of Songs also shares a number of features with Wisdom literature . For instance, Jennifer L. Andruska argues that

6936-410: The daughters of Jerusalem of another dream. She was in her chamber when her lover knocked. She was slow to open, and when she did, he was gone. She searched through the streets again, but this time she failed to find him and the watchmen, who had helped her before, now beat her. She asks the daughters of Jerusalem to help her find him, and describes his physical good looks. Eventually, she admits her lover

7038-420: The dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell . For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisiacal land of plenty where adherents hoped the heroic and righteous dead would spend eternity . In the Zoroastrian Avesta , the "Best Existence" and the "House of Song" are places of the righteous dead. On the other hand, in cosmogonical contexts 'paradise' describes

7140-801: The dead to paradise earth is made possible by Christ's blood and the ransom sacrifice . This provision does not apply to those whom Christ as Judge deems to have sinned against God's holy spirit. One of Jesus' statements before he died were the words to a man hanging alongside him, "you will be with me in Paradise." The New World Translation places a comma after the word 'today', dividing it into two separate phrases, "I tell you today" and "you will be with me in Paradise". This differs from standard translations of this verse as "I tell you today you will be with me in Paradise". Based on scriptures such as Matthew 12:40 , 27:63 , Mark 8:31 and 9:31 , Witnesses believe Jesus' expectation that he would be bodily resurrected after three days precluded his being in paradise on

7242-489: The deity St. Germain ). They also believe numerous others have undergone Ascension; they are called the Ascended Masters and act as spirit guides to human souls on their spiritual path. The leaders of these religions claim to be able to receive channeled messages from the Ascended Masters, which they then relay to their followers. Song of Songs The Song of Songs ( Biblical Hebrew : שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים ‎ , romanized:  Šīr hašŠīrīm ), also called

7344-415: The end of time. The righteous dwelling there will enjoy the sight of the heavenly chayot carrying the throne of God. Each of the righteous will walk with God, who will lead them in a dance. Its Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants are "clothed with garments of light and eternal life, and eat of the tree of life" (Enoch 58,3) near to God and His anointed ones. This Jewish rabbinical concept of a higher Gan Eden

7446-649: The essential unity of God. This elevation of the world is aroused from above on the Sabbath, a foretaste of the redeemed purpose of Creation. The text thus became a description, depending on the aspect, of the creation of the world, the passage of Shabbat , the covenant with Israel, and the coming of the Messianic age. " Lecha Dodi ", a 16th-century liturgical song with strong Kabbalistic symbolism, contains many passages, including its opening two words, taken directly from Song of Songs. In modern Judaism, certain verses from

7548-586: The expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire , and was subsequently borrowed into Greek as παράδεισος parádeisos "park for animals" in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BCE Athenian Xenophon , Aramaic as pardaysa "royal park", and Hebrew as פַּרְדֵּס pardes , "orchard" (appearing thrice in the Tanakh ; in the Song of Solomon ( Song of Songs 4:13 ), Ecclesiastes ( Ecclesiastes 2:5 ) and Nehemiah ( Nehemiah 2:8 )). In

7650-695: The explanation which has been given by Abu Hurairah (r.a.) who said that 'Al Firdaus is a mountain in Paradise from which the rivers flow.' (Tafseer Al Qurtubi Vol. 12 pg. 100) The Quran also gave a warning that not all Muslims or even the believers will assuredly be permitted to enter Jannah except those who had struggled in the name of God and tested from God's trials as faced by the messengers of God or ancient prophets: Or do you think that you will enter Paradise while such [trial] has not yet come to you as came to those who passed on before you? They were touched by poverty and hardship and were shaken until [even their] messenger and those who believed with him said,"When

7752-407: The fruits of the woman's garden. The woman invites him to a tryst in the fields. She once more warns the daughters of Jerusalem against waking love until it is ready. The woman compares love to death and Sheol : love is as relentless and jealous as these two, and cannot be quenched by any force. She summons her lover, using the language used before: he should come "like a gazelle or a young stag upon

7854-829: The fullness of heavenly bliss that the other saints will experience only after the Last Judgment . In Mandaeism , the Left Ginza mentions that Shitil (Seth), the son of Adam , was taken alive to the World of Light without a masiqta (death mass). It is believed in Zoroastrianism that the Peshotanu was taken up into heaven alive and will someday return as the Zoroastrian messiah . The Qur'an , central religious text of Islam , teaches that Muhammad

7956-410: The individual's piety . In the Hebrew Bible , there are two figures – Enoch and Elijah – who are said to have entered heaven alive, but both wordings are subject of debate. Genesis 5:24 says "Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him," but it does not state whether he was alive or dead nor where God took him. The Books of Kings describes the prophet Elijah being taken towards

8058-423: The lilies". The woman again addresses the daughters of Jerusalem, describing her fervent and ultimately successful search for her lover through the night-time streets of the city. When she finds him she takes him almost by force into the chamber in which she was conceived. She reveals that this is a dream, seen on her "bed at night", and ends by again warning the daughters of Jerusalem "not to stir up love until it

8160-463: The mountain of spices". The poem seems to be rooted in festive performance, and connections have been proposed with the "sacred marriage" of Ishtar and Tammuz . It offers no clue to its author or to the date, place, or circumstances of its composition. The superscription states that it is "Solomon's", but even if this is meant to identify the author, it cannot be read as strictly as a similar modern statement. The most reliable evidence for its date

8262-454: The original Persian meaning of the word, where it describes the royal parks of Cyrus the Great by Xenophon in Anabasis . In Second Temple era Judaism, "paradise" came to be associated with the Garden of Eden and prophecies of restoration of Eden , and transferred to heaven . In the apocryphal Apocalypse of Moses , Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise (rather than Eden) after

8364-655: The pious and devout (is that of a garden) with streams of water that will not go rank, and rivers of milk whose taste will not undergo a change, and rivers of wine delectable to drinkers, and streams of purified honey, and fruits of every kind in them, and forgiveness from their Lord." (47:15). The Qur'an contains multiple passages in which paradise, or 'Jannah', is referred to. The Holy Book contains 166 references to gardens, of which nineteen mention 'Jannah', connoting both images of paradise through gardens, water features, and fruit-bearing trees. Scholars are unable to confirm that certain artistic choices were solely intended to reflect

8466-601: The pope stated: By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. The doctrine is based on sacred tradition that Mary

8568-414: The power of God. Entering heaven alive Entering heaven alive (called by various religions "ascension", "assumption", or " translation ") is a belief held in various religions. Since death is the normal end to an individual's life on Earth and the beginning of afterlife , entering heaven without dying first is considered exceptional and usually a sign of a deity 's special recognition of

8670-399: The relationship of God and man; in order to find such a meaning it was necessary to turn to allegory, treating the love that the Song celebrates as an analogy for the love between God and Church. The Christian church's interpretation of the Song as evidence of God's love for his people, both collectively and individually, began with Origen . Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote fifteen Homilies on

8772-685: The reports, teachings, deeds and sayings of Muhammad, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was understood as relating to Temple Mount in Jerusalem . The Al-Aqsa Mosque, derived from the name mentioned in the Qur'an, was built on the Temple Mount under the Umayyads several decades after Muhammad's death to commemorate the place from which Muslims believe he had ascended to heaven. Islamic texts deny the idea of crucifixion or death attributed to Jesus by

8874-443: The righteous go until the resurrection of the dead ; others were inconsistent in their identification of paradise, such as St. Augustine, whose views varied. In Luke 23:43, Jesus has a conversation with one of those crucified with him, who asks, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom". Jesus answers him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise". This has often been interpreted to mean that on that same day

8976-450: The same day that he died. In Latter Day Saint theology, paradise usually refers to the spirit world , the place where spirits dwell following death and awaiting the resurrection. In that context, "paradise" is the state of the righteous after death. In contrast, the wicked and those who have not yet learned the gospel of Jesus Christ await the resurrection in spirit prison . After the universal resurrection, all persons will be assigned to

9078-480: The same period as the Prophet's Mosque at Medina, can be said to have had the same intended effect. The mosaic of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem Constructed between 690 and 692, the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem features a large-scale mosaic on the interior of the domed structure. It is likely that this richly embellished and detailed mosaic was intended to replicate an image of paradise, featuring fruit-bearing trees, vegetal motifs and flowing rivers. Accompanied by

9180-480: The same person as Enoch from the Bible. This is because the Quran states that God "raised him to a lofty station", and that has been taken to be a term for ascending, upon which it is concluded that "Idris" was "Enoch". Members of various Ascended Master Teachings , a group of New Age religions based on Theosophy , believe that Francis Bacon underwent a physical Ascension without experiencing death (he then became

9282-426: The scent of Lebanon . He hastens to summon his beloved, saying that he is ravished by even a single glance. The section becomes a "garden poem", in which he describes her as a "locked garden" (usually taken to mean that she is chaste). The woman invites the man to enter the garden and taste the fruits. The man accepts the invitation, and a third party tells them to eat, drink, "and be drunk with love". The woman tells

9384-462: The status of the tomb to that of paradise. Preserved historical writings from an interview with the artisan of the Prophet's Mosque at Medina between 705 and 715, revealed how the mosaic depictions of gardens within this mosque were in fact created "according to the picture of the Tree of Paradise and its palaces" . Structures that are similarly adorned with naturalistic mosaics, and were created during

9486-516: The thief and Jesus would enter the intermediate resting place of the dead who were waiting for the Resurrection. Divergent views on paradise, and when one enters it, may have been responsible for a punctuation difference in Luke; for example, the two early Syriac versions translate Luke 23:43 differently. The Curetonian Gospels read "Today I tell you that you will be with me in paradise", whereas

9588-438: The use of the Song of Songs in popular celebrations. He reportedly said, "He who sings the Song of Songs in wine taverns, treating it as if it were a vulgar song, forfeits his share in the world to come". However, Rabbi Akiva famously defended the canonicity of the Song of Songs, reportedly saying when the question came up of whether it should be considered a defiling work, "God forbid! [...] For all of eternity in its entirety

9690-699: The viewer's mind. On the Origin of the World , a text from the Nag Hammadi library held in ancient Gnosticism , describes Paradise as being located outside the circuit of the Sun and Moon in the luxuriant Earth east in the midst of stones. The Tree of Life, which will provide for the souls of saints after they come out of their corrupted bodies, is located in the north of Paradise besides the Tree of Knowledge that contains

9792-408: The woman's expression of desire for her lover and her self-description to the "daughters of Jerusalem": she insists on her sun-born blackness, likening it to the "tents of Kedar " (nomads) and the "curtains of Solomon". A dialogue between the lovers follows: the woman asks the man to meet; he replies with a lightly teasing tone. The two compete in offering flattering compliments ("my beloved is to me as

9894-709: The world before it was tainted by evil . The concept is a theme in art and literature, particularly of the pre- Enlightenment era. John Milton 's Paradise Lost is an example of such usage. The word "paradise" entered English from the French paradis , inherited from the Latin paradisus , from Greek parádeisos (παράδεισος), from an Old Iranian form, from Proto-Iranian *parādaiĵah- "walled enclosure", whence Old Persian 𐎱𐎼𐎭𐎹𐎭𐎠𐎶 p-r-d-y-d-a-m /paridaidam/ , Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌⸱𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀 pairi-daêza- . The literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word

9996-464: Was bodily assumed into heaven. For centuries before that, the assumption was celebrated in art and in the Church's liturgy . The proclamation's wording does not state if Mary suffered bodily death before being assumed into heaven; this is left open to individual belief. Some theologians have argued that Mary did not die, while others maintain that she experienced death not due to original sin , but to share in her son's own death and resurrection. It

10098-456: Was in turn felt to represent the fourfold interpretation of the Torah (in which sod – the mystical interpretation – ranks highest). In the 2nd century AD, Irenaeus distinguished paradise from heaven . In Against Heresies , he wrote that only those deemed worthy would inherit a home in heaven, while others would enjoy paradise, and the rest live in the restored Jerusalem (which was mostly

10200-548: Was not preserved in most Iranian usage, and generally came to refer to a plantation or other cultivated area, not necessarily walled. For example, the Old Iranian word survives as Pardis in New Persian as well as its derivative pālīz (or "jālīz"), which denotes a vegetable patch. The Hebrew word pardes appears only in the post-Exilic period (after 538 BCE); it occurs in the Song of Songs 4:13, Ecclesiastes 2:5, and Nehemiah 2:8, in each case meaning "park" or "garden",

10302-547: Was transported from the Great Mosque of Mecca to Al-Aqsa during the Night Journey . After leading prayers at the mosque, Muhammad ascended into heaven alive. In heaven, he individually greets previous prophets and later, speaks to Allah , who gives him instructions regarding the details of prayer. Muhammad's ascent into heaven was temporary, and he later came back to Earth. In the hadith , later collections of

10404-476: Was written, with estimates ranging from the 10th to 2nd century BCE, linguistic analysis suggest an origin in the 3rd century. In modern Judaism , the Song is read on the Sabbath during the Passover , which marks the beginning of the grain-harvest as well as commemorating the Exodus from Biblical Egypt . Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel. In Christianity , it

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