Where is the 3rd Heaven?

[Retrobyter]

2 minutes ago, OldSchool2 said:

How "narrow minded" is the Nicene Creed?

"... We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified...."

Other than the Apostles' Creed, it's likely "the most universally accepted and recognized statements of the Christian faith".

Apparently, more narrow-minded than you know! Do you know the history of the Nicene Creed? Do you know the general demeanor of that era in "church history?" Are you aware of how "throwing-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater" the rejection of our Jewish roots was, back in the third century?! While it is true that the believers in the Messiah were right about avoiding Judaizers - those who tried to get the believers back under the Law as the means by which a person was justified by God, it is also true that the "church" leaned too far in the other direction! They were responsible for the fear-mongering and prejudice that led to a horrible time of anti-Semitism, calling the Jews "Christ-killers," ostracizing them from their congregations, and even persecuting them, pursuing them from town to town, and killing them outright as though they were "ghetto garbage" and thinking themselves justified in doing it!

Effectively, they were REWRITING HISTORY, throwing out doctrines and dogmas they once knew, "purging" their churches from perceived "heresy," burning the "heretical" books, writing new doctrines, dogmas and creeds, and installing the very hierarchical structure of the Nicolaitans (Greek: toon Nikolaitoon) that Yeshua` said He HATES! (Revelation 2:6, 15.) The Greek words mean "the victorious ones over the people." The Greek Dictionary of Strong's Concordance couches it this way:

NT:3531 Nikolaitees (nik-ol-ah-ee'-tace); from NT:3532; a Nicolaite, i.e. adherent of Nicolaus:
KJV - Nicolaitane.

NT:3532 Nikolaos (nik-ol'-ah-os); from NT:3534 and NT:2994 [sic]; victorious over the people; Nicolaus, a heretic:
KJV - Nicolaus.

NT:3534 nikos (nee'-kos); from NT:3529; a conquest (concretely), i.e. (by implication) triumph:
KJV - victory.

NT:2992 laos (lah-os'); apparently a primary word; a people (in general; thus differing from NT:1218, which denotes one's own populace):
KJV - people.

(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

I find it VERY INTERESTING that the word "Nicene" is the Greek words "tees Nikaias," meaning "of the inhabitants of Nikaia," or in Latin, "Nicaea," meaning "Victory" ... and VERY TELLING! The order of the "church's priesthood" is a hierarchical structure of CONTROL and CONQUEST of the "clergy" over the "laity," also from "laos" meaning the "common people." "Clergy" comes from "cleric" and "cleric" is related to the Greek word "kleeros":

NT:2819 kleeros (klay'-ros); probably from NT:2806 (through the idea of using bits of wood, etc., for the purpose); a die (for drawing chances); by implication a portion (as if so secured); by extension an acquisition (especially a patrimony, figuratively): 
KJV - heritage, inheritance, lot, part.

and the verb form is...

NT:2820 kleero-oo (klay-ro'-o); from NT:2819; to allot, i.e. (figuratively) to assign (a privilege):
KJV - obtain an inheritance.

(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

Thus, the "clergy" think themselves "singled out to be assigned the privilege" of leadership (CONTROL) over the people!

And, yet, Yeshua` said,

Luke 22:25-26
25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.
26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.
KJV

And, that means ATTITUDE, not just TITLE! Anyone can be called a "Minister," but does he really have the attitude of being a SERVANT? OR, does he actually exhibit an attitude of being a chief, a leader or a governor, a MASTER?!

THAT'S just the background of the third century leading into the fourth when the Nicene Creed was written ... under the CONTROL of the Roman Emperor Constantine!

(More about the creed itself later.)

[Retrobyter]

3 hours ago, inchrist said:

They are right, the entire thread has been pointless....the only narrow mindedness that's been displayed here is from you.

You have ignored greek/ hebrew thoughts, Concordances & scriptual evidence presented on the various usage of shamayim and ouranos.

You are completely obsessed with displaying yourself as a hebrew without understanding their thoughts or application of their words to the degree that you dismiss our English versions of Scripture as uninspired, as though God would allow His words and thoughts to be lost in translation. There is no difference to the English application of the word Heaven meaning sky, universe and God's abode to the Greek and Hebrew usage of their words to mean sky, universe and God's abode.

However what I am concerned about is your sky father mythology. 

Once again, there is no "sky father mythology!" God (YHWH) is in control of the WHOLE UNIVERSE! It is WE who are limited to looking up and seeing the sky only! Only those who have had the privilege of space travel know what it's like to see beyond the atmosphere of this earth directly. So, please, GET A GRIP!

You (and others like you) are concerned with the UNION of the definitions of the Greek or Hebrew word (a hopeless task, too, I might add); I look at the INTERSECTION of those "definitions" to see the ETYMOLOGY of that word! THAT is the underlying definition of the word that will be true for ALL occurrences of that word. Once again, the word "heaven" in Matthew 16:1 IS THE SAME GREEK WORD as the word "sky" in Matthew 16:2 and 3! That's the way it is! There were not two different definitions for the one word in play! English hadn't come along, yet! When one reads the text IN GREEK, one will simply note that the same word in Matthew 16:1 is the same word in Matthew 16:2-3. Yeshua` USED THEIR WORD CHOICE AGAINST THEM!

I'm sorry for you if you can't see that, but your inability to see it doesn't change the facts.

[OldSchool2]

2 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

Apparently, more narrow-minded than you know! Do you know the history of the Nicene Creed? Do you know the general demeanor of that era in "church history?" Are you aware of how "throwing-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater" the rejection of our Jewish roots was, back in the third century?! ....

But what has any of that to do with denying the Trinity, a concept also denied by the Watchtower and banned in the Quran!

Christianity has definitive dogma, which is succinctly represented in its creeds, as opposed to Unitarianism, a "faith" that essentially says nothing in order to embrace everything.

[Retrobyter]

4 hours ago, OldSchool2 said:

But what has any of that to do with denying the Trinity, a concept also denied by the Watchtower and banned in the Quran!

Christianity has definitive dogma, which is succinctly represented in its creeds, as opposed to Unitarianism, a "faith" that essentially says nothing in order to embrace everything.

...To neither of which I belong.

I'm telling you that those who called themselves "Christians" have PURPOSELY and COMPLETELY sanctioned materials that would have been good for us to know and observe that we now CAN'T FIND because of their SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS and KNOW-IT-ALL ATTITUDES! They BURNED THEM! I GREATLY resent the early Roman Catholic Church for what they have relegated and DOWNGRADED us to become! There's basically nothing left for us to believe but the trinitarian position, because of THEM! It's NOT because of the Scriptures or even because God wanted it that way! THEY chose for us what they wanted us to become! Whether they were even the majority is questionable! Quite frankly, it seems that they were the MINORITY in control of the majority and decided for the majority what they wanted them (and us) to believe!

Then, when we come back to the Bible, that is, as we grow in the knowledge of the Bible and the root languages of the Bible, we come to find that there are portions of the Bible that were GREATLY altered, yet covertly so! They have left us more questions than answers! Don't think for a moment that they "did us a favor" or they "did us a service" by destroying the "heretical" writings and killing the "heretics" that wrote them! They CAUSED the Dark (Early Middle) Ages! And, even in the light of the Reformation and the Renaissance Age, we are STILL fighting to free ourselves from the ignorance and illiteracy of that time period!

That's enough of the negative. Let's proceed to the positive...

God has been leading me into a paradigm shift through the definitions of many traditionally-held "holy words" - that is, "words that are NOT PERMITTED to be touched," (as if to misquote "touch not God's anointed"), because the transformation of them would lead us back to the truth. These are words and phrases like "angels," "Christ," "church," "devil," "faith," "glory," "God the Son," "gospel," "heaven," "Jesus," "kingdom of God," "salvation," "Satan," "soul," "spirit," "spiritual," and "worship," to name a few.

It's very similar to the parable-like episode of Star Trek in the original series, season 2, episode 23, entitled "The Omega Glory," where the Yang prisoner said, "Freedom? ... Freedom? That is a worship word! Yang worship! You will not speak it!"

Later in the episode, when Kirk fails to finish the phrase, "Ee'd plebnista norkohn forkohn perfectunun," Chief Cloud said, "When you would not say the holy words of the Ee'd Plebnista, I doubted you." Kirk responded, "I did not recognize those words, you said them so badly. Without meaning." Later he said, "Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying, 'We the People' That which you call 'Ee'd Plebnista' was not written for the chiefs or the kings or the warriors or the rich and powerful, but for all the people! Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words, 'We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.'"

 

It is THIS kind of "informational thermodynamics" that we likewise have experienced down through the centuries! We, too, have "slurred the meaning of the words" I listed above. They are NOT just "holy words!" They are words that have MEANING! "Heaven" is just one of the many.

[OldSchool2]

35 minutes ago, Retrobyter said:

...To neither of which I belong.

I'm telling you that those who called themselves "Christians" have PURPOSELY and COMPLETELY sanctioned materials that would have been good for us to know and observe that we now CAN'T FIND because of their SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS and KNOW-IT-ALL ATTITUDES! They BURNED THEM! ...

It's very similar to the parable-like episode of Star Trek in the original series, season 2, episode 23, entitled "The Omega Glory," where the Yang prisoner said, "Freedom? ... Freedom? That is a worship word! Yang worship! You will not speak it!"

Later in the episode, when Kirk fails to finish the phrase, "Ee'd plebnista norkohn forkohn perfectunun," Chief Cloud said, "When you would not say the holy words of the Ee'd Plebnista, I doubted you." Kirk responded, "I did not recognize those words, you said them so badly....

Cloud William: Ay plegli ianectu flaggen, tupep like for stahn...

Captain James T. Kirk: And to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

And in philosophy, if a thesis can't be proven wrong, i.e., evidence that can never be found because it was all burned, the thesis is essentially worthless, e.g., global warming.

 

[Retrobyter]

36 minutes ago, OldSchool2 said:

Cloud William: Ay plegli ianectu flaggen, tupep like for stahn...

Captain James T. Kirk: And to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

And in philosophy, if a thesis can't be proven wrong, i.e., evidence that can never be found because it was all burned, the thesis is essentially worthless, e.g., global warming.

 

What we DO have are the rantings of those who railed against the "heretics" giving us a GLIMPSE of what the "heretics" had to say. Proof of their existence was NOT eradicated, nor the arguments AGAINST what they believed. Only their writings of WHAT EXACTLY they believed and the ARGUMENTS they had for what they believed has been destroyed.

It's like having to prove de Fermat's last theorem from scratch! Not easily done, but not quite impossible! Just so frustratingly difficult that one just has to SCREAM!

[OldSchool2]

11 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

What we DO have are the rantings of those who railed against the "heretics" giving us a GLIMPSE of what the "heretics" had to say....

Retro, I enjoy classic Star Trek as much as anyone on these forums, but it's just a TV show, not scripture.

[Retrobyter]

6 hours ago, OldSchool2 said:

Retro, I enjoy classic Star Trek as much as anyone on these forums, but it's just a TV show, not scripture.

Shalom, OldSchool2.

I agree with you that Star Trek is just a fictional story. However, this particular episode is like a parable! We human beings DO get so caught up in words and phrases that we treat as titles and labels that we forget there was once meaning to what was being said! What you just quoted from me above has NOTHING to do with Star Trek! That actually happened back in the third Century A.D! It is NOT fiction!

 

[OldSchool2]

1 hour ago, Retrobyter said:

Shalom, OldSchool2.

I agree with you that Star Trek is just a fictional story. However, this particular episode is like a parable....

Producer Gene Roddenberry said that Star Trek episodes were actually morality plays.

[Retrobyter]

On January 30, 2016 at 4:48 AM, inchrist said:

Yet residing in our sky above the clouds

 

 

And this is the ignorance of it all...when we look up we don't just see our sky especially at night...nore did the Hebrews and Greeks, I can give you a list of ancient Greek astronomers....they were not ignorant of this fact . You have presented such ignorance of the ancients...the same type of ignorance that led people to believe the ancients thought the earth was flat.

Aristyllus (fl. ca. 261 BC) was a Greek astronomer, presumably of the school of Timocharis (c.300 BC). He was among the earliest meridian-astronomy observers. Six of his stellar declinations are preserved at Almajest 7.3. All are exactly correct within his over-cautious rounding to 1/4 degree. See discussion (and lessons) at DIO 7.1 ‡1 p. 13 (2007).

Timocharis of Alexandria (Greek: Τιμόχαρις; c. 320 – 260 BC) 

During his astronomical observations, Timocharis recorded that the star Spica was located 8° west of the Autumnal equinox. Later, Hipparchus observed that Spica was only 6° west of the Autumnal equinox. Also recorded the movements of Mercury.

 

 

I have presented you with classical greek Literature which is apparently clear you are deliberately ignoring that the use of the word Ouranos is used interchangeable between sky and universe and to include the totality of all creation including the universe.

FACT which you deliberately ignore

Ouranos was viewed on the one hand the lower heaven, the area of the atmosphere, that part which is wrapped in clouds (Homer's Odyssey, Od. 5.303),

And on the other hand, as the higher heaven of the stars (asteoenta, Hes. Th. 127; Il. 15.371, Od. 9.527).

Plato and Aristotle, ouranos is also conceived of as the totality of all of the universe (PI. PIt. 269d, Ti. 32b; Arist. Cael. 278b21, Metaph. 990a20)

FACTS that show how they have used their own words which is no different to how we use our English word HEAVEN to discribe sky, universe or God's abode.

This is further confirmed by Concordances, FACTS which you keep deliberately ignoring. 

ouranos - Definition: heaven, (a) the visible heavens: the atmosphere, the sky, the starry heavens, (b) the spiritual heavens. - Strong's Concordance.

I must therefore come to the conclusion based on your ignorance that 1 Corinthians 15:47-49 presents Christ as being made out of gaseous materials instead of heavenly materials.

 

 

It is your ignorance that will see what it wants it to see.

You still don't get it. Yes, God "resides in our sky above the clouds," and in our sky below the clouds and at the level of the clouds, and at the level of the moon, and on the moon, and in the moon, and elsewhere among the solar system, and above the solar system, and among the stars, and beyond the stars of our galaxy, and beyond other galaxies, etc., and on the ground, and below the ground, and within the core of our planet! He also resides at the level of human beings, thanks to the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. He also knows every last cell in our bodies; He knows every molecule in our bodies; He knows every atom, every subatomic particle, every quark, every string, etc., There's not a subatomic particle in all of space that He doesn't know intimately, knowing how much energy it has, how much charge it has, how much mass it has, how much speed it has, what its current position is, and where it's going!

Psalm 139:7-17
7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence (face)?
8 If I ascend up into heaven (into the skies), thou art there: if I make my bed in hell (in sh'owl, the grave), behold, thou art there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest (microscopic) parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect (immature); and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
KJV

And, yes, the Hebrews and the Greeks, and every ancient civilization saw the same skies, both during the day and at night. You're not understanding that, either. They cannot "see" the objects outside our atmosphere. They see the LIGHT assumed to be from those objects! They may have good measurements of declension and right ascension, and know the objects by name and know where their positions are expected, but they still only see LIGHT! PERIOD! That's true about EVERYTHING we think we see, whether in the sky or on the ground! We see the LIGHT from an object that emits light or reflected off that object if it has no light of its own!

Furthermore, it doesn't matter what Strong's Concordance says in the Greek dictionary or in the Hebrew dictionary. Nor does it matter what any other concordance might say. See, these are mere works of men's hands. They make mistakes, same as we all do. I've caught some of them. What matters is how consistent are they in what they convey and how sure are they about what they say.

Here are all the words that were translated in the NT as "heaven," "heavens," or "heavenly" in the KJV:

NT:2032 epouranios (ep-oo-ran'-ee-os); from NT:1909 and NT:3772; above the sky:
KJV - celestial, (in) heaven (-ly), high.

NT:3321 mesouraneema (mes-oo-ran'-ay-mah); from a presumed compound of NT:3319 and NT:3772; mid-sky:
KJV - midst of heaven.

NT:3770 ouranios (oo-ran'-ee-os); from NT:3772; celestial, i.e. belonging to or coming from the sky:
KJV - heavenly.

NT:3771 ouranothen (oo-ran-oth'-en); from NT:3772 and the enclitic (contraction) of source; from the sky:
KJV - from heaven.

NT:3772 ouranos (oo-ran-os'); perhaps from the same as NT:3735 (through the idea of elevation); the sky; by extension, heaven (as the abode of God); by implication, happiness, power, eternity; specifically, the Gospel (Christianity):
KJV - air, heaven ([-ly]), sky.

(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

There are 297 occurrences in the NT (according to Biblesoft's PC Study Bible v.5, which also has minor errors). If we use PC Study Bible's Englishman's Concordance on each of these words, we will find:

There were 20 matches for "epouranios": Matt. 18:35; John 3:12; 1 Cor. 15:40 (2x), 48 (2x) (as "celestial"), 49; Eph. 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12; Phil. 2:10; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 3:1; 6:4; 8:5; 9:23; Heb. 11:16; and 12:22. Mostly, these were translated as "heavenly," with one time as "high," and one time as "of things in heaven."

There were 3 matches for "mesouraneema": Rev. 8:13; 14:6; and 19:17, all as "midst of heaven."

There were 6 matches for "ouranios": Matt. 6:14, 26, 32; 15:13; Luke 2:13; and Acts 26:19, all as "heavenly."

There were 2 matches for "ouranothen": Acts 14:17 and 26:13, both as "from heaven."

There were 284 matches for "ouranos": Matt. 3:2, 16, 17; 4:17; 5:3, 10, 12, 16, 18, 19 (2x), 20, 34, 45, 48; 6:1, 9, 10, 20, 26; 7:11, 21 (2x); 8:11, 20; 10:7, 32, 33; 11:11, 12, 23, 25; 12:50; 13:11, 24, 31, 32, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52; 14:19; 16:1, 2, 3 (2x), 17, 19 (3x); 18:1, 3, 4, 10 (2x), 14, 18 (2x), 19, 23; 19:12, 14, 21, 23; 20:1; 21:25 (2x); 22:2, 30; 23:9, 13, 22; 24:29 (2x), 30 (2x), 31, 35, 36; 25:1; 26:64; 28:2, 18; Mark 1:10, 11; 4:4, 32; 6:41; 7:34; 8:11; 10:21; 11:25, 26, 30, 31; 12:25; 13:25 (2x), 27, 31, 32; 14:62; 16:19; Luke 2:15; 3:21, 22; 4:25; 6:23; 8:5; 9:16, 54, 58; 10:15, 18, 20, 21; 11:2 (2x), 13, 16; 12:33, 56; 13:19; 15:7, 18, 21; 16:17; 17:24 (2x), 29; 18:13, 22; 19:38; 20:4, 5; 21:11, 26, 33; 22:43; 24:51; John 1:32, 51; 3:13 (3x), 27, 31; 6:31, 32 (2x), 33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58; 12:28; 17:1; Acts 1:10, 11 (3x); 2:2, 5, 19, 34; 3:21; 4:12, 24; 7:42, 49, 55, 56; 9:3; 10:11, 12, 16; 11:5, 6, 9, 10; 14:15; 17:24; 22:6; Rom 1:18; 10:6; 1 Cor 8:5; 15:47; 2 Cor 5:1, 2; 12:2; Gal 1:8; Eph 1:10; 3:15; 4:10; 6:9; Phil 3:20; Col 1:5, 16, 20, 23; 4:1; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:16; 2 Thess 1:7; Heb 1:10; 4:14; 7:26; 8:1; 9:23, 24; 10:34; 11:12; 12:23, 25, 26; James 5:12, 18; 1 Peter 1:4, 12; 3:22; 2 Peter 1:18; 3:5, 7, 10, 12, 13; 1 John 5:7; Rev 3:12; 4:1, 2; 5:3, 13; 6:13, 14; 8:1, 10; 9:1; 10:1, 4, 5, 6, 8; 11:6, 12 (2x), 13, 15, 19; 12:1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10; 12:12; 13:6, 13; 14:2, 7, 13, 17; 15:1, 5; 16:11, 17, 21; 18:1, 4, 5, 20; 19:1, 11, 14; 20:1, 9, 11; 21:1 (2x), 2, 3, and 10, 250 times as "heaven," 18 times as "heavens," 1 time as "heavenly," 10 times as "air," and 5 times as "sky."

Thus, including other words, we have 20 + 3 + 6 + 2 + 284 = 315 times that one of these five words is found in the NT.

I hope you will understand and believe that I have indeed investigated all of these verses. I have come away with the belief that ALL of them are fundamentally about the "sky," primarily our earth's "atmosphere." "Ouranos" means "the sky." "Ouranothen" means "from the sky." "Mesouraneema" means "in the middle of the sky. "Ouranios" means "belonging to or coming from the sky." "Epouranios" means "(belonging to or coming from) above the sky." And, IN EVERY VERSE LISTED ABOVE if those words are substituted for the Greek word, it makes sense in context.

Believe what you want to believe, but your words will not shake the mighty foundation that God Himself has laid in my heart and mind over the last 30 years.