Recently a discussion came up on MennoDiscuss, a forum of which I am a great fan, on the question of whether there are animals in heaven, and if so, are they our pets or are they heaven specific? One of the scriptures given to support the idea of animals in heaven was Isaiah chapter 66. There are a lot of variations in Christian opinion about eschatology, or the study of end times. The most frequently cited scripture is the book of Revelation in the New Testament but there are also Old Testament apocalyptic books including Daniel and Isaiah.
My object today is to explain the context of the Book of Isaiah including sources and scriptural counterbalances. By doing so I hope to explain why I do not believe there are earthly animals in heaven, either in an earthly "heaven" or a "heavenly" heaven, based on the evidence of these passages.
In the Hebrew bible the books Joshua to II Kings are entitled "the former prophets" and those from Isaiah onwards (except Daniel) are placed immediately following with the title "the latter prophets, and with "the writings" or the rest of it placed last. The Greek translators of the Septuagint (LXX), however, put the writings before the latter prophets, perhaps with a wider view of distribution and thinking the prophets less reader friendly. The Christian Church has in this respect followed the Greek rather than Hebrew text.
Quite apart from many references in the historical books, some three quarters of the other books in the OT are ascribed to named prophets. In Christian tradition, the four whose books are longest are known as "major" and the remaining twelve as "minor." The Hebrew Bible knows the latter more neutrally as "the
twelve." Of these sixteen, five are of outstanding
merit as thinkers and writers. In Chronological order
they are Amos and Hosea; Isaiah of Jerusalem; Jeremiah
and the Second Isaiah (more on Isaiah later). Between
them they cover a span of 250 years.
The word prophet has a wide range of meanings. Its
Greek original means basically a "spokesman", someone
who speaks for a god or even another person. But “pro”
in Greek not only means “for” but also means “fore”,
and from the earliest times those who spoke for God
were also expected to fore tell the future. Every
ancient society had its seers (often ecstatics) and
diviners, whether attached to a sanctuary or
freelance. All those meanings were encompassed in the
Semitic word “nabi”, for which the LXX translators
chose “prophet” as the equivalent.
In the Old Testament there is generally a distinction
made between prophets, usually that of an
institutional prophet who preached goodwill for his
bread, and the independent troubler who is portrayed
to be "correct." The exception to this is Isaiah.
There is another distinction by modern scholars which
must not be pushed too far. They have presented the
prophets as the true voice of Israel against the law
on one hand and the Temple worship on the other. But
the text of the OT shows no such distinction. The
prophets share much of the theology of the Temple
psalmists, and the books of the Law especially
Deuteronomy, match the concern of the great prophets
for social justice and for moral motive.
The great biblical prophets were intermediaries, and
had responsibilities in both directions. From Abraham
and Moses onwards they are presented as interceding
bravely on behalf of the people. It is in Jeremiah
that this tradition comes to a climax. Caught between
God and the people, he shares the feelings of both.
The force that held these men to their task is most
vividly expressed in the narratives of their calls.
Both at the moment of the call and later, the hearing
of the word was often accompanied by seeing a vision.
The vision might be of God or something as mundane as
an almond tree, a plumb line, or a potter at his
wheel. Poets often trace the genesis of a poem to an
image, whether figurative or literal. The image set
off a train of thought, which in turn crystallized
into a communicable shape. So it was with the
prophets, and their message was always expressed with
the verbal concentration and the emotional tension of
poetry.
The prophets did not limit themselves to words. They
also used another medium called symbolic actions which
related to their inspiration. To a modern reader this
may be the strangest element in the prophetic books,
and even now it is not fully explained. We must
realize that such actions were common enough in
ancient Israel: for example a man's clothes often
represented his person, like the cloak of Saul or the
sandal of Elimelech. So it was no surprise when Isaiah
wore mourning garb for three years as a sign of
misfortune to come. Likewise Hosea and Isaiah were not
the only fathers in the ancient world to choose a name
for their child which signified their own aspirations.
Actions of this kind were much more than teaching
aids: like the pronouncement of a curse the
performance of a symbolic action was widely believed
to help in bringing about the event symbolized. This
is the explanation not only of the oracles uttered
against foreign nations but also of symbolic acts of
aggression as e.g. in I Kings 22:11. Other symbolic
actions of the prophets are harder to explain, such as
Hosea marrying a temple prostitute.
Psychologically parallel to the symbolic actions are
two features of the prophets' use of language. First
is what is called "the prophetic perfect", whereby the
prophet is so transported in imagination that he
describes the event he foresees as having already
happened. Many languages use this construction in
contexts of personal ruin e.g. "I am undone" but
Hebrew uses it much more widely e.g in the famous
Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 9:27. Secondly the
prophets do not always distinguish sharply between a
final and a consecutive clause, i.e. between an
intended and an unintended consequence. Both these
usages depend upon an idea of historical cause and
effect which is alien to us and sometimes unnerving,
especially in older translations.
More obviously than any other Old Testament book,
Isaiah grew over time, perhaps as long as 300 years.
It contains the work of at least four different
writers woven together to form a whole:
(a) The oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem in the late 8th
Century includes most of Chapters 1-23 and 28-31,
(b) An un-named prophet in mid 6th Century Babylon
includes Chapters 40 -55 perhaps 35
(c) Later writings in the same tradition chiefly
Chapters 56-66 and also 24-27
(d) A chunk of narrative taken almost word for word
from II Kings 18-20. Chapters 36-39.
Between the first two writers there was an interval of
about 150 years. In that interval occurred the great
historical watershed of the Old Testament: the fall of
Jerusalem and deportation to Babylon. Why would anyone
have wanted to join the two writers? Perhaps there was
a "school' which continued Isaiah of Jerusalem’s work
after his death and to which the second Isaiah
belonged. Such people would have been able, with the
hindsight of the exile, to discern, behind the events
of recent centuries, "a plan prepared for the whole
world". 14:26
In the implementation of that plan God had two agents:
One was gentile for Isaiah of Jerusalem.
Assyria was "the rod of my anger and for the later prophet, Cyrus,
the Persian deliverer from exile became "my shepherd"
and even "my anointed."
The other agent was a figurerepresenting Israel.
For Isaiah of Jerusalem that was
King Hezekiah, whose loyalty to God had, if not
averted, at least postponed the punishment due for her
sins. For The Second Isaiah, writing when she had
already "paid double" for them (40:2, it is a
mysterious figure called the "servant of God" who will
bring salvation. There are also many smaller links
and echoes, for example 2:12, 6:1 and 52:13
The Hebrew text of the Isaiah scroll is particularly
well preserved. This was confirmed by the discovery at
Qumran of a text of the complete book copied in the
1st century BC. Here and there it supports a reading
of the LXX or even a modern conjecture, against
Masoretic Text, but mostly agrees with Masoretic Text
"more closely than one would have imagined possible."
It follows not that the Masoretic Text is faultless
but that its faults antedate even the LXX translation.
The book of Isaiah has undergone a complex process of
compilation, expansion, and editorializing. The
history of Isaiah scholarship has tended to emphasize
the separation of the book into its three main
sections, assigning the different portions to
different historical periods and more or less just
leaving them there. Much Isaiah scholarship has
delineated the individual poetic units and has tried
to establish the authorship of the units, with
priority frequently given to genuine Isaiah of
Jerusalem sections.
There have been very few attempts to view the book as
a whole, to try to construct the overall witness of
the book. But we must keep in mind that somebody
within the community of faith saw fit to put all this
material together into one "book" under the heading
"the words of Isaiah," and it was not just because
they all fit conveniently onto one leather scroll. We
have to ask ourselves: What gives the book its unity?
What does the book as a whole have to say?
Clements (1982) argues that the destruction of
Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. is the clue to the editorial
strategy that holds the book together. He argues that
First Isaiah, while written primarily in reference to
the Assyrian crisis of the eighth century, was edited
during the Babylonian crisis and in its judgment
oracles provided the prophetic explanation for the
eventual fall of Jerusalem. Second and Third Isaiah
were attached to First Isaiah by later scribes because
they were motivated to balance prophetic judgment with
prophetic promise. They wanted to say that judgment is
not the last word but is followed by restoration. This
basic sequence of judgment followed by renewal is
echoed in the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and is
presented as a fundamental structure in the plan of
God.
While acknowledging the critical analysis of the book
into its component elements, Childs (1979) assesses
the book of Isaiah from the point of view of the
effect of its current shape, rather than for the
purposes of a scholarly reconstruction. Childs points
out that there are virtually no signals of the
sixth-century authorship of Second and Third Isaiah in
a plain reading of chapters 40-66. The original
setting of chapters 40-66 is effectively disguised. In
its present shape, the entire book is placed in the
mouth of eighth-century Isaiah of Jerusalem: "These
are the words of Isaiah, son of Amoz" (1:1). In
effect, this places both judgment and salvation within
the eternal plan of God. For even before the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile, as
attested by 40-66, God intended to return his people
to Judah. Even before destruction, he was planning
ahead to their restoration.
The book, then, confirms the long-term saving word of
God. Note the frequent references to the faithfulness
of the word of God (40:8; 44:26; 55:10-11). God is
faithful to his word and trustworthy. God plans beyond
judgment to forgiveness and reacceptance. Taken as a
whole, the book of Isaiah is a witness to the good
will and power of Israel's God.
Now turning to Isaiah Chapter 11. The poem is the
finest of Isaiah's full Messianic prophecies,
foretelling the coming of a prince of David's house
who will inaugurate a reign of justice and peace. It
may be seen as an amplification of Isaiah 9:7 and thus
refer to a specific prince, born or enthroned as king,
but the picture is so idealized that its affinities
seem to lie rather with general Ancient Near East and
Greco-Roman millenarian literature.
In verses 6-7 we move to a new theme, the coming
harmony of the animal world. Carnivore and herbivore
will live together among animals as among humans-
indeed the king of carnivores will become an
herbivore. The young herdsman of verse 6d leads into
the theme of verse 8, which links those of verses 4-5
and 6-7, vis. the relation of humans and animals.
Finally the harmony is generalized throughout the HOLY
land (9a) and the poem comes back to its beginnings by
reference to the Lord as inspiration for all.
Ancient Near East parallels include the following.
From a Sumerian paradise myth: “the lion kills not,
the wolf snatches not the lamb" ANET 38. From a
Sumerian epic: "on this day there is no snake, no
scorpion, no hyena, no lion . . . no anxiety, no fear,
and men will have no more enemies." NERT 86. From an
Egyptian prophecy: Then it is that a king will come .
. . and the son of a woman in the land of Nubia . . .
and justice will come into its place, while wrongdoing
is driven out" ANET 445-6. All these are centuries
before Isaiah. And centuries after him, was written
the most famous Greco-Roman work in the same
tradition, Vergil's Fourth Eclogue. This foretells the
birth of a boy who in a republic like Rome could not
be a king but is a son of Jupiter. He will inaugurate
a period of worldwide peace in which, among other
paradise like features, "the cattle will have no fear
of huge lions." The enormous time span of this kind of
writing shows what a hold the millenarian idea has had
upon the human imagination.
Moving to Isaiah Chapter 65, we must stop first at
Chapter 60 which gives us a glowing description of the
New Jerusalem- something between the earthly city
pictured by the Second Isaiah as re-peopled by the
Jews returning from exile and the heavenly city
imagined by later apocalyptic writers as awaiting the
faithful at the end of times. There is also shown a
movement from light to dark to light again.
Verses 19-20 are the first appearance of what will
become an apocalyptic “topos.” (Topos is a term of
Greek literary criticism: a stock idea used in
rhetoric to make or emphasize a point. Examples of
this are the topos; of inescapability, Joel 1:4 and
Amos 5:19; of opposites or the world upside down,
Isaiah 3:5 and 11:6; of impossible, Jeremiah 13:23;
and brilliantly inverted in Isaiah 49:15) In the
beginning, light was the first thing to be created.
Now at the end it is no longer needed, because God
himself has taken abode in the city and he will be thy
light, thy sun, thy moon.
Moving to Chapter 65. This picture of the New
Jerusalem is a mixture of the apocalyptic and the
realistic. The sentence "I create a new heaven and a
new earth” (with the special word for create used in
Genesis 1) is the basic apocalyptic idea. But the
focus narrows rapidly to Jerusalem, whose new estate
is to be a source of rejoicing (six times in 18-19).
Many of its features are derived by reversing the
warnings of earlier prophets which in the meantime had
been fulfilled, e.g. verses 21-22b reverses Amos 5:11.
More boldly, verses 22d-23a modify the punishments of
our first parents in Genesis 3:16+, while that of the
serpent 25c = Genesis 3:14 is confirmed. The other
animal references of verse 25 echo Isaiah 11:9, thus
bringing back the apocalyptic tone of verse 17 and
rounding of the poem.
Now for a brief look at why I personally do not believe there are animals in Heaven. Genesis 1 Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind. We see that animals come from the ground. When man was created, he got his physical from the dust and his nature from his God. Ecclesiastes 12 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. The only part that goes to God is the spiritual, the man returns to his source as will the animals.
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