Revision as of 14:56, 10 November 2009

Index to Claims made in Chapter 12: Heaven and Hell

The Final States According to Mormonism

171

Claim

• The authors state that the LDS believe that "a person is destined for one of six places after death," by which they mean Perdition, or Outer Darkness, the Telestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Kingdom, and the three levels of the Celestial Kingdom.

• By failing at the outset to make the critical distinction that these destinies are not determined until after the Judgment, not just after death, they sow the first seeds of confusion which permeate this chapter.

172

Claim

• The authors make the first error of "preaching to the choir" in the chapter, when they write that the key to understanding LDS soteriology is to "examine the biblical proof texts the Latter-day Saints use...to support their views."

• Anyone who understands the Restored Gospel will know that we do not base our doctrine upon proof texts1 from the Bible (or anywhere else, for that matter), but upon latter-day revelation. Since we do not believe our teachings contradict the Bible, it is quite normal (even normative) that we would preach from the scriptures, but they are the reflection of our doctrine, not its source-a confusion all too easy for a Biblicist to make, for whom the relationship between doctrine and scripture goes exactly the other way around.

Claim

• The first alleged "proof text" examined by the authors is 1 Corinthians 15:40, "There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial...". They say that in light of verse 41, where Paul makes the comparison between the light of the sun, the moon and the stars as a simile for the difference in glories between the three kingdoms, that "many scholars believe that Paul was referring to heavenly bodies such as the moon, sun, and stars."

• Well, yes—that is the whole point of a simile. If one were to say "my true love's eyes are like almonds," one is not writing an agronomy treatise, but, yes, one is referring to almonds. Paul's analogy works like this: "There are A, B, and C...so too is the resurrection of the dead (verse 42)"—a classic simile. To misunderstand such a fundamental literary feature as a simile does not bode well for the authors' understanding of the even more sophisticated literary forms that Paul often employs.
• The authors then say, "One thing for sure, there is no mention of 'bodies telestial.'" No, not in so many words, but Paul's simile is quite clearly tripartite, using the symbolism of the sun, the earth and the stars, so "telestial" (meaning "stellar," or "of stars") is hardly out of harmony with the verse. Because of their Biblicist background, they accuse Joseph Smith of a rather barefaced attempt to "bolster his erroneous doctrine" by inserting the word into the Joseph Smith Translation. However, it's well known that people in the nineteenth century often made what are technically called paraphrases (Thomas Jefferson made one of the New Testament which reflected his proto-Unitarian beliefs, for instance). A paraphrase is not a translation in the secular sense of looking at texts in other languages and then redacting (editing and recombing) the various texts and rendering the resultant consensus in the target language, and this latter, modern sense of translation has never been claimed by Latter-day Saints on behalf of the Joseph Smith Translation-it is, in fact, not canonical for precisely that reason (that is, his paraphrase as a study project was interrupted by his martyrdom so is incomplete at best). In any case, the term fits doctrinally and in the sense of the language Paul uses here, and its insertion would be problematic only for Biblicists (in other words, this is yet another error of "preaching to the choir").
• For a detailed response, see: Bible/Three degrees of glory not biblical  ^{[needs work]}

Claim

• The next "proof text" the authors consider is 2 Corinthians 12:2-4: "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such a one caught up to the third heaven..."

• They start off in their usual way, with the circular assumption that we are basing our doctrines upon passages like this, rather than teaching doctrine from the scriptures, which is not quite the same thing. They then skim lightly over the scholarly tradition of Jews in a rather evasive way with the claim:

Using these passages to validate the idea of three kingdoms making up heaven ignores the Jewish tradition Paul would have known. According to that tradition, paradise was the abode of God, the place of eternal joy for God's people. However, Jewish custom never viewed a first or second heaven as alternative eternal destinations. Rather, these referred to the atmospheric heaven (the sky) and the galactic heaven (the universe).7

• If this sounds remarkably, even anachronistically modern, it's because it is. It turns out not to be Jewish at all: their reference is to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment-era Protestant commentator Matthew Henry, who writes:

It was certainly a very extraordinary honour done him: in some sense he was caught up into the third heaven, the heaven of the blessed, above the aerial heaven, in which the fowls fly, above the starry heaven, which is adorned with those glorious orbs: it was into the third heaven, where God most eminently manifests His glory.8

• Such a glaring error leads one to believe that perhaps they don't think people will check their footnotes-another sign of the "down-market" audience for which their book seems to be intended.
• For a detailed response, see: Bible/Three degrees of glory not biblical/2 Corinthians 12:2-4

Modern Christian Commentary: Disley (Mainstream Protestant)

Protestant theologian Emma Disley cites many of the early Reformers and their first followers as teaching the concept of differing degrees of glory. She points out at the outset that "the writings of the Father were weightily disposed towards the concept of degrees of reward and punishment" and refers to Ambrose, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, and Pope Gregory the Great. She concludes her article:

"For the majority of Protestant writers who addressed the issue, belief in degrees of reward in heaven thus did not conflict with the Protestant insight of justification freely attained through the merits of Christ, since rewards resulted naturally or automatically from good works, which were part of the elect's sanctification."19 Modern Christian Commentary: Daley (Catholic)

Brian E. Daley, a Jesuit scholar, cites the following Church Fathers as teaching varying degrees of glory: Irenaeus, Cyprian, Ambrose, and some lesser-known fathers: Macarius, Quodvultdeus (died 453) Bishop of Carthage, and friend of Augustine; Severus, Bishop of Antioch (died 538); and Caesarius, Bishop of Arles.20 Modern Christian Commentary: Ryk (Eastern Orthodox)

Twenty-five years ago Marta Ryk wrote an article on deification in Eastern orthodoxy in which she pointed out that there are "diverse degrees of deification."21 Modern Jewish Commentary: Dr. Eliezer Lorne Segal (Scholarly Orthodox)

Further evidence of Jewish traditions of a hierarchy of heavens (as opposed to some proto-astronomical interpretation) can be found in an interesting Website, "The Seventh Heaven," by Dr. Eliezer Lorne Segal, who teaches a number of senior-level courses in Judaism in the Religious Studies Department of the University of Calgary (including RS 365 - Medieval Judaism; RS 463 - Jewish Mysticism; RS 465 - Topics in Rabbinic Judaism, RS 201 - World Religions: Western; RS 361 - Second Temple Judaism; RS 363 - Judaism in the Modern World; and RS 367 - Judaism of the Talmud and Midrash [commentaries by Rabbis on the Talmud]).

In his article "The Seventh Heaven"22 he takes issue with the answer given to a phone-in listener on the local CBC23 Radio One morning program feature called "Good Question." This particular question, about where the term "seventh heaven" comes from, elicited the response that the term comes from "the popular Muslim conception of paradise, which is divided into several celestial levels, awarded according to the degree of righteousness achieved during one's mortal lifetime." Now that, in and of itself, is interesting, but Prof. Segal says it actually predates the rise of Islam by "many centuries" and has "deep roots in Jewish tradition."

Segal says that the Talmudic rabbis were presumably influenced by the fact that the Hebrew word for "heavens" or "sky" appears only in a plural form, shamayim, implying a multiplicity of heavens. The number seven has special significance in Biblical writings, and Jewish sages, Segal reports, "had no trouble finding distinct functions for each of the seven levels." While several had purely "astronomical" functions, the others had distinctly religious functions: "According to their imagery these heavens are actually palaces-'heikhalot'-and the task of the mystic is to ascend as high as he can until he reaches the highest level, where he will be vouchsafed a peek at the throne of God." Thus we have a direct connection with the Enochian tradition of a mystical ascent through the spiritual realms to the Throne of God, and also to the terminology "palaces" or, as the KJV puts it, "mansions." Modern Jewish Commentary: Tracey Richards (Popular Orthodox)

The Talmud states that all Israel has a share in the Olam Ha-Ba24. However, not all "shares" are equal. A particularly righteous person will have a greater share in the Olam Ha-Ba than the average person. In addition, a person can lose his share through wicked actions. There are many statements in the Talmud that a particular mitzvah will guarantee a person a place in the Olam Ha-Ba, or that a particular sin will lose a person's share in the Olam Ha-Ba, but these are generally regarded as hyperbole, excessive expressions of approval or disapproval.

Some people look at these teachings and deduce that Jews try to "earn our way into Heaven" by performing the mitzvoth [the covenant to obey the commandments]. This is a gross mischaracterization of our religion. It is important to remember that unlike some religions, Judaism is not focused on the question of how to get into heaven. Judaism is focused on life and how to live it. Non-Jews frequently ask me, "do you really think you're going to go to Hell if you don't do such-and-such?" It always catches me a bit off balance, because the question of where I am going after death simply doesn't enter into the equation when I think about the mitzvot. We perform the mitzvot because it is our privilege and our sacred obligation to do so. We perform them out of a sense of love and duty, not out of a desire to get something in return. In fact, one of the first bits of ethical advice in Pirkei Avot (a book of the Mishnah [part of the Talmud]) is: "Be not like servants who serve their master for the sake of receiving a reward; instead, be like servants who serve their master not for the sake of receiving a reward, and let the awe of Heaven [meaning G-d, not the afterlife] be upon you."

Nevertheless, we definitely believe that your place in the Olam Ha-Ba is determined by a merit system based on your actions, not by who you are or what religion you profess. In addition, we definitely believe that humanity is capable of being considered righteous in G-d's25 eyes, or at least good enough to merit paradise after a suitable period of purification.26 Modern Judaism: Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi (Conservative Mystical)

When a soul is ready to enter Gan Eden (Paradise, literally the Garden of Eden), it must first be immersed in the River of Light, created from the perspiration that flows from the heavenly hosts as they fervently sing glory to the Highest. This immersion is to empty the soul of any lingering earth images so that it may, without further illusion, see heaven for what it really is.

First the soul enters the lower Gan Eden, which is a paradise of emotional bliss. While on earth most persons are unable to experience more than one dominant emotion at a time. However, the bliss of the souls in the lower Gan Eden is likened to a majestic chord of benign emotions, which the soul feels towards God and towards other souls. In the Hasidic view, heaven is organized into societies. Those souls who share mutual interests are drawn together so they can serve His Blessed Name according to their own specialty and individuality. Each heavenly society is taught by its own rabbi and led to further celestial attainments. Thus, the lower Gan Eden is the heaven of emotional fervor.

Before a soul is raised from the lower to the higher Gan Eden, it must again immerse itself in the River of Light so that it will forget and forsake the furor of the emotions. for the even greater delights of knowing God through understanding. The serving of God with insight through the study of Torah is itself a reward. The societies of the upper Gan Eden are organized into yeshivot (schools! in which a blissful understanding of the divine mind is attained. Each midnight, the Holy One, blessed be He. Himself appears and enters Gan Eden to delight in the sharing of His blessed wisdom with the righteous who have gained the upper Gan Eden."27 Jewish Commentary: Lurian Kabbalism (Mediaeval Mysticism)

Karen Armstrong refers to the Lurian Kabbalah tradition of the 16th century mystic Saint Teresa of Avila:

Like John of the Cross, Teresa was a modernizer and a mystic of genius, yet had she remained within Judaism 28 she would not have had the opportunity to develop this gift, since only men were allowed to practice the kabbalah. Yet, interestingly, her spirituality remained Jewish. In The Interior Castle, she charts the soul's journey through seven celestial halls until it reaches God, a scheme which bears a marked resemblance to the Throne Mysticism that flourished in the Jewish world from the first to the twelfth centuries CE. Teresa was a devout and loyal Catholic, but she still prayed like a Jew and taught her nuns to do the same.29

This tradition of a hierarchy of celestial "halls" (or mansions?) goes back even further. Ante-Nicene30 Church Fathers: Irenaeus

Irenaeus directly contradicts McKeever and Johnson's theory of "earth/astronomical" heavens and then refers explicitly to the thirty/sixty/hundredfold imagery in terms of a hierarchy of Heaven:

If, then, the Lord observed the law of the dead, that He might become the first-begotten from the dead, and tarried until the third day "in the lower parts of the earth;" then afterwards rising in the flesh, so that He even showed the print of the nails to His disciples, He thus ascended to the Father; [if all these things occurred, I say], how must these men not be put to confusion, who allege that "the lower parts" refer to this world of ours, but that their tuner man, leaving the body here, ascends into the super-celestial place? For as the Lord "went away in the midst of the shadow of death," where the souls of the dead were, yet afterwards arose in the body, and after the resurrection was taken up [into heaven], it is manifest that the souls of His disciples also, upon whose account the Lord underwent these things, shall go away into the invisible place allotted to them by God, and there remain until the resurrection, awaiting that event; then receiving their bodies, and rising in their entirety, that is bodily, just as the Lord arose, they shall come thus into the presence of God.31

He goes on to say about the degrees of glory:

[They {the presbyters} say, moreover], that there is this distinction between the habitation of those who produce an hundred-fold, and that of those who produce sixty-fold, and that of those who produce thirty-fold: for the first will be taken up into the heavens, the second will dwell in paradise, the last will inhabit the city; and that was on this account the Lord declared, "In My Father's house are many mansions." For all things belong to God, who supplies all with a suitable dwelling-place; even as His Word says, that a share is allotted to all by the Father, according as each person is or shall be worthy. And this is the couch on which the guests shall recline, having been invited to the wedding. The presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, affirm that this is the gradation and arrangement of those who are saved.32 Ante-Nicene Church Fathers: Clement of Alexandria

Chapter XIII.-Degrees of Glory in Heaven Corresponding with the Dignities of the Church Below.

For these taken up in the clouds, the apostle writes, will first minister [as deacons], then be classed in the presbyterate, by promotion in glory (for glory differs from glory) till they grow into "a perfect man."33

One of the chapters of the Stromata is even entitled "Degrees of Glory in Heaven." In this chapter, he writes,

Chapter XIV.-Degrees of Glory in Heaven.

Conformably, therefore, there are various abodes, according to the worth of those who have believed. To the point Solomon says, "For there shall be given to him the choice grace of faith, and a more pleasant lot in the temple of the Lord." For the comparative shows that there are lower parts in the temple of God, which is the whole Church. And the superlative remains to be conceived, where the Lord is. These chosen abodes, which are three, are indicated by the numbers in the Gospel-the thirty, the sixty, the hundred.34 Ante-Nicene Church Fathers: Origen

And some men are connected with the Father, being part of Him, and next to these, those whom our argument now brings into clearer light, those who have come to the Saviour and take their stand entirely in Him. And third are those of whom we spoke before, who reckon the sun and the moon and the stars to be gods, and take their stand by them. And in the fourth and last place those who submit to soulless and dead idols.35

Compare this with modern LDS scripture: "These are they who receive of His glory, but not of his fulness. These are they who receive of the presence of the Son, but not of the fulness of the Father."36 Pseudepigrapha: 2 Enoch

Enoch is a book that was held in high regard in the early Church, being quoted by Jude, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and many Church Fathers, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. We don't know which, if any, of the three major textual traditions we have today is the one that Jude, for instance, would have known (Ethiopic, Slavonic and Hebrew, referred to respectively as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch), but regardless, this pseudepigraphal work is a genuinely ancient tradition. In 2 Enoch, a first century AD work that would have been unknown to Joseph Smith, in Chapters 6 through 20, Enoch is taken on a tour of the heavens.

The First Heaven was called the "stellar order" (in LDS terminology, the "Telestial Kingdom"). In Chapter 7 he travels to the Second Heaven, where he gazes down upon those who "turned away from the Lord, who did not obey the Lord's commandments, but of their own will plotted together and turned away with their prince and with those who are under restraint in the fifth heaven." In Chapter 8 he goes to the Third Heaven where he gazed down upon Paradise, where the tree of life is located. Although the imagery is confusing, there appears to be a "northern" portion that is a frightful and dark place (is this paradise and the spirit prison?). In Chapter 11 he goes to the Fourth Heaven where the moon and the sun have their orbits, and which is filled with wondrous beasts. The emphasis isn't so much on the astronomical bodies as upon the order and the timing of the universe in which we reside. Now, this does appear to be an astronomy and horological treatise of some strange, mystical kind, but it all relates to the Earth. (Could this be a reference, then, to the Terrestrial Kingdom?)

In Chapter 18 we accompany Enoch to the Fifth Heaven, which is filled with a strange contingent of "soldiers" and princes known as the Grigori. The sense is one of disappointment, of a potential not quite achieved somehow-not much detail is given (could this be the lowest level of the Celestial Kingdom?) The next chapter brings us to the Sixth Heaven where the leaders of the angels and of celestial speech and life preside. The keys of life are in their hands (the ministering angels of the second level of the Celestial Kingdom?).

Finally, in Chapter 20 we read Enoch's vision of the Seventh and highest Heaven. Here is the throne of God Himself, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim. Enoch's Virgilian guides desert him-they may not enter, and Enoch is left by himself, terrified at the sight. He is comforted by the archangel Gabriel who tells him to present himself to the Lord.

2 Enoch exists in two recensions (families of manuscripts), the "A" or shorter recension and the "J" or longer recension. In a brief flurry of verses in Chapter 20, after mention of the Seventh Heaven, some astrological references are given and given the names of the Eighth through the Tenth Heavens are given to these, but this exists only in the "J" recension. At present it's hotly debated as to which recension is older, but it has been argued that "J" is a later expansion of "A", which might account for the brief and post-first-century AD additions of the Eighth through Tenth heavens. The point isn't to speculate as to how 2 Enoch can be made to fit into the Restored Gospel as a textual defense-that would be the Biblicist approach. Rather it is to show that there is ample precedent for LDS beliefs in the ancient world, documented in texts that would have been unavailable to Joseph Smith, and thereby refuting the claim that the Restored Gospel can't be the original Christianity. If we can show plausible precedent, then we do not have to prove authenticity, but we do disprove our critics' claims of impossibility. Possibility is not proof of existence, but it is disproof of non-existence.37 Pseudepigrapha: Testament of Levi

Listen, therefore, concerning the heavens which have been shown to you. The lowest is dark for this reason: It sees all the injustices of humankind and contains fire, snow, and ice, ready for the day determined by God's righteous judgment. In it are all the spirits of those dispatched to achieve the punishment of mankind. In the second are the armies arrayed for the day of judgment to work vengeance on the spirits of error and of Beliar. Above them are the Holy Ones. In the uppermost heaven of all dwells the Great Glory in the Holy of Holies superior to all holiness. There with him are the archangels, who serve and offer propitiatory sacrifices to the Lord in behalf of all the sins of ignorance of the righteous ones.. They present to the Lord a pleasing odour, a rational and bloodless oblation. In the heaven below them are the messengers who carry the responses to the angels of the Lord's presence.38 New Testament Pseudepigrapha: The Apocalypse of Paul

The Apocalypse of Paul, a Coptic work found in the Nag Hammadi Library39, is typical of Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic writings that feature a tour of the heavens. The earliest versions seem to have only three; later texts, under Gnostic influence, elaborated this to seven and even ten. Here is MacRae and Murdock's introduction:

The first of the series of four apocalypses in Codex V, the Apocalypse of Paul, describes the ascent of Paul through the heavens. Though other ancient works of the same or similar name are known, the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul seems quite unique in its focus upon Paul's ascent through the fourth to the tenth heavens [as opposed to just three heavens -- MS]. The precise circumstances surrounding the composition of the document remain uncertain. Yet the polemic against the apocalyptic "old man" in the seventh heaven may indicate that the document comes from a Gnostic group with an anti-Jewish tendency. Furthermore, the portrait of Paul as one exalted above his fellow apostles resembles the portrayal of Paul in the Gnosticism, and especially the Valentinianism, of the second century C.E.

The Apocalypse of Paul opens with an epiphany scene: a little child, probably the risen Christ, encounters Paul on the mountain, provides a revelation, and guides Paul to the Jerusalem above. Clearly this scene with the heavenly child provides an interpretation of Galatians 1:11-17 and 2;1-2. Of course, the basis for the entire ascent narrative is to be found in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. As Paul ascends through the heavens, he witnesses, in the fourth and fifth heavens, a scene of the judgment and punishment of souls, a scene which is reminiscent of similar pictures in Jewish apocalyptic literature but which also illustrates popular syncretism. Paul's heavenly journey seems to rely upon Jewish apocalyptic tradition, but the Gnostic character of the present ascent narrative is obvious. Finally Paul reaches the tenth heaven where, tranformed, he greets his fellow spirits.40 Pseudepigrapha: Vision of Ezra

It seems that, in general, one reason Biblicists have such trouble accepting the clear references to different rewards after this life is that they are hampered by post-Biblical notions which came into vogue during the Reformation; especially the idea of salvation by grace alone (sola gratia). Latter-day Saints accept that salvation in the sense of all of us receiving some level of glory (with the exception of a presumably small number of "Sons of Perdition" who actively fight the atonement-whatever that may mean), but because Biblicists have lost the doctrine of exaltation and theosis/deification, they assume these doctrines of levels of glory are wrong. And in any case, they reject the notion of works as being a prerequisite for which level of glory one is to receive-they have lost the original doctrine, especially under the influence of fifteenth- through eighteenth-century Protestant Reformers.

But we know that not everything that Jesus taught is contained in the New Testament-it explicitly says this in two places, one of which in particular has some interesting significance in light of documents that have come to light since Joseph Smith's day.

The first passage is at the end of the Gospel of John: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen."41

That should be clear enough to Biblicism, but the second, even more significant verse is also towards the end of John: "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."42 In other words, John (and presumably his fellow-evangelists) wrote their books to give the basic knowledge proselytes (investigators and new members) would need to know in order to come to a belief in Christ, and excluded that which might distract from a proselyte's education. But there was more to Christian doctrine, "signs" not to be revealed publicly.

Was this something unique to John, or is it found elsewhere in early Christian thought?

We've already discussed the common theme of touring up through the heavens until one finally reaches the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom, a theme that runs through the ancient non-canonical works called the Pseudepigrapha, and Church Fathers. Latter-day Saints perform a dramatic (liturgical, or participatory and symbolic) form of this every time they go through the endowment ceremony, so temple worship fits well into ancient tradition. This isn't the place to go into the details of temple worship, but the point is that not all doctrine is to be found in the gospels and epistles of the New Testament. The canonical books of the New Testament (the books which ended up becoming part of the modern-day New Testament) suffer from two limitations: a) they happen to be what survived; we know that many other writings did not survive; and b) they were directed by and large to new members and proselytes, so they deliberately avoided deeper doctrines.

Now the concept of the necessity of works is a clear theme in the New Testament, despite the best efforts of Biblicists to ignore or rationalize it, but it so happens that some of the esoteric doctrine that seems to have been revealed in these visionary tours of the heavens was the doctrine of exaltation, wherein more than mere belief is required-the building up of the Kingdom of God (works) is also a requirement over and above universal grace in order to gain a higher degree of glory.

For instance, the second- or third-century pseudepigraphal work, "Vision of Ezra," which was traditionally considered an Old Testament pseudepigraphum, but which scholars now believe is actually of Christian provenance, has the Lord saying the following to Ezra when Ezra is finally admitted into His presence:

And after he saw this, he was lifted up into heaven, and he came to a multitude of angels, and they said to him, 'pray to the Lord for the sinners.' And they put him down within the sight of the Lord. And he said, 'Lord, have mercy on the sinners!' And the Lord said, 'Ezra, let them receive according to their works.' And Ezra said, 'Lord, you have shown more clemency to the animals, which eat the grass and have not returned you praise, than to us; they die and have no sin; however, you torture us, living and dead.' And the Lord said, 'In my image I have formed man and I have commanded that they may not sin and they sinned; therefore they are in torment. And the elect are those who go into eternal rest on account of confession, penitence, and largesse in almsgiving.' And Ezra said, 'Lord, what do the just do in order that they may not enter in judgment?' And the Lord said to him, '(Just as) the servant who performed well for his master will receive liberty, so too (will) the just in the kingdom of heaven.' Amen.43

Hell: Afterworld Versus a Place of Punishment

Leaving behind the well-attested ancient belief in a tripartite heaven, let's see if McKeever and Johnson manage to mangle the Christian view of Hell as badly as they do with the correct, authentic and original Christian view of Heaven.

They don't start off well, confusing both the New Testament concepts of Hell in the sense of "hades" or "sheol" (spirit prison) and "gehenna" (everlasting burning)-terms with completely different meanings-and using the terms interchangeably, blissfully ignorant of the distinctions LDS (and the Bible, and most other Christians) make between the two. While it is probably true that, as they say, "...many [Latter-day Saints] find the [Biblicist] view of hell (eternal punishment with no second chances) to be both unfair and offensive," what offends us even more is that such an oversimplification is not Christian doctrine. Oddly enough, they are not even representing normative Protestant doctrine when they fail to make a difference between hades/sheol and gehenna.

As Innes explains,

"Hell" in the AV normally renders one of the three words, Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna.

Sheol...is the word [that] is used in the Old Testament for the place of the dead. In general, we may say that it is the state of death pictured in visible terms....In the later Jewish literature we meet with the idea of divisions within Sheol for the wicked and the righteous44 in which each experiences a foretaste of his final destiny (Enoch xxii. 1-14). This idea appears to underlie the imagery of the parable of Dives and Lazarus in the New Testament.45

"Hades" is the Greek term used to translate the Hebrew word "sheol" in the New Testament. Innes again:

In the LXX46 it almost always renders sheol, and in the New Testament the Pesh.47 renders it by shyul. It is used in connection with the death of Christ in Acts ii. 27, 31, which quotes Ps. xvi. 10. In Mt. xvi. 18 Christ says that the gates of Hades (cf. Is. xxxviii. 10; Pss. ix. 13, cvii. 18) shall not prevail against His Church. As the gates of a city are essential to its power, the meaning here is probably the power of death.48

With respect to Gehenna, Innes goes on to explain,

In later Jewish writings Gehenna came to have the sense of the place of punishment for sinners (Assumption of Moses x.10; 2 Esdras vii.36) The rabbinic literature contains various opinions as to who would suffer eternal punishment. The ideas were widespread that the sufferings of some would be terminated by annihilation, or that the fires of Gehenna were in some cases purgatorial. But those who held these doctrines also taught the reality of eternal punishment for certain classes of sinners...The teaching of the New Testament endorses this belief.49

In the New Testament, the Hebrew word is usually transliterated as ge'enna, but on occasion the general (i.e., non-Judaeo-Christian) Greek word Tartarus is also used. "Gehenna" comes from the imagery of a continuously smoldering garbage pit in the Valley of Hinnom in New Testament Jerusalem. Tartarus is a classical Greek word for the son of the god Chaos but came to mean that part of the afterworld where the wicked suffered for their sins. So we have two pairs of Greek/Hebrew words used in the New Testament: Sheol/Hades for the afterworld in general, and Gehenna/Tartarus for the place of eternal punishment. But as noted, Tartarus is a rarely used word in the New Testament (originally written, of course, in Greek).

Given such a fundamental and critical failure to distinguish between very clearly different concepts in the New Testament, precious little of McKeever and Johnson's commentary on the Gospel's beliefs regarding Outer Darkness, Perdition, Spirit Prison and the Telestial Kingdom makes any sense whatsoever and the critic of their work wonders where to even begin to approach it. A basic primer in Christianity (let alone its restored form) is needed by McKeever and Johnson.

Just as one example: they claim the following concerning our understanding of the Telestial Kingdom:

It is said that it "surpasses all understanding"; and that even its inhabitants, the last to be redeemed, and even then deprived of the personal presence of God and the Christ, shall nevertheless receive the ministration of angels and the Holy Ghost...is completely foreign to the Bible.50

Since McKeever and Johnson make absolutely no connection between how they interpret Biblical terms and modern LDS terminology, this claim doesn't even make sense. Their criticism could conceivably be true-if only we knew what they meant by the terms the Bible uses. Since the Bible itself so clearly teaches that Christ Himself went to minister to the souls in Hell (sheol), as referred to in 1 Peter 3:18-19 and 4:6, one can see that any serious attempt by a reviewer to take their criticisms at face value crashes upon the shoals of inconsistency and profound ignorance of the terminology used in the Bible. Hell: The Telestial Kingdom Versus Perdition

It should come as no surprise, then, that they confuse the LDS terms of "exaltation" and "salvation," when they criticize the Terrestrial Kingdom as being a place where only a "a measure of salvation, but not the fulness" of salvation will be given to those there. This is simply not what the Gospel teaches. We teach that all inhabitants of kingdoms of glory-let us remember that even the Telestial Kingdom is a mansion of Heaven-receive salvation by dint of the universal atonement of our Savior. The Telestial Kingdom is sometimes referred to by LDS as "hell" but only in the sense that neither Christ nor the Father will be there. Its inhabitants will have to be satisfied with the ministrations of angels sent from higher kingdoms. Needless to say, this is a point that goes right over McKeever and Johnson's head; it's not clear they even understand our position on it, let alone, of course, agree with it. The Telestial Kingdom is never confused with Perdition in LDS teachings-another point that goes over McKeever and Johnson's head, it seems.

But the Savior also gave us commandments and told us to build up his kingdom, and promised concomitant rewards to those who are more or less valiant than their peers. This is fundamental and clear New Testament doctrine that is ignored in embarrassment by Biblicists.

We draw a distinction between universal salvation and exaltation, and anyone who wishes to make a credible criticism needs to understand the distinction we draw. Whether or not they believe it themselves, their failure to understand it leads them into making silly claims such as the Terrestrial Kingdom representing only a measure of salvation. In any case, since Biblicists are Trinitarian, the difference between the ministering of Christ in that kingdom and the ministering of the Father being reserved for the Celestial Kingdom is an odd thing for them to overlook. If Christ and God the Father are two different persons within the same being-as classical Trinitarianism teaches-what difference does it make, and how does it logically follow that one divine ministration is less than another? The Terrestrial and the Celestial Kingdoms would be the same. Thus, even on their own terms this criticism fails.

It is also incorrect, as they claim, that we believe that exaltation only applies to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom. The highest level has the distinctive characteristic that there is no barrier there to eternal progression-what ancient Christians such as Augustine called either theosis or deification. Augustine was, in fact, an eloquent expositor of this early Christian doctrine, forgotten long before the Reformation and only restored through Joseph Smith. See for instance, Benz, whose words stand as a non-LDS rebuke to McKeever and Johnson's comments about Restored Christianity's concept of exaltation being "egotistical." We'll come to this again, but Benz shows that the kind of opinion held by McKeever and Johnson is pure mischief:

Hence, the concept of Imago Dei [literally, the image of God, but in effect divinity] does not lead toward self-aggrandizement but toward charity as the true and actual form of God's love, for the simple reason that in one's neighbour the image of God, the Lord himself, confronts us, and that the love of God should be fulfilled in the love towards him in whom God himself is mirrored, that is, in one's neighbour. Thus, in the last analysis the concept of Imago Dei is the key to the fundamental law of the gospel, 'Thou shalt love God and thy neighbour as thyself,' since thou shouldst view thy neighbour with an eye to the image which God has engraven upon him and to the promise that he has given about him.'51

They even contradict themselves by making this claim, that there is no difference between salvation and exaltation first, and then quoting Joseph Fielding Smith as referring to the Celestial Kingdom as the place where those who gain exaltation shall dwell. Hell: The Role of Angels in the Telestial Kingdom

McKeever and Johnson likewise tread on the quicksand of ignorance when they venture into modern nangelology, claiming that angels are a special creation of God and that humans can never become angels. They make the critic's job too easy by quoting Psalm 148:2 and 5: "Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts...Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created." It's all too easy to be tempted to look this up and see what's in the intervening verses. And in fact when one actually opens up one's Bible, rather than just throwing it upon the rostrum and thumping it for emphasis,52 one learns that verses 3 and 4 include the exhortation to praise God to the sun and the moon and the stars of light, the heavens of heavens,53 and the waters that are above the heavens. God created everything, including us, and including angels and including the physical universe. There is no one-to-one relationship here that suggests that angels are not human species, merely humans at a different stage of development or playing a different role. That many today believe angels to be a different species of some kind is not an original Christian doctrine, nor is it an original Jewish doctrine.

Dahood explains that in the OT, "'his ministers' [is] another expression for the angels, described as ministerial servants ready to execute the sovereign will."54 Angels were messengers sent with a divine mission, and the parallelistic pair-structures of Psalms 148:2 indicate that in this case the angels in question were soldiers. McKeever and Johnson, as is typical of much of the modern North American Biblicist tradition that has arisen in the past century, anti-intellectual, anti-scholarly and deliberately cut off from exposure to centuries of European biblical scholarship, are confusing a general term with a specific, a title with the titleholder, so to speak.

Both the Greek angelos and its Hebrew counterpart, malak, simply mean "messenger." Ancient Jewish custom did borrow some rather bizarre imagery from Assyrian sources for some of its demi-divine beings such as cherubim, but cherubim-which are artistic conventions common to temple worship throughout the ages, and therefore symbolic and abstract-aren't angels, who are "real" beings. In any case, it is difficult to see how a scripture such as Psalms 148:2 would somehow limit God's capability to create angels at will, and however He will. But Biblicists have never let their belief in a naive omnipotence stop them from contradicting themselves when simple common sense would lead them to obviously inconsistent interpretations (because their interpretations are based on inconsistent assumptions).

Hickenbotham55 demonstrates how the LDS concept of angelology is more Biblical, ironically, than is the Biblicist view:

The scriptures often identify angels with ministering spirits. Psalms 104:4 rhetorically asks, "Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire...?" (see also Heb. 1:7) and Hebrews 1:13-14 reads, "But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits; sent forth to minister for them who shall be the heirs of salvation?" As has already been shown previously, we all existed as spirits before birth (see Matt. 18:10; note angels in this verse should be spirits). And men like angels often act as messengers of God (Hag. 1:13; Mal. 2:7; 3:1; Matt. 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27). That angels are in appearance as men and were actually called men by inspired writers is also attested to in scripture (Gen. 18:1-2; 19:1, 15; Ezek. 40:1-4; Matt. 28:2-6; Mark 16:5; Luke 24:3-4; John 20:1-12; Acts 1:10; Heb. 13:2; Rev. 21:17). We are likewise instructed that we are not to worship angels (Col. 2:18; Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9; see also Jud. 13:15-16). It is only when we read the account of an angel's appearance to John the Revelator that this injunction is explained. John records, "And when... I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel... Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets..." (Rev. 22:8-9). The angel thus identifies himself as a righteous man who had returned as an angelic messenger even as Moses, Elias, and others have done (Matt. 17:2; Mark 9:4; Lk. 9:30). He was not just man's equal but a spirit brother (Rev. 19:10) and a son of God as man is (Num. 16:22; 27:16; Acts 17:22-24; Eph. 4:6; Heb. 12:9). Some Christians mistakenly conclude that angels are "sexless" because Matthew 22:30 seems to support this belief. This scripture implies nothing about the ability of angels to procreate but only states that they are unmarried (single). Since marriage and procreation are only part of mortal life and exaltation, it seems clear that unexalted angels, whether pre-existent spirits or resurrected beings will necessarily be single (See D&C 132:15-17).56

McKeever and Johnson's characterization of theosis (deification, eternal progression), either in its early Christian or latter-day Christian form, as being self-centered ("more focused on personal power, gain, and sex" as they put it) is nothing more than a cheap shot. They unwittingly echo a common criticism by atheists of religion as a whole being self-centered. They contrast what they see in LDS doctrine with the image of worshipping God in Revelation, forgetting that Revelation is a canonical book for Latter-day Saints, too. They not only do not explain this contradiction, I seriously doubts it even occurred to them. In any case, for the record, all the speculations of nineteenth-century brethren aside (which, like the circular arguers that McKeever and Johnson are, they assume we lend all written material equal doctrinal weight-which we clearly do not) they assume all LDS writings are as indicative of LDS doctrine as are our canonical scriptures. This is circular because it argues a point of our doctrine based on one of their assumptions-that the written word is the Word of God, not a record of the Word of God. And in any case, uniquely LDS scripture happens both to echo the apocalyptic worshipping of God as in Revelation, along with the primacy of God in LDS soteriology (doctrines regarding salvation) and eschatology (doctrines concerning the latter days):

And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no end.57

...for God said unto me: Worship God, for him only shalt thou serve.58 Conclusion

Not content to treat the LDS as Biblicists by giving every speculative personal LDS commentary the same weight as scripture, McKeever and Johnson go on to draw their own conclusions and present this as if it were LDS doctrine: "Every Mormon couple who obtains exaltation has no choice but to look forward to the day when one of their own children will serve as a tempter and cause one-third of the other family members to rebel and fall into sin." As if this non sequitur weren't vivid enough, they bring in the names of Auschwitz, Rwanda, Tiananmen Square and Kosovo in a melodramatic attempt to paint a horrible vision of "Mormon eternity."

I can end with no better condemnation of this kind of overheated prose than to quote McKeever and Johnson's own words against them: "Perhaps with our sin-tainted minds, such a wondrous concept would be difficult to grasp." Indeed. But the way to at least begin to grasp it is to ask the LDS what we believe, not presume to tell us what we believe.

Endnotes

1 In apologetic terms, a proof text is typically a scripture, often pulled out of context, used to prove a doctrinal point.

7 Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson, Mormonism 101 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2001), 172.

8 Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary of the Whole Bible (McLean, Virginia: MacDonald Publishing Co., 1706), 6:641.

19 Emma Disley, "Degrees of Glory: Protestant Doctrine and the Concept of Rewards Hereafter," Journal of Theological Studies 42 (1991), 77-105. I am thankful to Ted Jones for this citation.

20 Brian E. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church. A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). I am thankful to Ted Jones for this citation.

21 Marta Ryk, "The Holy Spirit's Role in the Deification of Man According to Contemporary Orthodox Theology," Diakonia 10 (Fordham University, 1975), 122. I am thankful to Ted Jones for this citation.

22 http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/891103_7th_Heaven.html

23 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; somewhat similar to National Public Radio in the United States. See also http://www.calgary.cbc.ca/

24 Olam Ha-Ba (oh-LAHM hah-BAH): literally "the world to come." 1) The messianic age; 2) the spiritual world that souls go to after death.

25 "G-d" [sic]; many observant Jews try to avoid spelling "God" out in full in English just as they substitute the word "Adonai" ("Lord") for the "Tetragrammaton" (YHWH, "Yahweh," or "Jehovah.")

26 Tracey Richards, "Judaism 101," an Orthodox Jewish FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Website: http://www.jewfaq.org. See specifically: http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm. My thanks to René Krywult for this citation.

27 Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi is Professor Emeritus, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA; 1987 through the present; see http://www.elevated.fsnet.co.uk/index-page13.html; my thanks to René Krywult for this citation.

28 Teresa was a 'conversa' or forced convert to Christianity from Judaism.

29 Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God (New York: Ballantine, 2000), 14.

30 Ante-Nicene refers to Church Fathers who lived and wrote before the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.

31 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Vol. 31:2; see also http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-63.htm#P8900_2545577, emphasis added.

32 Ibid., Vol. 36:2; see also http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-63.htm#P8900_2545577

33 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (Miscellanies): XIII.13; see also http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/anf02-67.htm#P8215_2366146

34 Ibid., XIV 1; see also http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/anf02-67.htm#P8215_2366146

35 Origen, Commentary on John, II.3; see also http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/anf10-38.htm#TopOfPage. My thanks to Kevin Grahm for this citation and for drawing my attention to the comparison with the D&C.

36 D&C 76: 76-77.

37 For the complete text of 2 Enoch, see "2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch," The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol. 1, edited by James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, New York: Doubleday; 1983), 102-213.

38 Testament of Levi 3:1-8, in H.C. Kee, "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs," The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Vol. 1, edited by James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1983), 788-789. My thanks to Michael R. Ash for this citation.

39 The Nag Hammadi library was found by an Egyptian farmer in Upper Egypt in December, 1945. It contains the library of an early Christian (Gnostic) monastery.

40 George W. MacRae and William R. Murdock, "The Apocalypse of Paul (V,2)," The Nag Hammadi Library in English, directed by James M. Robinson (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), 239. For an online text, see also http://apoc.port5.com/apocl/fgapcpl.htm.

41 John 21:25.

42 John 20: 30-31.

43 J.R. Mueller and G.A. Robins, "Vision of Ezra," The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 1, edited by James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1983), 590.

44 Exactly as the Restored Gospel teaches.

45 D.K. Innes, "Hell," The New Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans, 1962), 518.

46 LXX is the commonly used abbreviation for the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament written in Alexandria, Egypt, several centuries before Christ. It's the tradition of the Old Testament Christ and the Apostles (as well as the Jews of the day) used; at the end of the first century A.D. Jewish scholars rejected the LXX tradition and developed a new one, one that took over half a millennium to compile-this new one is known as the MT, or Masoretic Text, and is the one most modern Christian Old Testaments, including that in the King James Version, are based on.

47 Pesh. is, like LXX, an abbreviation for a version of the ancient Bible. In this case it stands for "Peshitta," the Old Syriac version still used today by Lebanese Marionite Christians and Palestinian Christians.

48 Ibid., 518.

49 Ibid., 518.

50 McKeever and Johnson, Mormonism 101, 174-175.

51 Ernst W. Benz, "Imago Dei: Man in the Image of God," Reflections on Mormonism: Judaeo-Christian Parallels, edited by Truman G. Madsen (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1978), 218-219.

52 Although this is couched in stronger language than the author would use himself, and it talks only about Southern Baptists, this tendency to use the Bible almost as a magic talisman brings to mind a quote by the modern Renaissance scholar, Harold Bloom, in his famous book The American Religion (New York: Touchstone, 1992), 222:

Even as Fundamentalists insist upon the inerrancy of the Bible, they give up all actual reading of the Bible, since in fact its language is too remote and difficult for them to begin to understand. What is left is the Bible as physical object, limp and leather, a final icon or magical talisman. To read Criswell [an anti-intellectual leader of the Fundamentalist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention] or any other Fundamentalist clergyman on the Bible is almost a literal impossibility, at least for me, because they are not writing about the text, in any sense whatsoever of text, or of that text. They write about their own dogmatic social, political, cultural, moral, and even economic convictions, and biblical texts simply are quoted, with frenetic abandon, whether or not they in any way illustrate or even approach the areas where the convictions center. They are quoted also as though they interpreted themselves and were perfectly transparent in their meanings.

53 I think I can understand why McKeever and Johnson decided to delicately ignore a Bible passage referencing multiple heavens.

54 Mitchell Dahood, S.J., Psalms III: 101-150. Anchor Bible, Vol. 1970 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970), 13.

55 Incidentally, an evangelical Christian who goes under the pseudonym J.P. Holding, gave Mormonism 101 a less than sterling rating, even though one would assume they're all on the same side. One of the reasons was McKeever and Johnson's failure to come to grips with the new generation of amateur (that is, non-BYU professors, nor General Authorities) LDS apologists that has cropped up: [1]

That said, I was very disappointed that there was not greater interaction with modern Mormon apologetic efforts. Names like [Richard] Hopkins and [BYU Professor of Arabic, and FARMS executive director Daniel] Peterson are barely discovered. I will grant that this was obviously intended as an introductory book….We recommend Mormonism 101 for all who are taking their initial steps into this field-but be aware of its limitations.

56 Michael W. Hickenbotham, Answering Challenging Mormon Questions: Replies to 130 Queries by Friends and Critics of the LDS Church (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1995), #54.

57 Mormon 7:7.

58 Moses 1:15.