Identitet och död. Himmelsfärder i tidig judendom och kristendom

Abstract

In the beginning of the Common Era, a number of religious texts were written recounting heavenly journey adventures. These narratives have come to constitute a recurring theme in research regarding ancient religions.

This article describes the function of these texts and the circumstances and settings in which they were composed. Most of the heavenly journey texts belong to the Jewish apocalyptic literature. In previous scholarship, the heavenly journey motif was understood to be one of many elements in this literature. It was not until the later part of the 20th century that the stories of the heavenly journeys were treated as a type of their own among these texts.

Of vital importance is the status of the heavenly travellers as well as their relationships with other members of the Tradition Group considered to have authored the texts. Two main types of heavenly journeys appear in the accounts. One type provides an identity for the heavenly traveller, and the other constitutes a paradigm for the events awaiting humanity after death.