Figment, Religion:
Angels in Heaven

The same day the Sadducees came to him, those who say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, 'Master, Moses said, if a man dies without children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up heirs for his brother. Now there were with us seven brothers, and the first, when he had married a wife, died, and, having no issue, left his wife to his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman also died. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her.'

Jesus answered and said to them, 'You err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.'

Matthew 22:23-30

There's a common idea in everyday Christianity that people become angels when they die. You don't see it in biblical Christianity, just in popular imagery. You see it in Looney Tunes, when a character dies and floats up to toward the sky with a halo, robe, and harp. You see it in Family Circus, too, when dead Grandpa, now with wings, leaves Heaven to zoom down to earth and intervene in the kids' lives. Apparently, the above scene from Jesus' teaching contributed to this myth.

In this confrontation, the conservative Sadducees are trying to show that the resurrection doesn't make any sense. The idea of the resurrection comes from a literal reading of Ezekiel 37: 1-14. In this prophecy, Ezekiel brings dry bones back to life, symbolizing the rebirth of the nation of Israel. By Jesus' time, however, the Zoroastrian idea of Judgment Day had influenced Jewish thought, and the prophecy was taken by many to promise the actual resurrection of individual people. The Sadducees recognized this reading as extra-canonical.

Jesus, with typical agility, dodged the philosophical trap by likening resurrected Jews to angels. Jesus' teaching that the resurrected will be like angels in heaven seems to have morphed into the idea that the resurrected will actually be angels in heaven. It's as if the phrase "are as the angels. . . in heaven" got misread as "are angels. . . in heaven."

Contributing to this misunderstanding is Plato's myth of Er, in which the good people go up into the sky for their heavenly reward immediately after they die. This myth contributed to the common Christian idea that one's heavenly reward (or infernal punishment) comes right after death instead of at the end of the world.

Bear in mind that the term "heaven" in these verses should best be translated as "the sky." The "heaven" where angels were purported to live was a physical location up there above the clouds, not some spiritual dimension.

Also note that the Sadducees concocted a thought experiment about a resurrected woman with multiple husbands, not a man with multiple wives. Why? Because polyandry violated scripture while polygamy did not. Monogamy is a pagan system that Christianity adopted as its own, without scriptural basis.

—JoT
August 2004

PS: It would seem that the idea that we turn into angels after we die isn't just a folk belief. It shows up in Sufi theology, too.

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