Heaven

[Berzerker]

I'm no expert on "numerology" and sacred numbers or even religion and mythology, but I've become fascinated by certain common features found in various cultures throughout history and undoubtedly before we started writing down our beliefs regarding the sky.

While Heaven is usually synonymous with our sky - what we can see - it is also home to the unseen abode of God. Not all of heaven was visible to our ancestors, but they did make claims about heaven we can investigate.

Why does the sky, or something (Heaven?) in the sky, have levels? What are the numbers "we" associate with the sky? Can we see some of these levels while others remain hidden?

Dante had 9 levels in his story, various world trees have 9 branches, the temple pyramid at Chichen Itza has 9 steps while the serpent ascending and descending the staircase on the equinoxes has 7 humps as does the Serpent Mound in Ohio.

The number 12 shows up in so many ways its significance and antiquity remain a mystery waiting to be solved. Early zodiacs like the one at Dendera had 12 constellations while the Enuma Elish (Babylonian creation epic) claims Marduk was clothed with the halo of 10 gods as he prepared to slay Tiamat, her carcass was used to form Earth leaving behind the hammered bracelet called Heaven to mark the site of the battle.

A 4,000+ year old cylinder seal from Sumer (Va 243) not only shows 11 orbs around a central star, but the orbs match up well with the descriptions of celestial gods appearing in their creation epic.

The Toltec valued the number 12 too, their Heaven had 13 levels with the creator occupying 2 levels. Far to their south the Inca also had a layered heaven with sun, moon, and 9 orbs and a creator - an ellipse occupying 2 levels in Heaven. These 9 orbs appear in 2 groups of 5 and 4 with the creator joining (or dividing) them. The face of the Nazca monkey peers down between his hands of 5 and 4 digits.

Scholarly explanations for the appearance of 7 and 9 in cosmology claim they're linked to gestation (9 months) and the visible orbs, Sun, Moon and 5 planets out to Saturn. If this was true, why didn't ancient peoples say so? The #7 is sacred because we can see the sun, moon and 5 planets. They didn't say that, but they did say not all of Heaven was visible - so that rules out the 7 visible orbs.

And MesoAmericans didn't measure time the same way, they didn't have months - yet the #9 figures heavily into their cosmology, the 9 steps in the Castillo at Chichen Itza represent the 9 "Lords of the Night". When ancient man applied numbers to the sky he left us bread crumbs leading to God.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The thing about 12 is that it is divisible (*crosses fingers*) by a lot of numbers which makes it very suitable for creating patters. Don't know if that's the reason yee oldies used it though, but it would make sense.

The thing to watch out for in these matters is conformation bias (I want credit this time!!!) though, when you're researching the claim whether 7 occurs so many times, you'll start seeing the number 7 appear everywhere. So the only painstaking way to say anything about this with certainty is to documents all occurrences of all numbers in as many mythical stories possible before you really can say anything about which numbers are most prevalent.

But the possibility that there may be numerical thought patters inherent in how we perceive things is interesting none-the-less.

 

[Cheetah]

The seven heavens, or levels in heaven or in the sky, is a reference to the idea of the different planes on the heavens. It was understood that the sun, the moon and the planets (the five known to the ancients) all moved in different planes, and the further out one got the more holy it was.

I suppose the nine levels could be the sun, the moon, the five planets, the stars in the background and then the earth realm itself.

Twelve is easy: The moon is born, grows, shrinks and dies twelve times during the year.

And this was probably ancient lore and legends long before the neolithic ever was considered. Why should the priests have belittled the holy heavens by explaining in clear text why there was seven heavens?

And you'll need to cite a reference for the claim that the Mayans and other Mesoamericans didn't have months. That seems completely absurd all the time they could in fact count twelve moon cycles during one sun cycle!

 

[Gori the Grey]

You claim to be interested in common features, but then you show heavens that have 7, 9, 11, 12 and 13 levels. That would seem to me to represent a remarkable lack of congruity across cultures on this matter.

 

[Berzerker]

Heaven has levels, thats the common feature.... and I explained how 12 and 13 mesh - the peoples with 13 levels attributed 2 levels to the dual nature of their creator. The Inca depicted this creator as an ellipse dividing 9 orbs in groups of 5 and 4. I didn't mention 11, but 7 and 9 were common numbers for the branches of world trees. Siberian shaman held ceremonies before 9 trees they planted for the purpose. Menorahs come with 7 and 9 "branches" too.

And you'll need to cite a reference for the claim that the Mayans and other Mesoamericans didn't have months. That seems completely absurd all the time they could in fact count twelve moon cycles during one sun cycle!

their "month" was 20 days

 

[Perfection]

Were there levels in Christianity before Dante?

Seems a bit late in the game...

And Dante ain't exactly scripture.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Were there levels in Christianity before Dante?

Seems a bit late in the game...

And Dante ain't exactly scripture.

I wouldn't be surprised. Aren't a lot of the contemporary impressions of hell based on Dante, anyways?

 

[Berzerker]

Dante was using Roman and Greek sources, I think Virgil even plays a role as celestial guide in the story

Jesus chose 12 apostles and the trinity has a forerunner in Sumerian pantheism with An, Enlil and Enki

 

[Perfection]

Well it seems to me that any similarity is probably due to similar ideas about the motions of the planets and stars, maybe.

 

[peter grimes]

@Ziggy - do you mean confIrmation bias or confOrmation bias?

To follow Ziggy's point about 12 being useful:

1*2*3*4 = 12
1*2*3*4*5 = 60, which was the base for a lot of Sumerian math.

I don't see any breadcrumbs here.

 

[Cheetah]

their "month" was 20 days

It seems I was wrong.

For some reason the Mayans preferred to divide the solar year into their base number 20 - even though it didn't fit so they used 18! - instead of using the lunar cycle.

However, it would still be possible that they put some stock into the twelve lunar cycles even though it wasn't part of their calendars.

 

[Harv]

@Ziggy - do you mean confIrmation bias or confOrmation bias?

To follow Ziggy's point about 12 being useful:

1*2*3*4 = 12
1*2*3*4*5 = 60, which was the base for a lot of Sumerian math.

I don't see any breadcrumbs here.

I will assume that you intended to strike out the 1*2 and just forgot. (and I will edit this out if I see you have fixed it.)

72 is also a number that appears a lot.

Added:

In the old British Pound-shilling-penny (Lsd) system, 12 pennies(d) = 1 shilling. I think this was because 12 is a number that can be easily divided between 2,3,4, or 6 people.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

and I will edit this out if I see you have fixed it.

I won't

To follow Ziggy's point about 12 being useful:

1*2*3*4 = 12
1*2*3*4*5 = 60, which was the base for a lot of Sumerian math.

I don't see any breadcrumbs here.

@Ziggy - do you mean confIrmation bias or confOrmation bias?

I meant "Karma is a female dog"

 

[timtofly]

Is Heaven a place (holder) or an existence (holder)? Can it exist out of space and time?

 

[Berzerker]

Well it seems to me that any similarity is probably due to similar ideas about the motions of the planets and stars, maybe.

Hamlet's Mill is a great book dealing with the rotating sky, but when our ancestors applied actual numbers to their cosmologies they gave us clues about their Gods and creation.

72 is also a number that appears a lot.

Yup, the years for 1 degree of precession for example. Joseph Campbell noted how the numbers of doors and warriors at Valhalla - thru 540 doors charge 800 warriors - shows up in Angkor Wat architecture...

540x800=432,000
720x600=432,000
3600 (Sumerian "Sar", or divine year)x120 (God's spirit in man)=432,000

Is Heaven a place (holder) or an existence (holder)? Can it exist out of space and time?

its a place made after time began, I imagine its where God took Enoch.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Heaven has levels, thats the common feature....

Oh, if that's all, then you just have to think about the pre-scientific experience of what-is-above (as you point out, alternately "sky" or "heaven").

The sense of there being levels in the upper region is the result of composite experience of gazing up into the daytime and nighttime sky. Let's start with the nighttime sky.

The most striking aspect of a night sky is the way in which the stars seem to operate as though they are painted on the inner surface of an inverted bowl or dome above the viewer. They arc slowly across the night sky, but keeping their position relative to one another, so they give the impression an outermost shell--what Ptolemaic astronomy will call the sphere of fixed stars--to that region-that-is-above. (A clear daytime sky does not work in the same way; it gives the impression unfathomable and not-necessarily-bounded retreat of blue.)

But now return to the daytime sky, and think how cloud-cover often works. Clouds often form on one particular level of the atmosphere, and therefore give the impression of a dome closer to us than other celestial bodies; particularly the sun. If clouds are above us, and the sun is behind the clouds, then that upper-region has levels.

Now return to the nighttime sky. The next most immediately apprehensible aspect of it, after the fixed stars, is the motion of the moon, which is not in synch with the sphere of fixed stars, and feels as though it is closer to us than those, since it temporarily blocks our view of some of them. Again, levels.

Now we layer in this composite experience rarer or slower-developing experiences of the sky. Eclipses tell us that the sun is further out than the moon. So with just that we have four levels, perceived as concentric spheres: clouds, moon, Sun, fixed stars. Finally, there are the visible planets, which would seem to inhabit a space between the moon (since it sometimes blocks them) and the sphere of fixed stars (and probably be further away from us than the sun). Moreover, they seem to move a little bit closer to us or further away based on their appearing brighter or dimmer, so the space they occupy itself allows a range of motion, or levels.

It's no surprise that many cultures imagine the heavens as having levels. That's tied to our most common daily ways of experiencing the sky. And because this composite is made up of various interrelated parts, it's no surprise that they end up getting different counts of how many such levels there are.

 

[BvBPL]

Why does the sky, or something (Heaven?) in the sky, have levels?

The sky obviously has levels. Your cirrus is going to be higher than your nimbostratus. Any child could see that, just as any adult can easily determine that the Moon is closer to the Earth than Mars and that Mars is closer than Jupiter or Polaris.

The Earth also obviously has layers. We just call them stratum.

As for seven, that's the next prime number after five which is the traditional number of man (five limbs).

 

[Berzerker]

these levels of heaven preceded the Earth, its sky and clouds, and some of these levels are unseen

 

[Gori the Grey]

these levels of heaven preceded the Earth, its sky and clouds, and some of these levels are unseen

I don't understand your point. Do you mean that, in the stories told about the levels of heaven, the heavens preceded the creation of the Earth? Once you have formed the notion of the heavens having levels, by the process I described above, you can concoct any story you like about how those levels came to be, and when they came to be relative to the earth. The fact that various cultures claim the above-region pre-existed the Earth doesn't say anything about how they came to the idea that heaven was divided into levels. That latter is a natural enough development.

As for the unseen levels, I tried to get at that by mentioning how the daytime sky feels different to us than the nighttime sky. The nighttime sky feels as though it has an utmost boundary. The blue of the daytime sky, by contrast, just seems to retreat outward unfathomably. That gives rise to the idea that it extends outward infinitely, including beyond the sphere of fixed stars (i.e. into a region beyond our ability to see, which seems to stop at the sphere of the fixed stars).

 

[Berzerker]

The Enuma Elish describes 12 celestial gods before Heaven and Earth were formed from the slain carcass of one of them. The text says Marduk was clothed with the halo of 10 gods as he prepared to slay Tiamat. Cylinder seal VA 243 shows a star surrounded by 11 orbs.