However in this particular case I think that you may be overlooking another quite reasonable possibility which is that neither Jesus, nor even his listeners necessarily, thought that heaven was a geographical place, but that he used a perfectly understandable symbolic gesture in looking to the (physical) heavens, no different from what we might do in raising our arms to 'heaven' when praying or singing praises. After all, as far back as Solomon there was an awareness that God was not some kind of pseudo-physical being to dwell in or be trapped by human places; it therefore behoves us to be cautious about an unthinking assumption that Jesus (or other thinkers of his time) necessarily held to such a physical view of heaven.
Cheers Linz
On 06/08/2004, at 13:57, Jonathan Arthur wrote:
A. Jesus knew it wasn't a geographical place but also knew his listeners did not have the science to understand that, so looked up for their benefit and the writer noted this.
B. Jesus didn't look up (and perhaps didn't even say those words) but the writer, who would have thought heaven was a geographical place, had Jesus do and say this because the writer thought this helped to convey the revelation of God he had experienced in Jesus.
C. Jesus did think heaven was a geographical place because, as a human, he had to work with only the scientific knowledge of his day.
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