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Paradise by Jan Bruegel

In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight.^[1] Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury and fulfillment. Paradise is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell.

In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead. In Christian and Islamic understanding, Heaven is a paradisiacal relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the otherworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisiacal land of plenty where the heroic and righteous dead hoped to spend eternity. The Vedic Indians held that the physical body was destroyed by fire but recreated and reunited in the Third Heaven in a state of bliss. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the "Best Existence" and the "House of Song" are places of the righteous dead. On the other hand, in cosmological contexts 'paradise' describes the world before it was tainted by evil.

The concept is a theme in art and literature, particularly of the pre-Enlightenment era, a well-known representative of which is John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Etymology

Nicolas Poussin, Four seasons of paradise, 1660–64

The word "paradise" entered English from the French paradis, inherited from the Latin paradisus, from Greek parádeisos (παράδεισος), from an Old Iranian *paridayda- "walled enclosure". By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been adopted as Assyrian pardesu "domain". It subsequently came to indicate the expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire. The term eventually appeared in Greek as parádeisos "park for animals" in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BCE Athenian Xenophon. Aramaic pardaysa similarly reflects "royal park".

Hebrew פַּרְדֵּס pardes, "orchard", appears thrice in the Tanakh; in the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs 4:13), Ecclesiastes (Ecclesiastes 2:5) and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2:8). In those contexts it could be interpreted as an "orchard" or a "fruit garden".
In the Septuagint (3rd–1st centuries BCE), Greek παράδεισος parádeisos was used to translate both Hebrew פרדס pardes and Hebrew גן gan, "garden" (e.g. (Genesis 2:8, Ezekiel 28:13): it is from this usage that the use of "paradise" to refer to the Garden of Eden derives. The same usage also appears in Arabic and in the Quran as firdaws فردوس.

The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a PIE root *dheigʷ "to stick and set up".^{[citation needed]}
It is reflected in Avestan as 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌⸱𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀 pairi-daêza-.^[2][3]
The literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word is "walled (enclosure)",^[2] from pairi- 'around' (cognate with Greek περί, English peri- of identical meaning) and -diz "to make, form (a wall), build" (cognate with Greek τεῖχος 'wall').^[4][5] The word is not attested in other Old Iranian languages, though hypothetical roots in these languages may be reconstructed, for example as in Old Persian *paridayda-.

The idea of a walled enclosure was not preserved in most Iranian usage, and generally came to refer to a plantation or other cultivated area, not necessarily walled. For example, the Old Iranian word survives as Pardis in New Persian as well as its derivative pālīz (or "jālīz"), which denotes a vegetable patch.

Biblical

Hebrew Bible

The word pardes does not appear before the post-Exilic period (post-538 BCE); it occurs in the Song of Songs 4:13, Ecclesiastes 2:5, and Nehemiah 2:8, in each case meaning "park" or "garden", the original Persian meaning of the word, where it describes to the royal parks of Cyrus the Great by Xenophon in Anabasis.

Later in Second Temple era Judaism "paradise" came to be associated with the Garden of Eden and prophesies of restoration of Eden, and transferred to heaven. The Septuagint uses the word around 30 times, both of Eden, (Gen.2:7 etc.) and of Eden restored (Ezek. 28:13, 36:35 etc.). In the Apocalypse of Moses, Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise (instead of Eden) after having been tricked by the serpent. Later after the death of Adam, the Archangel Michael carries the body of Adam to be buried in Paradise, which is in the Third Heaven.

New Testament

The New Testament use and understanding of paradise parallels that of contemporary Judaism. The word is used three times in the New Testament writings:

• Luke 23:43 – by Jesus on the cross, in response to the thief's request that Jesus remember him when he came in his kingdom.


• 2 Cor.12:4 – in Paul's description of a man's description of a third heaven paradise, which may in fact be a vision Paul himself saw.


• Rev.2:7 – in a reference to the Gen.2:8 paradise and the tree of life
  

Judaism

In Rabbinical Judaism, the word 'Pardes' recurs, but less often in the Second Temple context of Eden or restored Eden. A well-known reference is in the Pardes story, where the word may allude to mystic philosophy.^[6]

The Zohar gives the word a mystical interpretation, and associates it with the four kinds of Biblical exegesis: peshat (literal meaning), remez (allusion), derash (anagogical), and sod (mystic). The initial letters of those four words then form פַּרְדֵּס – p(a)rd(e)s, which was in turn felt to represent the fourfold interpretation of the Torah (in which sod – the mystical interpretation – ranks highest).

Christianity

Mead Bradock, Paradise According to Three Different Hypotheses, 1747

In the 2nd century AD, Irenaeus distinguished paradise from heaven. In Against Heresies, he wrote that only those deemed worthy would inherit a home in heaven, while others would enjoy paradise, and the rest live in the restored Jerusalem (which was mostly a ruin after the Jewish–Roman wars but was rebuilt beginning with Constantine the Great in the 4th century). Origen likewise distinguished paradise from heaven, describing paradise as the earthly "school" for souls of the righteous dead, preparing them for their ascent through the celestial spheres to heaven.^[7]

Many early Christians identified Abraham's bosom with paradise, where the souls of the righteous go until the resurrection; others were inconsistent in their identification of paradise, such as St. Augustine, whose views varied.^[8]

In Luke 23:43, Jesus has a conversation with one of those crucified with him, who asks, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom". Jesus answers him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”.^[9] This has often been interpreted to mean that on that same day the thief and Jesus would enter the intermediate resting place of the dead who were waiting for the Resurrection.^[10] Divergent views on paradise, and when one enters it, may have been responsible for a punctuation difference in Luke; for example, the two early Syriac versions translate Luke 23:43 differently. The Curetonian Gospels read "Today I tell you that you will be with me in paradise", whereas the Sinaitic Palimpsest reads "I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise". Likewise the two earliest Greek codices with punctuation disagree: Codex Vaticanus has a pause mark (a single dot on the baseline) in the original ink equidistant between 'today' and the following word (with no later corrections and no dot before "today"^[11]), whereas Codex Alexandrinus has the "today in paradise" reading. In addition, an adverb of time is never used in the nearly 100 other places in the Gospels where Jesus uses the phrase, "Truly I say to you".^[12]

In Christian art, Fra Angelico's Last Judgement painting shows Paradise on its left side. There is a tree of life (and another tree) and a circle dance of liberated souls. In the middle is a hole. In Muslim art it similarly indicates the presence of the Prophet or divine beings. It visually says, "Those here cannot be depicted".

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses believe, from their interpretation of the Book of Genesis, that God's original purpose was, and is, to have the earth filled with the offspring of Adam and Eve as caretakers of a global paradise. However, Adam and Eve rebelled against God's sovereignty and were banished from the Garden of Eden, driven out of paradise into toil and misery.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that disobedient and wicked people will be destroyed by Christ at Armageddon and those obedient to Christ will live eternally in a restored earthly paradise. Joining the survivors will be the resurrected righteous and unrighteous people who died prior to Armageddon. The latter are brought back because they paid for their sins by their death and/or because they lacked opportunity to learn of Jehovah's requirements before dying. These will be judged on the basis of their post-resurrection obedience to instructions revealed in new "scrolls". They believe that resurrection of the dead to paradise earth is made possible by Christ's blood and the ransom sacrifice. This provision does not apply to those whom Christ as Judge deems to have sinned against God's holy spirit.^[13][14]

One of Jesus' statements before he died were the words to a man hanging alongside him, "you will be with me in Paradise."^{[Luke 23:43]} The New World Translation places a comma after the word 'today', dividing it into two separate phrases, "I tell you today" and "you will be with me in Paradise". This differs from standard translations of this verse as "I tell you today you will be with me in Paradise".^[15] Based on scriptures such as Matthew 12:40, 27:63, Mark 8:31 and 9:31, Witnesses believe Jesus' expectation that he would be bodily resurrected after three days precluded his being in paradise on the same day that he died.^[16]

Mormonism

In Latter Day Saint theology, paradise usually refers to the spirit world, the place where spirits dwell following death and awaiting the resurrection. In that context, "paradise" is the state of the righteous after death.^[17] In contrast, the wicked and those who have not yet learned the gospel of Jesus Christ await the resurrection in spirit prison. After the universal resurrection, all persons will be assigned to a particular kingdom or degree of glory. This may also be termed "paradise".

Islam

In the Quran, Heaven is denoted as Jannah (garden), with the highest level being called Firdaus, i.e. Paradise. It is used instead of Heaven to describe the ultimate pleasurable place after death, accessible by those who pray, donate to charity, read the Quran, believe in: God, the angels, his revealed books, his prophets and messengers, the Day of Judgement and the afterlife, and follow God's will in their life. Heaven in Islam is used to describe skies in the literal sense and metaphorically to refer to the universe. In Islam, the bounties and beauty of Heaven are immense, so much so that they are beyond the abilities of mankind’s worldly mind to comprehend.
There are eight doors of Jannah. These are eight grades of Jannah:

• 1. Jannatul Mava


• 2. Darul Maqaam


• 3. Darul Salaam


• 4. Darul Khuld


• 5. Jannat-ul-Adan


• 6. Jannat-ul-Naeem


• 7. Jannat-ul-Kasif


• 8. Jannat-ul-Firdous

Jannatul Mava is in the lowest, Jannat-ul-Adan is the middle and Jannat-ul-Firdous is the highest.

Imam Bukhari has also recorded the tradition in which the Prophet said, 'When you ask from Allah, ask Him for Al Firdaus, for it is the middle of Paradise and it is the highest place and from it the rivers of Paradise flow.' (Bukhari, Ahmad, Baihaqi) In this tradition, it is evident that Al Firdaus is the highest place in Paradise, yet, it is stated that it is in the middle. While giving an explanation of this description of Al Firdaus, the great scholar, Ibn Hibban states, 'Al Firdaus being in the middle of Paradise means that with respect to the width and breadth of Paradise, Al Firdaus is in the middle. And with respect to being 'the highest place in Paradise', it refers to it being on a height.' This explanation is in agreement to the explanation which has been given by Abu Hurairah (r.a.) who said that 'Al Firdaus is a mountain in Paradise from which the rivers flow.' (Tafseer Al Qurtubi Vol. 12 pg. 100)

The Quran also gave a warning that not all Muslims or even the believers will assuredly be permitted to enter Jannah except those who had struggled in the name of God and tested from God's trials as faced by the messengers of God or ancient prophets:

Or do you think that you will enter Jannah while such (trial) has not yet come to you as came to those who passed on before you? They were touched by poverty and hardship and were shaken until (even their) messenger and those who believed with him said, "When is the help of Allah?" Unquestionably, the help of Allah is near.
— Qur'an, chapter 2 (Al-Baqarah), ayah 214 (Saheeh International)

See also

• Dilmun


• Eridu


• El Dorado


• Fiddler's Green


• Golden Age


• Goloka


• Nirvana


• Paradise garden


• Shangri-La


• Valhalla

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Paradise

Wikiversity has learning resources about Paradise

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: God and Religious Toleration/Paradise Meditation

• 
  Etymology of "paradise", Balashon.com


• 
  Etymology OnLine, etymonline.com