Did the Jewish peoples and early Christians believe Heaven is outside space and time?

[PraiseChrist]

Hello,
Today it seems that we think of heaven as outside of space and time. However, people used to believe in a three-tiered universe. Would this mean they believed heaven is within space and time?

Thank you

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Its certainly possible that many ancient Jews and Christians believed that heaven was within the physical universe. They, obviously, would have had no concept of the universe as we do today so the concept of “space and time” would have been meaningless to them.

We must also remember that the ancients were much more comfortable with the concept of the mysterious than we are today, it would not necessarily have been the kind of question they felt needed to be answered. However, given that they clearly understood the soul was not material, it is not unlikely they also had some concept of an immaterial afterlife. By the time of Jesus a more mystical understanding of the afterlife was very common in Judaism and the New Testament is quite strong on the concept of heaven as separate from the known world.