Some participants here complain of the Latter-day Saint belief in multiple heavens (in spite of Paul referring the “third” heaven"). Latter-day Saint blogger Robert Boylan shared the following
here referring Biblical references to multiple heavens:
New Testament scholar, Frank J. Matera, wrote:
The mention of the “third heaven” indicates that Paul like many of his contemporaries, thought of heaven as comprising multiple levels. But how many? Expressions such as “heaven and the heaven of heavens” (Deut 10:14) and “heaven and the highest heaven” (1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chr 2:6; 6:18) imply that there are at least two levels of heaven, a notion also found in
1 En. 71:5. Certain intertestamental writings, however, reckon with even more levels. The
Testament of Levi (chap. 3), for example, refers to three heavens: the first contains the spirits that will carry out God’s judgement; the second holds the armies of God that are prepared for the day of judgment; and in the third the great glory of God dwells in the Holy of Holies. In
Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah (7-11), however, Isaiah journeys through seven heavens, and when he arrives at the seventh, he sees a wonderful light, innumerable angels, and all the righteous. Finally, the J Recension of
2 Enoch speaks of ten heavens, identifying the tenth as the place where Enoch views the face of the Lord that is not to be talked about since it was so marvelous (chap. 22). Since Paul is intent upon showing the surpassing character of his own ecstatic experience, and since he appears to identify the third heaven with paradise, he likely thinks of the third heaven as the highest heaven, the place where God dwells. Unlike the writers of the intertestamental books, however, he steadfastly refuses to describe the different levels of heaven or his journeys through them. (Frank J. Matera,
II Corinthians [New Testament Library; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002], 280)
