Enoch and Elijah in heaven?

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HomeschoolDad said:
OK, but those two ideas are contradictory.
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Technically no.
HomeschoolDad said:
Eden either exists or it doesn’t.
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If you believe that the two witnesses are being kept in an “earthly paradise”, then the Garden or something like it does still exist.

However, there’s no evidence for the Garden existing on this planet at this moment. The alleged location is dessert now.
HomeschoolDad said:
This is a scientific question, not a religious one.
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If you brought all of the water out of the crust, I imagine that it could be possible. However, most of that water is locked up in minerals and inaccessible.
 
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Cruciferi said:
However, there’s no evidence for the Garden existing on this planet at this moment. The alleged location is dessert now.
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The physical location of Eden surely still exists (conceivably it could be under water), but the Garden probably does not.
Cruciferi said:
If you brought all of the water out of the crust, I imagine that it could be possible. However, most of that water is locked up in minerals and inaccessible.
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I didn’t think of that. Science isn’t my forte.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
all underground water (rivers, aquifers, etc.)
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There are no underground rivers. Water is stored in aquifers. These are areas of porous rock. Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate…
 
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Only a few scholars hold to this view. Largely its location is considered to be mythological.

Also, depending on how old you believe mankind and the world to be, those rivers are not always going to exist.
 
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Yes, it is a very good and wonderful source to reference information. And, when you need a source on Enoch and Elijah to prove a geological location …not from the google maps. I’m glad I pointed a good direction on the subject. “Four vines descend from the tree, symbolizing the four rivers flowing in Eden (Genesis 2:10-14), and twelve roots reach deep into the soil, adumbrating the twelve tribes of Israel.”

In comparison, to the Tree of Lfe, 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root[b] of the olive tree.

Just making the comparison…we are nourished (spiritually)
 
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Tom7 said:
Hello everyone.

Trying to get my head around the above mentioned men being taken to heaven
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I am not an expert in theology. Nonetheless we can address the issue logically while remaining faithful to the core of Catholic revelation.

There are two plausible possibilities. One is addressed by @po18guy in the following quote…
po18guy said:
Primarily because the resurrection has not yet occurred. One ascended, one was assumed.

Now, as to Elijah and Enoch…

…what about our Lord’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man? They were not in heaven, as God was not present - no Beatific Vision. Yet, it was a place of consolation. Saint Peter wrote of Christ descending to the dead so as to preach the Gospel to the “spirits in prison.” They were not in hell, but also not in heaven. “The abode of the dead” or Sheol is the term used.
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…the second involves a possible misconception about how events are ordered for us in relation to the will of God.

There is a saying in scripture, in the Book of Revelations,

“The beast you have seen was once alive and is alive no longer; it is yet to come up from the Abyss, but only to go to its destruction. And the people of the world, whose names have not been written since the beginning of the world in the book of life, will be astonished when they see how the beast was once alive and is alive no longer, and is still to come.”

While this has very little to do with the OP’s question, it does serve a point, more specifically about how we view time.

The point is, it may very well be the case that Elijah and Enoch have been taken to heaven, it’s just not yet happened from our temporal perspective; and this is to say that not only were they taken, but rather they were taken from their particular space and time. And this possibility is even more significant when we realise the fact that while the future is yet to happen for us, for God it has already happened.

God is the beginning and end, the alpha and the omega.
 
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Any further discussion on this will require a new thread so as not to push this one off topic. However, it is quite imperative to dispel the notion that there are underground rivers.
 
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That would seem difficult given the information provided from these locations.
As follows:
"One of the unique features of the park is an 8.2 km long section of the Cabayugan River that flows underground within large formations of stalactites and stalagmites. The river provides water to local communities for domestic and agricultural uses, before flowing towards the underground river. "
 
Nope, just not interested enough.
Just seems worth noting that there seems plenty of evidence of underground rivers.
 
On the subject of Enoch and Elijah it does address the OP’s question. That being whether these two were ascended into heaven as the OP qouted a passage into context with Jesus statement to Nicodemus, “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man”

Enoch lived 365 years before he was taken by God . The text reads that Enoch " walked with God : and he was no more; for God took him" (Gen 5:21–24), which some Christians interpret as Enoch’s entering Heaven alive.

According to the Bible, Enoch and Elijah are the only two people God took to heaven without them dying

Out of all the patriarchs, these two were the only ones who had ascended…Think about it? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Genesis), Moses who lead the Israelites out of Egypt, giver of the law and close relationship with the almighty (Exodus) and then The Former Prophets (Hebrew Nevi’im Rishonim) consists of the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings; while the Latter Prophets (Hebrew: Nevi’im Aharonim) include the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and The Twelve minor prophets.

The only two who were allowed to ascend into heaven body and soul?
 
Psalms62 said:
The only two who were allowed to ascend into heaven body and soul?
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Ascend is not proper in this circumstance.
To ascend is to go by one’s own power.
They did not. God directly stepped in.

As to heaven…are we sure of where exactly they went? I didn’t think the Bible specified, and it doesn’t appear to be any type of tradition.
 
vz71 said:
and it doesn’t appear to be any type of tradition.
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Well, there’s the tradition that they’re the two witnesses who oppose the Antichrist.

I covered that at the beginning of the Thread.
 
St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, Liber 4, Cap. 30

The disciples of the Apostles say that they (Enoch and Elijah) whose living bodies were taken up from the earth, have been placed in an earthly paradise, where they will remain until the end of the world.

Summa Theologica, iii, Q. xlix, art. 5

Elijah was raised into the aerial, not the empyrean heaven, which is the abode of the Saints, and in like manner Enoch was carried away to a terrestrial paradise, where he and Elijah, it is believed, will live together until the coming of the Antichrist.
 
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