cover image A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence

A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence

Jeffrey Burton Russell. Princeton University Press, $40 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-691-01161-5

After an exhaustive, four-volume exploration of the history of the devil, Russell now brings us a history of heaven, albeit one that is but a prelude to a multivolume study. Heaven has inspired centuries of visions: fructifying gardens where perfect bodies lounge, or architectural follies with gold-parquet floors. Scholars, however, have often pooh-poohed the ethereal regions, Elysium and the seventh sphere as insubstantial stuff. Russell's text corrects this neglect. A chunk of centuries (from 200 B.C.E. to 1321 C.E.) are his historical cross section. Swift and deft, the author tours the Christian takes on life after death, including occasional logical tangles such as : ""Is there a hierarchy in heaven?"" and ""If resurrection is bodily, will we eat in heaven?"" Unfortunately, the author's own confessional stance, as well as his affection for the divine and for Dante, often obstructs critical entry into the texts he studies. If Russell is too willing to take writers at their word, he may be forgiven for writing an honest, erudite and personal paean to heaven. (Mar.)