| From Album "Robo Colour World" , song of ArkGrb www.emusic.com The modern English word heaven is derived from the earlier (Middle English) spelling heven ; this in turn was developed from the previous Old English form heofon. Heofon was being used in reference to the Christianized "place where God dwells", but originally, it had signified "sky, firmament" (eg in Beowulf, c. 725). The English term has cognates in the other Germanic languages: Old Saxon heƀan "sky, heaven", Middle Low German heven "sky", Old Icelandic himinn "sky, heaven", Gothic himins; and those with a variant final : Old Frisian himel, himul "sky, heaven", Old Saxon/Old High German himil, Dutch hemel, and modern German Himmel. All of these have been derived from a reconstructed Proto-Germanic form *Hemina-. In many languages, the word for "heaven" is the same as the word for "sky". Religions that speak about heaven differ on how (and if) one gets into it, typically in the afterlife. In many religions, entrance to Heaven is conditional on having lived a "good life" (within the terms of the spiritual system) or "accepting God into your heart." A notable exception to this is the 'sola fide' belief of many mainstream Protestant Christians, which teaches that one does not have to live a perfectly "good life," but that one must accept (believe and put faith in) Jesus Christ as one's saviour, and then Jesus Christ will assume the guilt of one's sins; believers are believed to be forgiven regardless of any good ... |
