I recieved an interesting question on John 3:13 with respect to where Eliyah and Enoch were taken up to?

In YY rendering the verse reads:

“No one has ever ascended into (anabaino – risen up and entered) heaven (ouranos – the abode of God) except the One who descended from (katabaino – came down from) heaven—the Son of Man.” (Yahuwchanan/John 3:13)

The question being if Yahshua supports the validity of the Tanahk and tells us tht only the Son of Man has ascended into God's heavenly abode, where then were Enoch and Eliyah taken up to?

Would they havebeen taken up to the Paradise section of pre-Resurrection Sheol / Hades? That would seem approriate for their souls, but it seems that a bodily taking up is in veiw especially if as KP noted in FH these are the two witnesses of Revelations, present at Jerusalem denouncing anti-Messiah. If that is correct I almost get the sense that they were taken up bodily and put in a state of suspended animation until called for that yet future mission.

Any thoughts?

So bodily taken up into the sky (heaven) transitioning to not God's abode, Heaven, but into the sky with their souls dwelling in Abraham's Bosom aka the Paradise side of the Sheol - Hades?

I thought Sheol - Hades is in the grave/ hell. Hmmm.

Where did those who were among the first fruits go?

Can't find much on Elijah in Book of Jasher (1840), but did find this on Enoch. The Book of Jasher is mentioned in the TaNaK but not included.

Chapter 4
23. And in some time after, when
the kings and princes and the sons
of men were speaking to Enoch, and
Enoch was teaching them the ways
of God, behold an angel of the Lord
then called unto Enoch from heaven,
and wished to bring him up to heaven
to make him reign there over the sons
of God, as he had reigned over the
sons of men upon earth.

23. When at that time Enoch
heard this he went and assembled all
the inhabitants of the earth, and
taught them wisdom and knowledge
and gave them divine instructions,
and he said to them, I have been
required to ascend into heaven, I
therefore do not know the day of my
going.

I came across this article quite by chance earlier today, but I think most here will appreciate it:

Biblical Bad-Asses: Elijah

For anyone not completely familiar with the term, "bad-ass" can mean dangerous or it can mean unusually admirable. It is used in the latter sense below.

Doug Giles

“Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” – 1Kings 17:1

Because of the systematic emasculation of the American Church, and I’ll toss Western Europe into that insult as well, it’s become hard to square the words “biblical” and “bad-ass” without some hipster Christian spitting out his skinny milk, no foam, latte and crying “Foul!” And I mean crying. As in weeping.

The Bible, however, is filled with men and women who were absolutely, in the most holy sense of the word, stonking bad-asses.

Indeed, the Bible is chocked full of bad-asses but because we’ve been told to read the scripture through rose-colored, Hello-Kitty glasses, versus just taking these tales straight, as I do my whiskey, we miss the badassedness of Holy Writ’s heroes.

That’s what I am here for. To help you appreciate what these humans did for God and man that required a testicular fortitude that borders on the brink of extinction within our dandy church culture.

As you probably gathered from the title of my column and the cited scripture above, Elijah’s gonna be this column’s focus.

Lets unpack the first mention of Elijah and see what we can glean from this cat.

The first thing I’d like to point out is that Elijah was a Tishbite. Most Jews and Christians are familiar with Elijah. However, there was a time, thousands of years ago when he confronted wicked rulers, that no one knew squat about him. He was a “nobody” from an obscure tribe. A Tishbite? Who the heck are they? If you Google Tishbite in the Bible you ain’t gonna find much. When Elijah launched out no one knew who he was, they weren’t impressed with him and they did not listen to his rebukes. But you know what? That didn’t stop him from stomping some backside.

Elijah’s a badass in that he didn’t need all the crap most Christians think they need before they start kicking ass for the Lord.

Check it out. Elijah didn’t have a prophetic blog. He didn’t graduate with honors from Schlomo’s School of The Prophets. He didn’t have a Facebook fan page with 3,000 followers cheerleading him on. He wasn’t popular on Twitter. His family wasn’t famous and the tribe he hailed from wasn’t totes magotes. But, that didn’t hold him down because, you see, Elijah wasn’t looking to be accepted and earn a living being a professional prophet. Oh, no. He was looking to kick some ass.

Secondly, Elijah’s calling was to confront corrupt leaders. His work was not to start orphanages. He didn’t feed the poor. He didn’t have a leprosy outreach. He didn’t start an effort to save abused camels. He was not a life coach with a Christian flare. He was not a hip and cool prophet. He didn’t seek to be a positive, motivational speaker trying to subtly blend God’s message into the corrupt culture by getting a hair cut like Ahab, dressing like the backslidden Israelites and going to formal state dinners.

Screw that noise. That was not Elijah. His job: filet corrupt leaders who were leading his country astray.

In summation, my dear wannabe badasses, here’s the walkways from today’s Bible study regarding Elijah.

First off. Don’t bemoan that no one knows you, or you hail from a goofy place that isn’t a wow city. If something needs to be done and you’re the one to do it, then pony up, play the man and get it done. What you have in badassery will make up for what you may lack in credentials to the “experts” who demand such accolades before they show one respect.

Lastly, never compare whether or not what you do is legit based upon what others are doing. Elijah’s call was not to sing kum-ba-yah. His work was to pronounce judgment on Jezebel and her jacked up ilk. If Elijah had done anything else, like dog rescues, or marital counseling, or hospital visitations he would have been in direct disobedience to the call of God. No, Elijah’s a badass because he stayed focused and did something that all the other prophets were scared to do, namely confront wicked rulers. Would to God we had some Elijah’s doing that today both to the Left and the Right. Elijah was different because he had an attitude, and this attitude was a threat to all that was evil. He was a hazard to cultural constructs that would keep him and those he loved dumb and down and beholden to shady leaders. Elijah was not a dutiful and domesticated ecclesiastical cow of the politically and culturally correct constructs. Oh, heck no. Elijah was a bad-ass.

What about you?

Biblical Bad-Asses: Elijah
SOURCE

Definitely one of the right ones to stand up to the Towrahless One during The Tribulation!

Folks...NO ONE is in "Abraham's Bosom". Jesus when he said that was MAKING FUN at the Pharisees for their lack of scriptural understanding. Jesus' address to the Pharisees was against their tradition making void God’s word as to the dead. The Pharisees (Jewish leaders) taught that there were 3 sets of angels for wicked men and that Abraham’s bosom was a place for death. They would say, “This day he sits in Abraham’s bosom”. The Pharisees also taught that in life 2 men may be “coupled together” and one sees the other after death, and conversations can take place. The Pharisees gave long stories of similar imaginary conversations and discourses.

What Jesus is doing is debating the Pharisees in their understanding of what happens with the dead. The Pharisees appear to believe there is some thought going on and are teaching a “Babylonian concept” of spiritual life after death which is taught in today’s churches weekly. This is a “Babylonian concept” and NOT BIBLICAL. The bible is clear that on death the mind stops, your thoughts cease, and your soul is dead in the “pit” (Sheol = hell) awaiting judgment and resurrection. People do not die and go to heaven or a hellish torment. That is religious dogma. Jesus exposed the Pharisees as biblical frauds.

[Example of scripture that contradicts life or though after death]

Psa 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

Psa 30:9 What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?

(yes "Jesus" for the sake of the topic at hand)

Was Enoch Taken to Heaven

Some people believe Genesis 5:24 and Hebrews 11:5 declare that God took Enoch to heaven. But is that what these verses say? Genesis 5:24 tells us that "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." Hebrews 11:5 adds: "By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, 'and was not found, because God had taken him'; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God."

Neither scripture tells us how or where God took him, only that He did. Did God take Enoch to heaven? Clearly not, because Jesus Himself said that "no one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man ..."

Further, Hebrews 11 lists many faithful men and women of the Bible (including Enoch) but concludes that "all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise ..." (verse 39). Obviously, then, Enoch neither ascended to heaven nor received the promised eternal life.

So what did happen to Enoch? Genesis 5:23 makes it clear that Enoch ultimately did die: "So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years." He lived 365 years and no more. He isn't still alive and walking with God. The expression "all the days" is used of eight other people in this same chapter-all of whom obviously died. Hebrews 11:5 tells us Enoch was "taken away." The same Greek word refers to the remains of the patriarch Jacob being "carried" from Egypt (where he had died) to Shechem, where he was later buried.

The Scriptures simply do not reveal all the details of what happened to Enoch. They do record, however, that Elijah, in a similar manner, was physically removed by a fiery chariot only to die later. Also, God instructed Moses to go to the top of Mount Nebo to die-apparently alone (Deuteronomy 32:48-50). Then God buried his body where it would not be found (Deuteronomy 34:5-6), possibly to prevent the grave site from being made into an idolatrous shrine. Something similar might have happened to Enoch

Did Elijah Go to Heaven

Careful study shows three "heavens" actually discussed in the Bible.

1 One is God's dwelling place.

2 Another heaven discussed in the Bible is what we call outer space. (It is the domain of the moon, planets, comets, asteroids, sun and stars. David spoke of this when he reflected on the awesomeness of God's creative handiwork, which he described as "Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained" (Psalm 8:3).)

3 Yet another heaven is the envelope of air that surrounds our planet, consisting of oxygen and other gases. This heaven is earth's atmosphere or the sky.

To determine which heaven is meant in a Bible passage, we must carefully consider the context. It was into the lower reaches of this third kind of heaven—the earth's atmosphere—that Elijah was taken.

"Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (verse 11). Elijah was now gone.

Many Bible scholars and other readers assume that Elijah at that point was made immortal and taken to the heaven where God resides. This was not the case. The Bible records that Elijah wrote a letter to Jehoram, the king of Judah, several years after he was removed in the whirlwind. Elijah wrote a letter to Jehoram warning him of dire consequences because of his sins. This letter is recorded in 2 Chronicles 21:12-15.

God had chosen Elisha to succeed Elijah as His prophet, so He bodily removed Elijah to another place, where he continued to live for at least several more years-as his letter to Jehoram demonstrates.

The Bible tells us nothing more about Elijah after he wrote the letter. But he eventually died, since Hebrews 9:27 tells us "it is appointed for men to die once." Elijah, like the other prophets and righteous men of the Old Testament, died in faith, not having received the eternal life God had promised (Hebrews 11:39, NIV).

As these passages show, a careful reading of the Scriptures shows that Elijah's miraculous removal in a fiery chariot involved transporting him to another location in the area, not to eternal life in heaven.