Gottes himmlische Wohnstatt

The question of where God abides found various answers in the Old Testament, and it was not until relatively late that this was localized to the heavens. Where and when did this idea first occur and in which religio-historical context? How does God's dwelling in heaven relate to other ideas, such as his throne in the temple? And what were the reasons for this change in thinking? Christoph Koch analyses conceptions of Old Testament temple theology from the Assyrian and Babylonian eras and identifies a profound change during the exile in Babylon. However, this is not to be understood as either just a reaction to the temple's destruction, nor as a unilinear progression from temple to heaven, for instance. Rather, there is a great continuity between the younger and older versions, and the explication of the heavenly abode is to be seen together with shifts in how the world was perceived in the ancient Orient.