Whether we believe in them or not, we are all familiar with the concepts of heaven and hell. There was a time, however, when no one thought they would go to either of these places after they died. In fact, Jesus didn’t believe a dead person’s soul was bound for heaven or hell, and these ideas are nowhere to be found in the Old Testament. So, where did they come from?
From the Epic of Gilgamesh to the writings of Augustine, Bart Ehrman provides a fascinating and thought-provoking history of the afterlife. He traces how beliefs changed over time and reveals the social, cultural and historical roots of competing views held by Greeks, Jews and Christians. Ultimately, he shows that many of our ideas about heaven and hell emerged long after Jesus’s time, through the struggle to explain the injustices of our world.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter One: Guided Tours of Heaven and Hell
Chapter Two: The Fear of Death
Chapter Three: Life After Death Before There Was Life After Death
Chapter Four: Will Justice Be Done? The Rise of Postmortem Rewards and Punishments
Chapter Five: Death After Death in the Hebrew Bible
Chapter Six: Dead Bodies That Return to Life: The Resurrection in Ancient Israel
Chapter Seven: Why Wait for the Resurrection? Life After Death Right After Death
Chapter Eight: Jesus and the Afterlife
Chapter Nine: The Afterlife After Jesus’s Life: Paul the Apostle
Chapter Ten: Altering the Views of Jesus: The Later Gospels
Chapter Eleven: The Afterlife Mysteries of the Book of Revelation
Chapter Twelve: Eternal Life in the Flesh
Chapter Thirteen: Tactile Ecstasy and Torment in the Christian Hereafter
Chapter Fourteen: Who Will Inherit the Blessings? Purgatory, Reincarnation, and Salvation for All
Afterword
Notes
Index
About the Author :
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the New York Times bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus and How Jesus Became God. He has contributed to such major publications and media outlets as Time, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NBC, CNN and the BBC.
Review :
‘[Ehrman’s] is a vast learning worn wonderfully lightly and he is an engaging but expert guide around how religious ideas were formed and shaped our world.’
‘This elegant history explores the evolution of the concept of the afterlife in Western thought... Well-trod subjects are presented with engaging clarity, and more contentious theories are laid out carefully.’
‘Many redoubtable volumes have been written about all this, but Ehrman, who already has more than two-dozen books on early Christianity under his belt, merrily blows the dust off the subject.’
‘As lucid, learned and fascinating as ever, Ehrman has written a brilliant book on a profoundly important topic. Wonderful.’
‘An impressively readable, clear and wide-ranging study.’
‘Ehrman, as always, writes in a very accessible way, and gives the reader plenty to think about.’
‘A number of religions and philosophies give detailed accounts of post-mortem existence; in this learned and highly readable book, Bart Ehrman offers a tour of the whole field… There are many nuances possible here; Ehrman presents them all with great clarity and massive scholarship.'
‘The reader is struck by his nimbleness in drawing the thread of this rich-layered narrative, sprinkling larger thematic arcs with anecdotes that honor the non-lineal and multivalent nature of eschatological thought.’
‘Do after-life threats and promises distract from this-world problems and hopes? Could heaven and hell be options in the present here-and-now rather than locations in the future then-and-here? Read this book and think.’
‘There’s no one I’d rather read on what Christians believe, and why they believe it, than Bart Ehrman. This is a wise and fascinating book.’
‘Ehrman’s eloquent understanding of how death is viewed through many spiritual traditions is scintillating, fresh, and will appeal to scholars and lay readers alike.’
‘Honest discussion about this is long overdue… [‘Heaven and Hell’] is a wide-ranging book.'
