Heaven and Hell

This is a short, readable account of how biblical ‘ideas’ of hell were part of broad intellectual trends common across various Akkadian, Greek, Roman, Israelite, and Christian sources. His main point is actually about how these classical ideas did not involve any idea of hell as infinite torture. The publishers must have re-titled the book! I'm not even sure heaven is mentioned. It’s a bit of a traditional cultural and intellectual history but in an informal and reader-friendly way. If you’re interested in this topic you will enjoy and appreciate it.The main thing to know up front is that Ehrman is a textual critic. When studying ideas he doesn't want to reason or interpret (leaving the text behind) but to stick with the text and to read the words closely - because ideas come in the form of verbal statements. He has a lawyer-like sense of precision about what statements actually say and (and don't say). So, expect his question about whether fiery torment is a biblical thing or not to be answered through a gathering and reading of relevant texts, i.e specific statements interpreted against a broad background of possible meanings.The textual critic's main assumption is that humans invent ideas and so each idea gets a kind of intellectual date stamp. As ideas circulate ideas they get misinterpreted or develop and new meanings cluster around the original ones. So, when we read old material we must respect the actual original context of an idea to avoid misreading it in the light of those later ideas. As Christian ideas are the focus here Ehrman is consciously trying to avoid reading biblical sources in the light of later theological ideas (a familiar Protestant exercise). So, he is apt to write things like ‘We must avoid coming to this passage with later Christian theology in mind’, as in ch.5 when he shows how to read Ezekiel 37:7-8 as a story about national recovery not about personal resurrection.His book's big claim is that the our familiar ideas of the afterlife were synthesised from a broader cultural tradition and then slowly elaborated by the Paul, Luke, John (mainly) into a Christian theology. He concludes that we are wrong to read a clear and stable theology into the Bible. He denies Jesus had thoughts about a Hell of eternal bodily suffering – in other words, the Bible is not ‘theological’.There’s 3 main parts to this, as he tracks beliefs about the afterlife in 3 broad historical eras:1. Bible ideas were part of general culture and should be approached historically. Early ideas about the afterlife, in Homer for example, imagined it as just another place but with a ghostly kind of semi-existence. The Old Testament drew from the same general set of cultural ideas and attached little importance to the afterlife. With the Roman uptake of Greek ideas lots of people saw fear of death as a possible spur to behave better. Now the afterlife became more important, specifically as a spur to better behaviour in the present. Again, the New Testament drew upon these general cultural assumptions. So, quite a lot of the New Testament ideas about the afterlife are of this kind.2. The Bible's ideas about the afterlife are simple. In the Old Testament death is mainly flagged as unthinkable; sometimes death and subsequent resurrection is used to describe Israel’s destiny. In the New Testament, death is linked to some basic ideas about punishments and rewards for individuals, not nations, but only as a way of urging moral restraint in the present. In addition, there are some apocalyptic ideas in the Old Testament and New Testament (the view that although 'we' are on the losing side now, 'you' should be aware that justice is about to be meted out). These ideas were strongly expressed during the Maccabees Revolt (around 167BC). None of these are clear about the afterlife and there are no fiery torments for the bad. They are mainly about drawing courage from imagining deferred but certain revenge. Following this survey Ehrman claims Jesus could not have thought of Hell in terms of endless punishment because the cultural forms to expression were not yet able to frame such ideas.3. The New Testament writers, in the generations after Jesus died, were the first to construct a distinctively Christian view of the afterlife. The afterlife gets built up in Luke, John, Tertullian and Augustine. Because their ideas have dominated Christian thought we habitually read the full 'theological' idea of heaven and hell into the Bible where it actually has no place.As I say, the idea that the Church Fathers systematised these ideas and thus first invented Christian thought is not really a new idea – nearly a century ago Rudolf Bultmann was known for this kind of approach and it was not new with him. Bultmann thought the Church Fathers had hidden Jesus’s message under dogmatic lumber that we had to strip away again; Ehrman doesn’t think any of the levels contain the pure Christian message – he is just interested in the story of how familiar ideas mixed and evolved. Basically, he is interested in the process of reading critically (clearest statements on this in ch.8 and the afterword).I've already suggested the title was probably the publisher's idea to increase sales. There are other books on the 'invention' of heaven, hell, purgatory, angels and Satan (and so on). These tend to go into all the popular medieval layers that did so much to colour in the picture we have of these beliefs. This is not Ehrman's focus, which is on reading the Bible as a textual critic not accounting for our beliefs about heaven and hell.I’ve already gone on too long, but I can think of 3 books that cover the same ground, though each with a different slant. If you liked Ehrman’s books then you can sample them. Alan Jacobs’ Original Sin shows Augustine’s development of the theology of original sin, which is often assumed to be biblical. Garry Wills’  Font of Life  attributes a greater role to conversion and confession, but again flags up the defining role of the Church Fathers. And (be brave) please try Foucault’s recently published  Confessions of the Flesh  with my review - ( English translation  due in January 2021). It’s also about confession and the idea of the self, offering a respectful survey of the development of specifically Christian thought, culminating in a detailed and admiring study of Augustine’s defining role. Font of LifeConfessions of the FleshEnglish translation

I really liked the academic approach to the spiritual subject matter of this book. I had read a previous book by Bart Ehrmann, so I knew that this one was likely to be excellent as well. He uses well known authors and sources, for the most part, not much that is esoteric, but still he draws them all into one place, organizes them, and uses a thoughtful analysis to explore each aspect of the evolution of thought concerning human conceptions of heaven and hell. I liked the subjects and aspects he explored, and the chapter construction was incremental and showed the relationships between each period of thought and each philosophical position. Really, an excellent book to cover so much ground is the space of just one book. Ehrmann has written many books in the past, so he certainly has mastery of the task. A great book.

This is a scholarly work tracing how the idea of a Heaven and Hell came to occupy religious thinking today. Ehrman shows that contrary to the assumptions of many, Heaven and Hell were not part of man’s beliefs in the afterlife until long after the crucifixion of Jesus. The idea of the afterlife itself originally concerned the afterlife of the Jewish nation, not of its people. Citing passages from the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) as well as the apocrypha (religious text that did not find their way into the Bible), and the history of Greek philosophy, Ehrman shows that once upon a time, death means death. The idea of an afterlife did not exist. Then came the idea that man has a soul, and from there, questions arise as to whether man’s soul survives after death? And when the prophets of the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus himself referred to the rising of the dead, the idea then related to the rising of the body from the dead. This is what is understood as the eschatological and apocalyptic teachings of Judaism and Jesus. When God comes on Judgment Day, the dead (bodies) shall rise again. The belief then, was that when the faithful die, they die – and will only be raised again when Jesus returns on Judgment Day. Ehrman shows how that belief made many uncomfortable because that was a belief that envisaged the coming of Jesus during the lifetime of those people at the time the belief was spread, and when it became clear that Jesus was not coming back so soon, the fear of what might happen to the believers when they die, led to a new belief in the immediate rising to a heavenly place. In the course of explaining the development of the ideas of the afterlife, Ehrman discusses the problems of resurrection. In what form will a body be resurrected – in the form of the person in his prime, or in the same state of his death? Willa man born blind be resurrected blind and live in eternity in blindness? Will dead babies be reborn only to live eternally as babies? What about Hell? How hot is it? Ehrman has many questions for that idea too as he traces the history of the creation of Hell. For example, for those who do not believe in a bodily resurrection, how does one’s immaterial soul burn? If one believes in a bodily resurrection, how does a body keep burning in perpetuity without turning to ashes? Ehrman has an enlightening chapter on the Book of Revelations. If one has read that book in the Bible and come away totally, perplexed, he will find Ehrman’s explanation and interpretations of Revelations a welcome enlightenment.

O livro faz um estudo da ideia de céu-inferno presente na hodierna religião cristã, partindo de antigos mitos mesopotâmios, passando pelos filósofos greco-romanos e pela Bíblia ate chegar a ideia cristalizada hoje na mente de milhões de pessoas. O estudo é bem fundamentado e exposto de forma clara como é costumeiro nas obras do autor. Um livro que nos dá a conhecer a gênese da ideia da vida após a morte. Recomendo a sua leitura apesar dela, no momento, somente ser possível para os versados na língua inglesa. A entrega pela Amazon, como de costume, foi eficiente e precisa.

Pesquisa histórica austera e fundamentada sobre conceitos fundantes do pensamento religioso. Algumas controvérsias podem ser resolvidas por conceitos da física moderna, mas estes escapam à especialidade do autor, o que também vale para temas propriamente teológicos.