What happens when we die? A recent Pew Research poll showed that 72% of Americans believe in a literal Heaven and 58% believe in a literal hell.
With his “richly layered-narrative” (The Boston Globe) he assures us that even if there may be something to hope for when we die, there certainly is nothing to fear..
Only later, in the early Christian centuries, did they develop into notions of eternal bliss or damnation widely accepted today.
In this “elegant history” (The New Yorker), Ehrman helps us reflect on where our ideas of the afterlife come from.
Moreover, these views did not come from nowhere; they were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged.
Some of these accounts take the form of near death experiences, the oldest on record, with intriguing similarities to those reported today.
One of Ehrman’s startling conclusions is that there never was a single Greek, Jewish, or Christian understanding of the afterlife, but numerous competing views.
He discusses ancient guided tours of Heaven and hell, in which a living person observes the sublime blessings of Heaven for those who are saved and the horrifying torments of Hell for those who are damned.
But eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught.
So where did these ideas come from?In this “eloquent understanding of how death is viewed through many spiritual traditions” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Bart Ehrman recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers.
Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible.
What happens when we die? A recent Pew Research poll showed that 72% of Americans believe in a literal Heaven and 58% believe in a literal hell
