Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife by Bart D Ehrman

This is a superb examination of how the (Christian) belief in heaven and hell was developed. Starting from the epic of Gilgamesh, the Odyssey and Iliad by Homer and the Aeneid by Virgil, Ehrman thoroughly examines the views on the afterlife embedded in those works. This involves ideas on death itself. Is it the end or do we go somewhere? Ideas on the body and the soul (Greek: breath of life), the material body and the immaterial or glorified body. The end of life, the end of time. God, gods and their role in life and death. God’s role on suffering. Evil as a cosmic force against God. Is the Kingdom of God on Earth or on Heaven? Resurrection: will it happen at the end of time or right after we die? Who will God save, is it the righteous? is it the believers? Is it only the baptised? 

I enjoyed an examination of Socrates and Plato’s thoughts on the afterlife. I particularly liked a reference by Socrates, who encourage us not to fear death. If dead is annihilation, it will be like a dreamless sleep. We shouldn’t fear it. 

If death is a migration of the soul to the realm of the dead where one can meet the greats of Socrate’s civilisation, there is no reason to fear it. Plato said the goal of life is to escape the body so the soul can live on. Souls are immortal. Pleasure is not good because it ties a person to a body. Philosophers practice death when they dedicate their lives to the immortal soul. 

In addition to Socrates and Plato, Ehrman discusses other great Greeks and Romans, like Aristophanes, Lucian of Samostata, Epicurus and Lucretius with similar or slightly different views. 

All these ideas and more are examined in chronological order, following Greek, Roman, Jewish and Christian writings. Ehrman examines writings from the Jewish bible/Old Testament, the New Testament Gospels, but the parts which I enjoyed the most were the discussions of the Apocrypha like the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of Paul and the Gospel of Thomas. I could tell why the Church Fathers rejected those as the views are so much different from what we are left in the New Testament. But, even in the New Testament so many contradictions are left. Ehrman states that earlier Gospel of Mathew proposed apocalyptic views of the afterlife (views which Jesus shared: the kingdom of God will come soon to judge everyone). As years passed the writings were gradually de-apocalypticised. In the later Gospel of John the narrative changed to the Heaven and Hell dualism. After reading this book it became clear to me how ideas from Greek mythology influence (earlier) Christian thought. Ehrman states that this was a consequence of the Hellenisation of the Mediterranean. Many Christian thinkers from that time were not Jews but former Greek pagans who brought their beliefs on the afterlife with them. Also, texts were involuntarily or voluntarily altered, and in some cases, Ehrman states that some ideas were invented or made up. Words were put in Jesus’ mouth, which sometimes opposed what we assume he thought.