Yesterday I gave Part One of a two-part discussion of the “invention” of heaven and hell, from my book Jesus Interrupted. There I sketched out the apocalyptic vision of what would happen at the end of time as the original view among the followers of Jesus. Here is where I continue that discussion into some reflections of where the Christian teachings of the afterlife, as later formulated, came from.
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The Transformation of the Apocalyptic Vision
What happens when this expected end doesn’t happen? What happens when the apocalyptic scenario that Jesus expected to occur in “this generation” never comes? When Paul’s expectation that he will be alive at the second coming of Christ is radically disconfirmed by his own death? When the resurrection of the dead is delayed, interminably, making a mockery of the widespread belief that it will happen “soon”?
One thing that happens, of course, is that some people begin to mock. That is the problem addressed in the final book of the New Testament to be written, 2 Peter, which insists that when God says that it will all happen very soon, he means by the divine calendar, not the human. And one needs always to remember that “with the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). This means, I suppose, that if the end is supposed to come next Tuesday, it could be some Tuesday four thousand years from now.
One other thing that happens when the end does not come is…
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I don’t subscribe to the heaven or hell stuff at all. I do feel the kingdom of God is here and now and it is up to us to make it. But tell me, Jesus said this, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” To what was he referring?
A heavenly residence for his followers. (I don’t think these words in John’s Gospel are actually something Jesus himself spoke though)
But doesn’t this imply that the author of John was not an apocalypticist but more of an “immortality of the soul” thinker?
Yes, I think he was!
But was the change a function of the delay in the Parousia or more a result of the fact that the message which originated in a Jewish context was adapted into a Gentile one? Wouldn’t Gentile Christians carrying their own philosophical and cultural baggage into the Church with them have found the idea of a bodily physical resurrection and a earthly kingdom to be weird and absurd?
It would seem sensible, but the doctrine of the resurrection of hte dead is found most explicitly in two of Paul’s letters that he wrote specifically to converted pagans/gentiles (1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians)
Bart, have you read “When Prophecy Fails” by Leon Festinger? He’s the guy who developed the theory of Cognitive Dissonance. The book was written in the 50s and it documented a Flying Saucer group who had made definite prophecies for the near future about world destruction and aliens coming down to save the faithful. He and his group infiltrated them and studied them. Really fascinating and slightly depressing as you see them fumble around for answers as to why the prophecies keep failing.
Anyway, your post reminded me of it. It makes sense that this is what happened in the early Church. We just didn’t have government funded scientists running around recording the nitty gritty for all of posterity to read. And so there is just enough left for the faithful to keep believing. But what Festinger’s book shows is that even in the midst of overwhelming disconfirmation the faithful will always find a rationalization and a reinterpretation to keep the belief going.
Yes indeed! It’s a classic!
In your *potential* upcoming book of the afterlife, I know you will probably be approaching it from a historical perspective, but what about discussing the contraindications the Bible lays out theologically about whether or not those who have *not heard* of Jesus go to hell?
I don’t think the Bible talks about that.
Your thoughts?
The ignorant are NOT punished
There are several Bible verses that suggest the ignorant are not held accountable for their sins.
If I had not come and spoken to them [the world], they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
— John 15:22
The Law brings about wrath, but where there is no Law, there also is no violation.
— Romans 4:15
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
— Acts 17:30
But if the ignorant are excused from sin and wrath, then the first rule of Christianity should be, “Don’t talk about Christianity.” If knowledge brings with it the possibility of condemnation, then it is better to never receive that knowledge.
The ignorant are ARE punished
On the flip side, there are other verses that suggest the ignorant will be punished.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law …
— Romans 2:12
He will punish those who do not know God … They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
— 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
But if the ignorant will still “perish apart from the law” for their sins, then God comes across as unfair for punishing the ignorant.
The ignorant are are punished on a sliding scale
There are also verses that hint that judgement varies according to how much knowledge you have.
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.
— Luke 12:48
My brothers and sisters, not many of you should be teachers … we who teach will be judged more strictly than others.
— James 3:1
But if more knowledge means more potential punishment, then we’re back to the first rule of Christianity: “Don’t talk about Christianity!”
While these verses appear to contradict one another, fundamentalists insist there are no contradictions, and that we should look to the larger Biblical themes to facilitate our understanding of these verses.
My view is that hte Bible does not have a consistent teaching on the matter.
I guess that’s my point! Haha.
Dr Ehrman,
you say: “No longer is the physical resurrection discussed or even believed.” but the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed mention explicitly the resurrection of the dead, and most Christians even today profess this creed. So I am a bit confused, it seems to me the belief of hell and heaven didn’t replace the idea of a resurrection at the end time. Or am I thinking this wrong?
Also, in 2 Corinthians 5:1, is Paul talking about some sort of heaven, as a temporary place before the resurrection?
It may be in the creed, but my sense is that most Xns don’t subscribe to the idea.
I agree with you – but it’s in the “Apostles’ Creed” too (the one most used by Catholics, at least when I was growing up). And – again, at least when I was young – Catholicism taught that it was very desirable, if possible, to have amputated limbs buried with the rest of the body, to facilitate its being “restored” in the afterlife. Nowadays, I’m sure the Church is receptive to such practices as donating a dead person’s organs for transplant. But they just quietly began accepting it, without acknowledging a change in doctrine.
In the Catholic Church I have a strong impression that both the doctrines of heaven/hell and bodily resurrection have been preserved – probably because both are in the NT (even though, as critical scholars say, it’s unlikely that heaven/hell go back to Jesus). Heaven/hell are “interim” as for Paul but a much longer interim than Paul had in mind. Christ’s second coming is still clearly a doctrine. However, now that you mention it, people talk much more about heaven/hell than resurrection. There is much emphasis on vertical than horizontal dualism.
Well, most Christians that I’ve met do believe in literal physical resurrection at the end of the age. The teaching was explicitly taught in all Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches that I’ve seen. I’m also sure that it’s a dogma in all the churches that accept the creed (which means almost all of them). So, frankly, I don’t agree with you there.
When you say “…This view of the eternal and bodiless existence of the soul is found not in the New Testament…” some passages come to mind that I’m wondering how you deal with… here are some examples: Dan 12:2, Matt 25:46, 2 Cor 5:8, Phil 1:23, 2 Thess 1:9, Rev 14:11, etc.
Yup, those are passages of importance!
Dr. Ehrman, if I could return you to that controversial (alleged) quote by Papias, the authenticity of which you have said you doubted:
“The days will come in which vines shall grow, having each ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in every one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five-and-twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, ‘I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.’ In like manner, [He said] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear would have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that apples, and seeds, and grass would produce in similar proportions; and that all animals, feeding then only on the productions of the earth, would become peaceable and harmonious, and be in perfect subjection to man.”
Now, to my ears as a social scientist — not an historian or religious scholar — this quote sounds *exactly* like the kind of hyperbolic rhetoric I would expect an apocalyptic cult leader to say to his followers, most of which would find hope and sanguinity in such a ludicrous depiction. It doesn’t sound, at all, like something someone would make up post hoc, many years after such a prophetic promise very obviously failed to materialize. That is to say, who would ascribe such a manifestly outlandish promise to a long dead man, when at the same time a mutated doctrine of, as you put it, a “vertical” rather than a “horizontal” notion of salvation and damnation was developing?
To my sense as someone who studies human behavior in detail, the exact opposite would be expected. Jesus was such a captivating speaker precisely because he was able to convincingly proclaim such manifestly ridiculous expectations to a willingly ravenous crowd. This purported quote of Jesus — if not completely accurate — I believe, at the very least, is much, much closer to the way the historical Jesus would have preached, the way he would reach the hopeless, the downcast, the restive, who needed someone to tell them that things were not only going to be better, but much better in a way that, just you wait, oh boy, is it ever going to be awesome! (cf. one current Republican nominee for president)
THAT sounds like the kind of guy who could convince men and women to disown their (hard-headed) families and communities to follow a ragtag apocalyptic cult down to Jerusalem to await the Final Judgment and the Kingdom of God, which would be coming any day now (just you wait and see!) If you consider this possibility, all the pieces suddenly fall into place and the emergence of an established religion out of a backwoods Galilean apocalyptic cult makes far more sense. Don’t you think?
I mean, we actually have real-world examples of such a thing happening in recent history. Just look at the Mormons. Anyone outside the LDS Church can see that Joseph Smith’s ideas are completely and utterly ridiculous and absurd, and yet the Mormon church is thriving! Jesus probably did the same thing. He made utterly outlandish promises that, upon his death, this loyal followers simply couldn’t let go of. And it was only much later, decades later, when such exaggerated expectations began to sound really ridiculous, that Jesus’ message of promising a million grapes from one vine was swept under the rug, replaced by the relatively more reasonable and universal notion of a heaven full of angels playing harps, and a hell full of demons roasting the wicked on spits.
But how do you know that Jesus *was* a “captivating” speaker?
If Jesus wasn’t a captivating speaker then I highly doubt that anyone would have followed him. The best way to impress a group of 1st century men was either to be a great warrior and general or a wise and learned orator, and I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t the former.
I am not a member of LDS church, but stand up for their right to their beliefs, but more than that I am of the opinion that Jesus’ teachings were not ludicrous.
Which specific teachings of Joseph Smith do you consider of comparable absurdity as 10,000×10,000×10,000×10,000 increase in agricultural produce?
That a tribe of Israel travelled to America? though there is no evidence of it that i am aware of, it does not seem inconceivable. there is evidence (not sure how good) that Polynesian sailors made it to South America
Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon wrote that the ancient native Americans (who, as you point out, Smith believed were descended from a lost tribe of Jews) had a great civilization on par with the ancient Near East, that they had iron weapons and horses. And that this civilization collapsed after a giant battle with countless casualites. So far all the evidence shows that the Native Americans are not related to the Jews — genetics completely rules that out — and that the Natives never learned to produce iron implements, and that horses went extinct in the Americas thousands of year before the purported events of the Book of Mormon. Moreover, there is not one shred of evidence for a massive battle anywhere on the continent before Europeans arrived. Not one iron spearhead. Not one arrowhead. Not one skeleton. Nothing. So, yeah, Joseph Smith was a fraud.
He seems like a fraud to me to the point that I doubt that he really “believed were descended from a lost tribe of Jews.”
My own belief is that there are no such things as prophets, only wickedly clever people and those eager to believe in them.
You’re not suggesting, are you, that a people’s right to believe what they want implies a right to not have their beliefs/claims called into question? Jesus’ teachings were not so ludicrous in the Jewish environment that he lived.
On the other point, it becomes less and less conceivable that Israelites went to South America. There is no genetic evidence among South American natives and Israelites weren’t a seafaring people like the Polynesians.
not suggesting that.
agree Jesus teachings were not not ludicrous in his environment (nor ours).
I don’t think your version of Jesus of Nazareth bears any relation whatsoever to the “real” man, and I doubt he went around making outlandish promises. You seem to want to attribute foolish things to Jesus so they fit your interpretation of him as something of a celestial jerk.
To whom are you addressing this? What “outlandish promises” and “foolish things” are you referring to that would make him seem like a jerk?
I’m not the one attributing “foolish things” to Jesus. Papias is the one attributing foolish things to Jesus. I’m only agreeing with Papias.
That is interesting.
Ok, rather you agree with Papais’ attribution of “foolish things to Jesus [as] they fit your interpretation of him as something of a celestial jerk.” ?
Odd that a belief not taught by Jesus or Paul becomes the standard Christian belief.
Doesn’t the story of Lazarus and the rich man found in Luke represent the concept of heaven and hell?
Kind of! But I dion’t think the story goes back to Jesus.
Even if it doesn’t go back to Jesus, you need to qualify your statement
” . . . This view of the eternal and bodiless existence of the soul is found not in the New Testament, . . “
Wasn’t the parable of heaven and hell ,depicted in The Rich Man and Lazarus story told by Jesus in Luke 16 already part of the Jewish tradition and originally came from the Greeks.
So if you are physically comfortable
In this life ,you will suffer physically in the afterlife?
We don’t have an exact parallel to the story in either Jewish or Greek traditions before Jesus. But the point of the story is that the wealthy cannot neglect the needs of the poor and expect to get away with it.
is there a possibility that the bart ehrman blog has been hacked?
on my screen new icons are appearing which weren’t there before.
articles which were listed in member content are no longer there.
No one else has reported any problems.
Did the ancient Jews borrow dualism, the day of judgement, and a dualistic afterlife from the Persians through their state religion Zoroastrianism when they were conquered?
*If you say no, why couldn’t they have borrowed it? Just like they borrow the Flood story from Gilgamesh and the opening of Genesis from Enuma Elish.
It is often thought so!
Haha, ok. And you think so too??
I’m not an expert in Zoroastrianism, but am planning on reading up on it soon, after lo these many years. But yes, this is my understanding too.
I heard Reza Aslan state on public television that it was not the Jews who Invented monotheism, but Zoroaster.
Generally speaking, I think Aslan is a brilliant man and a remarkably articulate speaker, but I don’t believe he’s any friend of the Jews. And yet, friends tell me of Aslan not only being welcomed to Jewish Reform temples, but acclaimed.
The reaction of early Christians to the failure of the Kingdom of God to come soon is, to me, one of the most fascinating parts of early Christianity. The soon-coming Kingdom was *central* to Jesus’ message – and it didn’t happen.
Jesus says very little Regarding the physical resurrection. Paul, on the other hand sounds like a used car salesman Describing in detail what happens when Jesus returns (1 cor 15:51 and 1Thes 4:13-17).
Most people assume the “we ” that Paul talks about is the people living today. But I now see that Paul is assuming that Jesus will come back during his lifetime .
I have not read Jesus Interrupted and I had better! Good. Found it!!
Do you know of any reference to “the bosom of Abraham” predating the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man? That and the taking up of Enoch and Elijah in the OT seem to recognize there are people who are too righteous to languish in Sheol/Hades with the rest of us. The notion that God is above the sky and a rudimentary knowledge of what goes on below the earth, yielding volcanic eruptions, would have suggested that underground can’t be such neutral territory as some writers on antiquities characterize it being.
Not off hand.
I can see the “horizontal” concept of salvation/damnation being replaced by the “vertical.” But do you think it could have happened if there hadn’t already been traditions about the “underworld” as a place of the dead (e.g., Sheol)?
Don’t know!
Bart, another alternate idea for the title of your upcoming book: “Genesis of the Afterlife.” “Genesis” connotes a beginning with a story behind it, without any language suggesting a human construction that might limit your readership unnecessarily. And I think that is important, because even fundamentalists who will in all likelihood disagree with the evidence and the conclusion, still – if they read your book – stand to be exposed to some challenging ideas that they certainly will not get from the pulpit. The word “genesis” also adds a bit of irony that creates an almost involuntary psychological connection with the creation stories relating to THIS earthly life, something a fundamentalist would be predisposed to have an interest in.
The good-and-evil dualism/apocalypticism of Jews before and after the first century is fairly easy to understand (after you explained it). They were in fact obeying a God who was supposed to be good but they still had great suffering over a long period of time. So early Christianity, which grew out of Judaism, had to replace apocalyptic horizontal dualism with vertical dualism when Jesus didn’t return.
But why did the other peoples that the Romans had conquered eventually become so receptive to the good-and-evil dualism of Christianity. I wouldn’t guess that they were worse off than the Jews – not enough to develop their own apocalyptic worldview. And not having a god who was supposed to be as good as the Jewish God, they didn’t have the theodicy problem that Jews and Christians did. As part of a fairly/relatively advanced and rational civilization, why would they replace a realistic view of death with belief in afterlife?
I ask this because I can clearly see how heaven and hell developed out of Jewish/Christian apocalypticism. But I can’t see why either horizontal or vertical dualism would later be compelling to a great many non-Jews.
My sense is that Christians were not preaching the idea of dualism but the message of Christ and his God, and the dualism came with it once people converted.
I would love it if you were to write a book about the evolution of the doctrines of heaven and hell! (Especially hell.) They are so central to the modern Christian gospel and yet so absent from the vast majority of the Bible. As someone who grew up going to church, I remember how shocked I was when I (accidentally! no thanks to the church) discovered there is no hell in the O.T. I felt tricked!
Keep educating us, Professor. And thank you!
emetzler, you might already know this but not only was there no Hell in the Tanakh (in the sense that Christians today mean Hell), there was also no individual with the proper name “Satan,” even if we do find even Jewish translators using it in translating Job. It was a title, not a name, and not of a being who was the incarnation of evil.
Something to ponder upon, regarding the topic of Hell, are the three different types mentioned in the N.T. Using the KJV because of its longer time as an influencer upon our thoughts, we see these three types of “Hells”.
Mark 9:43 “…go into hell…”, Strong’s #1067: Valley of Hinnom.
2Peter 2:4 “…down to hell…”, Strong’s #5020: Tartaros.
Revelation 1:18 “…keys of hell…”, Strong’s #86: Hades.
Three distinctly unique places that are destinations for wrongdoers.
Or, to be more precise, “Three distinctly unique places that” the authors of these passages believed or wanted readers to believe (or both) were actual “destinations for wrongdoers.”
The study of afterlife has much to do with the study of consciousness. At least that seems to be the case to some sects of the Buddhists. Recently I read a book by William Sturgis Bigelow. The title of the book is Buddhism and Immortality published in 1908. Actually it is one of The Ingersoll Lecturship lecture. (BTW, the book is in the public domain easily accessible in the internet.)
The following is my understanding about the book and some other books about the Buddhists’ view of afterlife.
Suppose that thousands of years later, some archeologist digs a library of books. One section of the library credited to The Dr. Bart Ehrman has books as well as DVDs. People read the books, watch the DVD’s. Some recognize the intentions and the will of Dr. Ehrman. And then Dr. Ehrman’s consciousness comes alive among those readers!!
The universe started with the big bang and it is likely to end with the big crunch. Nothing exists between the big crunch and next big bang. Only NOTHING exists that is as a Buddhist may say the ultimate emptiness. The consciousness that reached the ultimate emptiness Nirvana may exist through the cycles of the universe. There are cycles of material lives (the reincarnation) before a big crunch. But those are not eternal.
Not sure the ultimate emptiness can do much good though. More attractive would be the idea of a soul in an eternal body that is nearly or completely weightless not bound by the air, time, space nor gravity traveling through the vast universe. Maybe this idea is better suited for a sci-fi story rather than your next book.
Anyway, looking forward to reading your next book.
Great piece! I have yet to read Jesus Interrupted though I’ve listened to many of your lectures and I enjoyed Misquoting Jesus. I have a question regarding our earliest written gospel of Mark when his contemporary audience could still perhaps claim that “this generation has not passed away.”
Do our earliest and best copies of the gospel of Mark 9:43-47 lend credence to a reading where Christ is referring to the literal Gehenna outside of Jerusalem? Is there no implication to above/below dualism that you’re saying developed later after a begrudged admission of patently failed prophecy?
Can I find parts 1 and 2 of your discussion online? Thanks!
Yes “Gehenna” is found in our manuscripts. And yes, if you look around on the site you’ll find lists of all posts and a search engine and several ways to track down a post you’re looking for!
I take it hell is an invention of Christianity since there is hardly, if any mention of it in the Old Testament. Is there any truth that it was derived from Gehinnom and The Valley of the Son of Hinnom?
Yup, originally that’s what it was.
Do you think Paul believed the deceased were in an interim conscious state of bliss/torment prior to the resurrection, or did he think they were dead/asleep until the resurrection?
I’m still working on that one!
Actually I was almost kicked out of a Sunday School class over this issue. Folks contended that the soul goes to Heaven or Hell when one dies. I realize that most Christians don’t read the Bible or even have a clue about what it really says, so I pointed out what the Bible says about the Resurrection of the Body which made no difference. One person had, at one, time nearly died and experienced Near Death Experience (NDE) which he then used as proof of the soul surviving death and was in the process of going to Heaven. He said he looked down on his own body and heard the doctors talking about him. I asked him how he could “see” without physical eyes or hear without physical ears or understand the situation without a physical brain. I asked about the experiment some hospitals did putting signs high on the walls but shelving or other physical barriers prevented them being seen from ground level. No one who experience a NDE remembered seeing the signs. I don’t think I would be welcome should I return to that class.