I’m chortling in my joy. Today is a big day for me! At last my academic study of guided tours of the afterlife came out: Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition. As many of you know, this is the scholarly monograph that is roughly similar at least in topic (almost all the material is actually completely different) to my trade book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, which came out two years ago.
I STARTED out — six years ago, in 2016 — thinking I wanted to do further research into afterlife in the early Christian tradition, and was specifically interested in writing a scholarly book on “Katabasis,” the technical term for “a journey to the realms of the dead” (it literally means “a going down”). I got two full years of research leave to do it, a fellowship at the National Humanities Center in 2018-19 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019-20. I did nothing but work on it full time both years, and I’ve done almost nothing in my research time since then on it (and in the two years before).
It was a tough one. I had to acquire Homeric Greek (I’ve long read other kinds of ancient Greek, but never dived into the bizarre world of Homer), beef up my Latin seriously (Virgil!), read tons of books and articles in French and German and some Italian. And, well, English. A real grind, but absolutely worth doing. There’s nothing like serious scholarship.
And then I had write it, revise it, edit it, get readers reports, revise it more. And on and on.
But now it’s DONE. Parts of the book would certainly be accessible to lay readers — most of it actually. I do use a lot of Greek and Latin, but I almost always translate it. One chapter in particular will not interest much of anyone but hard core experts, but the rest is pretty fascinating stuff, I think, for well-informed readers who are not scholars. But we’ll see.
My trade book was a spin-off; once almost all the research was done I dealt with the most interesting aspects for general readers; and then it was on to writing the hard one.
And as of now it has reached the light of publishing day. Celebration tonight!
Congratulations on yet another great accomplishment!
Very cool!! Congrats!
Is the e-book version coming out on Google Play Books? It doesn’t seem available there yet, but maybe it’s just a temporary delay. Looks like it’s currently available on Amazon Kindle as an e-book, but I prefer to go through Google rather than Amazon when possible…
To reply to myself – looks like it’s available now. (Just different parts of Google being bad at talking to each other it seems.)
I’m afraid I don’t know. As weird as it is, I never keep track of the formats it appears in.
Congratulations! I’m celebrating with you here in Costa Rica!!
Congratulations!
Already available at my local online retailer. I avoid Amazon because, well, it’s Amazon.
Best of luck with the book Bart. It looks like a beauty. Your dedication to the Sikers is quite funny, although it will backfire spectacularly if they divorce.
Cheers matey.
Hi Bart,
Sorry I missed you when you were in San Diego recently. I loved your previous book and I got my copy yesterday of the scholarly version. So looking forward to reading it! I appreciate your making your scholarship available on the blog and in your books. And I love that the money is going to help those in need.
Ray Mallard
Congrats!
Bravo! I preordered several months ago and was excited to get my copy in the mail yesterday. Thank you making this happen for us!
Congrats on the new book.
How different is Homeric to Koine greek? Like reading Shakespearean or Chaucerian english?
I suppose more like Chaucerian to Dickensian? But actually harder because it’s not just a matter of spelling and diction but evern more problematically syntax.
Congratulations on the book! I look forward to reading it soon. Do you address the terrifying oracle of Trophonius in this work? I know we don’t know much about it, but it seems to be a very spooky example of a Katabasis ritual.
Changing tracks, what do you make of the description of the miller’s wife in Book IX of Apuleius’ The Golden Ass who “in place of true religion presumed to worship a false and sacrilegious deity, she called the ‘only god’, inventing fantastic rites to mislead everyone and deceive her poor husband”? Is this a second century polemic against Christians of some sort? I’ve never known what to make of that passage and I thought you might have some insight.
Thank you and congratulations again!
Nope, don’t deal with Trophonius. I do think Apuleius is referring to a Christian, yes.