Sheol Archives - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Life in Hades

In my previous post I discussed Odysseus’s encounter with his mother in Hades, where we learn that the “spirits,” “shades,” “ghosts,” “souls” (they are called a number of things) there do not have any physical characteristics – no flesh or bones, even though they can be seen and can drink blood and are afraid of swords. I think, at the end of the day, this is not a coherent picture. If they can drink blood but don’t have bodies, where does the blood go? And if they can’t be touched, how can they hold something (a container from which the blood to be drunk, e.g.), and why would they be afraid of a sword (if you can’t be hugged, why can you be cut or hacked). And if they don’t actually have eyes, how can they see? Or if they don’t have tongues and vocal chords, how can they talk? The point is probably not, however, to paint a completely coherent picture – or if it is the point, Homer has failed terribly. Still, the [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T02:03:15-04:00September 1st, 2017|Afterlife, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|

The Afterlife in the Hebrew Bible: Sheol

When trying to figure out where the Christian ideas of heaven and hell came from, an obvious place to start is with the Hebrew Bible. Jesus himself held to the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures. To be sure, there was not a completely fixed canon in his day, which all Jews everywhere agreed to. But virtually all Jews we know of ascribed to the high authority (and Mosaic authorship) of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy); and most Jews – including Jesus – also considered the prophets authoritative; Jesus also accepted the authority of the book of Psalms and a probably number of the other books. It was not until a century or so after Jesus that most Jews agreed on virtually all the books of what we now think of as the Hebrew Bible – but Jesus and his followers would have accepted most of them. That means that the views found in these books were highly influential on what Jews like Jesus would have thought about most theological topics. And so, [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T02:30:35-04:00March 29th, 2017|Afterlife, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|

The Invention of the Afterlife: Request for Ideas!

Toward the end of this post I will be asking for your opinions and ideas. So I hope you get that far! Now that I have sent my manuscript on The Triumph of Christianity off to my editor, and before she gets back to me for revisions and edits, I am turning my thoughts to the next book. The reality is that I am not 100% certain what it will be. That still has to be worked out, negotiated, and approved by the publisher. I’m committed to Simon & Schuster for this next book, as well as Triumph (we originally negotiated a two-book deal), so that part is set. But in our contract deal, the next book was more or less called a “player to be named later.” Now it is time to figure out what it will be. I do have a strong preference, and hope to sell the publisher on the idea. So far they are receptive. But we’ll see. I started out with a vague idea, that has now evolved into a [...]

BDEhrman2017-10-23T22:38:40-04:00October 6th, 2016|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Speaking in Churches as an Agnostic; and Jewish Beliefs about Afterlife. Readers Mailbag August 13, 2016

I will be dealing with two rather wide-ranging questions in this week’s Readers Mailbag: What is it like for me, a public agnostic/atheist, to give a talk to believers in a church? And what did Jews believe about the afterlife in the time of Jesus? QUESTION: Dr. Ehrman, do churches hire you to lecture on Christianity knowing that you’re an atheist? Do you ever get tempted to say, “Let’s be honest here. I think all of your cherished religious beliefs are baloney, but I’ll humor you for the next couple of hours.” That’s how I feel when I tell someone that they can accept the Theory of Evolution and still believe in God, even though, deep down inside, I know that Evolution and God mix like oil and water, so I simply humor them. RESPONSE: Ah, right, this is a good question. As it turns out, I do get asked to speak in churches on occasion. Sometimes, of course, it is in order to have a debate with a conservative Christian apologist. [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T03:12:47-04:00August 13th, 2016|Afterlife, Early Judaism, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Resurrection and Resuscitation

The following is just a small chunk that I've written up for my Bible Introduction on the idea of "resurrection" -- in relationship to other views of afterlife in the Bible. It's short, but it's the last sentence that is very much worth thinking about (most people haven't thought about it; I know I never did, until fairly recently). ************************************************************************************************************** Many readers of the Bible are surprised to learn that the ideas of the afterlife in the Hebrew Bible are not closely related to what most people think today. The idea that after you die, your soul goes either to heaven or hell (or even purgatory) is not rooted in the Jewish Scriptures. The few passages that refer to an afterlife in the Hebrew Bible assume that after death, a person goes to “Sheol.” That is not the Hebrew equivalent of “hell” – a place of punishment for the wicked. It is the place that everyone goes, good or evil. It is sometimes spoken of as a place of rest (remember how Samuel was not [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T19:30:39-04:00July 25th, 2012|Afterlife, Book Discussions, Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament|

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Life in Hades

The Afterlife in the Hebrew Bible: Sheol

The Invention of the Afterlife: Request for Ideas!

Speaking in Churches as an Agnostic; and Jewish Beliefs about Afterlife. Readers Mailbag August 13, 2016

Resurrection and Resuscitation