A review of Bart Ehrman’s Heaven and Hell

The most common argument against religion is that it is a rip-off. While you do the back-
breaking work out in the field, some fat, lazy priest is eating grapes in the temple. When harvest
time comes, you give tithes to that priest. When you realize that you are being exploited and
begin to think of a revolution, the priest tells you that the more you pay now, the better you will
be in the afterlife. Nobody has any clue about what heaven or hell might be like (if such places
even exist), but somehow, you believe the priest speaks for God (if he even exists at all), so in
the end, you are persuaded to just shut up and get back to work.
The likes of Voltaire and Marx repeated this argument ad nauseam, and indeed, it is not a
bad one. St Peter’s basilica in Rome was built with funds coming from people who heard folks
like Johann Tezel preach, “as soon as a coin in the coffer rings, another soul from purgatory
springs.” When televangelists tell you similar things, you can’t help but wonder if religion is
basically a scam, and heaven and hell are the front advertisements of this ponzy scheme.
But, things are more complicated. As it turns out, at least in Western civilization, ideas
about the afterlife are surprisingly recent, and they have been refashioned multiple times. Bart
Ehrman, ever loyal to his engaging style, approaches this topic in Heaven and Hell: A History of
the Afterlife. As expected, he delivers the goods, covering religious texts from the Epic of
Gilgamesh to the writings of Augustine. As with any of Ehrman’s books, there is a masterful
combination of erudition and clear prose. Yet, I was a bit disappointed to find no discussion of
the ancient Egyptians, especially considering that the weighing of the heart is one of the first
afterlife images that we know of, and it surely must have had some influence on posterior
conceptions of the Final Judgment.
Be that as it may, Ehrman is quick to remind us that religions have not always focused on
the afterlife. There certainly was a fear of death and a desire for immortality, as in the Epic of
Gilgamesh. But, in that famous poem, the hero fails to secure immortality, and thus the poem
serves as reminder that we will all die, and that is that. The Mesopotamians were certainly afraid
of death, but were not in the business of wishful thinking.
Ehrman then turns to the Greeks. By the time the Iliad and the Odyssey were written, the
Greeks believed that after death, souls of common folk go to hades, the gloomy underworld. Not
much excitement goes on, and when Odysseus visits that place, he encounters people who are
not terribly happy about being there. As in the Epic of Gilgamesh, readers of the Homeric works
held on to the fear of death because the “other side” did not look promising. In fact, it made little
difference if you were good or bad: everybody will ultimately end up in the same gloomy place.
By the time Socrates began philosophizing, refined Greeks were thinking about the
afterlife differently. Death was now seen as some sort of liberation, to the extent that, being
separated from the body, the soul could engage in pure intellectual activity. So Greek
philosophers brought some joy, by assuring us that death is not to be feared. Other philosophers,
such as Epicurus, argued that even if there is no afterlife, there is nothing to fear because, once
you are dead, you feel nothing. And, if you are not concerned about the things that happened
before you were born, why should you be concerned about the things that will happen after you
die? Powerful logic indeed. In fact, I find it extremely difficult to refute Epicurus’ argument, but
that in no way takes away my fear of death. I suppose this is yet another instance in which
emotions override rationality, and there is little you can do about it.
Interestingly, Ehrman argues that the philosophical activity of Greeks brought more
ethical awareness to the world, so that by the time Virgil composed the Aeneid, the afterlife had
more of a moral component. Very much as Odysseus, Aeneas visits the underworld. But, this
time, there is some sort of judgment with rewards and punishments, so fate in the afterlife has
some correspondence to the moral character of people. But, Ehrman is cautious in telling us that
the religious views of poets were not necessarily the same as those of the common people. We do
not know much about what common Greeks and Romans believed, but it does appear that the
afterlife was not of great concern, to the point that graves commonly had this inscription: non
fui, fui, non sum, non curo, “I was not; I was; I am not; I care not.”
That is the pagan world. But, what about the Bible? Ehrman is quick to tell us that,
contrary to the common expectation of modern Christians, in the Hebrew Bible (the Old
Testament, for Christians) there is almost nothing about the afterlife. Apparently, the belief was
that the dead went to sheol, a place akin to the Greek hades. Ehrman makes the interesting
argument that when Hebrew poets talked about sheol, they only meant the grave, not an actual
afterlife. Surprisingly, the Hebrews were not all that terrified of going down to sheol, to the point
that Job dies “old and contented.” Again, Ehrman is quick to remind us that we can’t really be
sure about what common people believed, for there may be hints about belief in some forms of
post-mortem existence, as in the story of the witch of Endor summoning the spirit of Samuel.
But, by and large, the Hebrews cared little about the afterlife.
What the Hebrews did care for, however, was the restoration of Israel as a nation, after
many humiliations by enemies. And, this hope of restoration was expressed in imagery (most
notably in the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel) that current Christians may erroneously think that it
refers to the idea of resurrection (most famously, Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones being fleshed).
But, once again, Ehrman dispels the myth, and informs us that such images are not about the
afterlife. They are about national renewal.
The Hebrew prophets were not concerned with the afterlife, because they believed that
God settled the scores in this life. But, the harsh reality eventually kicked in, and Biblical authors
realized that many righteous people suffer, and many wicked people thrive. So, the idea that the
scores would have to be settled, if not in this life, then in the hereafter, began to appear. This
especially became the case when the ideology of martyrdom became prominent. By the time
Israel was feeling the heat of Seleucid (a Hellenist dynasty) oppression, a new kind of
apocalyptic hope appeared. God would intervene to drive out the oppressors, and in so doing, he
would punish the wicked and he would reward the virtuous, especially those who had died
resisting oppression. In the book of Daniel (written during this period), resurrection now played a
role in this scheme of divine justice.
Yet interestingly, as Ehrman tells it, there was no hell as such. The wicked are simply
annihilated. Only the righteous are resurrected, to everlasting joy. Ehrman does not mention it,
but this is the view of Seventh Day Adventists, a relatively small denomination, mostly
inconsequential in the larger scheme of Christianity. Yet, Ehrman insists that this annihilationist
view is what Jesus himself believed.
I was taken aback by this argument. Didn’t Jesus talk about Gehenna (traditionally
translated as “hell” in most Bibles), a place of everlasting fire? Yes, says Ehrman. But, the fire
burns only to annihilate the wicked, not to torture them. In Ehrman’s words, “[Jesus] does not
contrast ‘eternal torture’ with ‘eternal reward’ or ‘eternal misery’ with ‘eternal happiness.’ He
contrasts the eternal punishment of the wicked with eternal life. What is the opposite of life? It is
not torture or misery. It is death.” I am now beginning to be persuaded by Ehrman, and have
come to think that perhaps Jesus did not have in mind the torture chambers of Dante’s Inferno.
 Ehrman has made a name in scholarship by arguing that Jesus was an apocalypticist. And
as such, Jesus believed that resurrection would take place at the end of time which, in his view,
was just around the corner. But, given that the apocalypse did not seem to come, there was yet
another change in conceptions of the afterlife. People did not want to wait until the end of time to
be rewarded for their good lives. So, some texts began to conceive of God presiding over a
judgment immediately after a person’s death. This would not be resurrection (as the body stayed
in the grave), but the soul of the righteous would be rewarded with some sort of heavenly
existence. This is the kind of view advanced in 4 Maccabees; Ehrman notes the irony that,
although its author was decidedly anti-Greek in celebrating the martyrdom of Jews who refused
to surrender to Greek imperialism, the text ultimately upheld the very Greek concept of the
immortality of the soul, which until that time, was largely foreign to Jews.
According to Ehrman, Paul was also an annihilationist, so naturally, there is no mention
of hellfire in his letters. And, in the early stages of his career, he was also an ardent
apocalypticist, expecting Jesus’ return. At first, Paul believed he would be alive when this event
would happen, and those who had died previously would be resurrected (again, only those who
would be saved). But, in Ehrman’s telling, given that Christ had not yet returned, by the time
Paul wrote 2 Corinthians and Philippians, he began to have doubts, and anticipated that perhaps
he would die before Christ’s return. So, he envisioned an interim state in which there would be a
(brief) incorporeal heavenly existence in heaven.
By the time the gospel of Luke was written (perhaps in the 80’s), the idea of hell finally
appeared in the New Testament. Ehrman has famously written many books discerning which of
Jesus’ words are authentic. Ehrman thinks that the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, solely
narrated in Luke, was never told by Jesus. Yet, that parable develops two ideas that are now
mainstream in Christianity: there is a judgment immediately after death, and there is a hell. In
Ehrman’s view, this reflects a de-apocalypticizing of Jesus’ message by the evangelists, in light
of the fact that the apocalypse was not coming as originally expected. The gospel of John tones
down apocalyptic expectations even further: in that gospel, it seems as if eternal life is already
here, as some sort of spiritual transformation.
Somewhat surprisingly, Ehrman thinks that the parable of Lazarus is the only real
reference to hell in the entire Bible. The book of Revelation certainly makes much of a lake of
fire for sinners, but Ehrman insists that this only refers to annihilation of sinners, not everlasting
punishment. In his words, “even though later Christians transformed the symbolic ‘lake of fire’
into a literal description of the fire pits of hell, where people would burn forever… John [of
Patmos] agreed with his Lord Jesus and his forerunner Paul. For sinners, death is the end of the
story.” By contrast, the famous descriptions of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation,
although not to be taken literally, do reaffirm the idea that the righteous will be resurrected to a
utopian place in the eternal presence of God (although Ehrman amusingly does note some
inconsistencies in this place, such as the existence of unclean things).
How, then, did the scant reference to hell in the New Testament, morph into the full-
blown doctrine that most Christians adhere to today? Ehrman thinks that the answer lies in
martyrdom. Although he admits that accounts of Christian persecution are mostly exaggerated,
he believes that perceived persecution was strong enough so as to motivate an eagerness for
vindication. By the second Century, annihilation of sinners was not satisfying enough; Christian
authors wanted a bigger punishment. So, by that time, authors such as Tertullian were already
delighted with the prospect of contemplating sinners being tortured for all eternity.
Yet, also by that time, Christians were beginning to be ridiculed by philosophers who
poked holes into their strange doctrines regarding resurrection. These are the sorts of questions
that are still sensibly asked today (how can resurrection happen wen a cannibal eats someone
else?, will people with deformities be resurrected with those defects, too?, etc.). Ehrman reviews
how Christian authors such as Athenagoras and Augustine tried to reply. Needless to say, those
responses are far from satisfactory, but somehow, most contemporary Christians accept them.
Ehrman also considers the way some early theologians began to question if the afterlife
could be a simple heaven/hell binary. Perhaps some people had minor sins, and they could be
purged before entering heaven. Although the doctrine of purgatory was only formalized in the
12th Century, Ehrman finds important antecedents of it in 2 nd Century texts such as the Acts of
Thecla. Apparently, this opened yet another can of worms: if some sins could be purged with
temporary sufferings, why couldn’t all sins be purged and, consequently, everyone would
ultimately be saved? Ehrman relates how one Christian author in the 3rd Century, Origen, came to
believe that, indeed, all would be saved (even Satan). And, even more surprisingly, Origen
believed that in this purging process, sinners would be sent to Earth once again; he thus
embraced the doctrine of reincarnation.
 Ehrman is a historian of religion, so he says very little about which of these views he
sympathizes with. Only in the epilogue, does he declare his most explicit sympathies for
Epicurean philosophy. Ehrman thinks there is no afterlife, but he is not really troubled by it,
precisely on the basis of the Epicurean argument: there is nothing to worry about, because in
death, you do not feel anything. I might add that, even if there is an afterlife, this prospect is
replete with (possibly insurmountable) conceptual problems related to personal identity, and ever
since Augustine, Christian authors have failed to provide satisfying solutions.
Ultimately, the fact that Ehrman is not committed to any religious view, works to his
advantage as a historian. All theologians want a piece of the Jesus pie, so very frequently, they
play ventriloquist by projecting on the historical Jesus their own views. Most of these
theologians are eager to uphold the doctrine of hell, so they paint a Jesus who speaks of Gehenna
as a place of everlasting punishment. Others, such as David Bentley Hart, seem embarrassed by
the conceptual difficulties of hell (how can a merciful and just God condemn people eternally for
finite sins?), so they preach a doctrine of universal salvation, and make Jesus pronounce it.
Ehrman does not have to play that game. He has no theological agenda. Solely using the
intellectual tools of Biblical criticism, he reaches the conclusion that the historical Jesus was an
annihilationist. To me, it seems accurate enough, and the posterior modifications and variations
of afterlife doctrines go on to show that, when it comes to religion, humans can be very creative.
This may be yet another indication that man creates God, and not vice versa.