Inventing Hell

Hell: The word means terror, darkness, and eternal separation from God. Some people think the Bible is clear about hell, but what if they're mistaken? With gripping narrative and solid scholarship, Sweeney charts hell's "evolution" from the Old Testament underworld Sheol, through history and literature, to the greatest influencer of all: Dante's Inferno. He reveals how the modern idea of hell is based mostly on Dante's imaginative genius-but in the process, he offers a more constructive understanding of the afterlife than ever before. Disturbing and enthralling, Sweeney will forever alter what we think happens to us after we die-and more importantly, he will make us reconsider how we live.

“Far from a dry, academic discourse, Inventing Hell makes for great reading. The book reveals the little-known confluence of theology, culture, and literature that has shaped our notions of the afterlife. Every minister, priest, rabbi, and sheikh needs to read this book, and so do we all.” Rabbi David Zaslow, author, Jesus: First-Century Rabbi “If you let Jon Sweeney be your tour guide to Hell, you’ll love the journey. You’ll learn a lot about what you thought was in the Bible, but isn’t, and about what you thought you knew about Hell, but now need to rethink. Jon’s writing is a delight on every page.” Brian D. McLaren, author, We Make the Road by Walking This story of how Hell got "invented" is engaging, erudite, and illuminating. It could be the most important theology book you ever read. It is also hilarious. Jon Sweeney, convert to Catholicism and married to a rabbi, author of two dozen of his own religious books and editor of hundreds of others, delves into the question of Hell with intellectual curiosity, sincere faith, and good humor. He pretty much proves that it was Dante who gave us the Hell we have, and then he admonishes us to think again about the hell that exists around us every day.

The universe’s Inventor designed us like he did the world: with passion and precision and purpose. He made us for confidence and significance, joy and relationship. He made us to be part of something massive and majestic—to contribute to his work of remaking this world and to play vital parts in his Kingdom.But we have a vicious enemy, hell-bent on thwarting us. Our enemy spins lies that convince us into distraction and dependence—on alcohol, drugs, pornography, success-at-all-cost. But Jesus said, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” (MSG, John 10:10) He said that about us. Invention is an invitation to join a band of renegades and revolutionaries, change-makers and troublemakers—men who won’t be daunted, because they know there is more. It’s a guide for living, finally, with depth and purpose. It will expose the lies that obscure God’s intent, and will help reveal His design for your life. There is so much more. Come and see.

Over half of Americans believe in a literal heaven, in a literal hell. Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. Ehrman shows that eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament, and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught. He recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. Ehrman shows that competing views were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. -- adapted from jacket

As the Klondike gold rush peaked in spring 1898, adventurers and gamblers rubbed shoulders with town-builders and gold-panners in Skagway, Alaska. The flow of riches lured confidence men, too—among them Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith (1860–98), who with an entourage of “bunco-men” conned and robbed the stampeders. Soapy, though, a common enough criminal, would go down in legend as the Robin Hood of Alaska, the “uncrowned king of Skagway,” remembered for his charm and generosity, even for calming a lynch mob. When the Fourth of July was celebrated in ’98, he supposedly led the parade. Then, a few days later, he was dead, killed in a shootout over a card game. With Smith’s death, Skagway rid itself of crime forever. Or at least, so the story goes. Journalists immediately cast him as a martyr whose death redeemed a violent town. In fact, he was just a petty criminal and card shark, as Catherine Holder Spude proves definitively in “That Fiend in Hell”: Soapy Smith in Legend, a tour de force of historical debunking that documents Smith’s elevation to western hero. In sorting out the facts about this man and his death from fiction, Spude concludes that the actual Soapy was not the legendary “boss of Skagway,” nor was he killed by Frank Reid, as early historians supposed. She shows that even eyewitnesses who knew the truth later changed their stories to fit the myth. But why? Tracking down some hundred retellings of the Soapy Smith story, Spude traces the efforts of Skagway’s boosters to reinforce a morality tale at the expense of a complex story of town-building and government formation. The idea that Smith’s death had made a lawless town safe served Skagway’s economic interests. Spude’s engaging deconstruction of Soapy’s story models deep research and skepticism crucial to understanding the history of the American frontier.

This collection of essays analyzes global depictions of the devil from theological, Biblical, and literary perspectives, spanning the late Middle Ages to the 21st century. The chapters explore demonic representations in the literary works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Dante Alighieri, Charles Baudelaire, John Milton, H.P. Lovecraft, and Cormac McCarthy, among others. The text examines other media such as the operas Orfeo and Erminia sul Giordano and the television shows Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Mad Men. The Hermeneutics of Hell, featuring an international set of established and up-and-coming authors, masterfully examines the evolution of the devil from the Biblical accounts of the Middle Ages to the individualized presence of the modern world.

For much of Christian history, greater focus has been paid to Jesus’ death than to his three years of ministry, and his crucifixion has often been understood primarily as a means to salvation in heaven. But retired pastor Tim Lehman contends that we’ve drastically missed the point by not looking closely at and learning from Jesus’ words and actions before his death. As a result, we lose out on the joy and freedom of living fully as his disciples and experiencing salvation already in this life on earth. In this broad study of Matthew’s Gospel, Lehman challenges readers to view Jesus’ death in light of his life. He urges us not just to believe in Jesus, but to believe Jesus—to take seriously all that he taught and how he lived. As Lehman leads readers along a carefully laid path, Christians and non-Christians alike will have to rethink long-held assumptions: the place of violence in the Christian life; the givenness of division in our modern world; the meaning of “atonement,” “salvation,” and “the kingdom of heaven”; and more. But along the way, we are sure to learn, grow, and, hopefully, come to know more deeply God’s unconditional love for all.

What if everything we’ve heard about hell is wrong? Eternal torment. A lake of fire. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. Many of us have sat through enough sermons to know what awaits us if we slip up. These dark visions of the afterlife seem a bit sadistic. Is there any hope within the Christian faith if this is the God of Love we serve? In this lively debut, Derek Ryan Kubilus makes the case for universal salvation. Kubilus shows how our ideas about hell have been distorted by mistranslation of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. Armed with proof-texts, those in power have used threats of eternal damnation as an instrument of control. Arguing that such torture is contrary to God’s nature, Kubilus offers an alternative understanding of hell—a temporary and holy rehabilitation, reconciling all creation in Christ. Theologically serious and culturally engaged, Holy Hell will shake readers’ assumptions about a seemingly implacable Christian doctrine that chains so many to eternal dread. In its place, Kubilus offers a vision for a church that serves all people with compassion, wherever they are in their journey toward Christ.

The universe that we see is real and it has been functioning in an orderly manner since the times immemorial. It is, thus, logical to believe that its Creator and Caretaker also has to be a reality. However, the God who has made man and all else is beyond all history. All that we know about His story is His creation. Beyond that we know nothing. However, man has created many Gods after his own image out of his imagination. These man-made Gods do have a story hardly about four thousand years old. Since religions have God or at least spirituality at their core, these also needed to be given a hearing in this work. This book is an intellectually stimulating account of what various faiths talk about God.

One of the outstanding painters of the nineteenth century, Francisco Laso (1823–1869) set out to give visual form to modern Peru. His solemn and still paintings of indigenous subjects were part of a larger project, spurred by writers and intellectuals actively crafting a nation in the aftermath of independence from Spain. In this book, at once an innovative account of modern indigenism and the first major monograph on Laso, Natalia Majluf explores the rise of the image of the Indian in literature and visual culture. Reading Laso’s works through a broad range of sources, Majluf traces a decisive break in a long history of representations of indigenous peoples that began with the Spanish conquest. She ties this transformation to the modern concept of culture, which redefined both the artistic field and the notion of indigeneity. As an abstraction produced through indigenist discourse, an icon of authenticity, and a densely racialized cultural construct, the Indian would emerges as a central symbol of modern Andean nationalisms. Beautifully illustrated, Inventing Indigenism brings the work and influence of this extraordinary painter to the forefront as it offers a broad perspective on the dynamics of art and visual culture in nineteenth century Latin America.