Journeys To Heaven And Hell

A New York Times best-selling scholar's illuminating exploration of the earliest Christian narrated journeys to heaven and hell “[An] illuminating deep dive . . . An edifying origin story for contemporary Christian conceptions of the afterlife.”—Publishers Weekly From classics such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid to fifth-century Christian apocrypha, narratives that described guided tours of the afterlife played a major role in shaping ancient notions of morality and ethics. In this new account, acclaimed author Bart Ehrman contextualizes early Christian narratives of heaven and hell within the broader intellectual and cultural worlds from which they emerged. He examines how fundamental social experiences of the early Christian communities molded the conceptions of the afterlife that eventuated into the accepted doctrines of heaven, hell, and purgatory. Drawing on Greek and Roman epic poetry, early Jewish writings such as the Book of Watchers, and apocryphal Christian stories including the Acts of Thomas, the Gospel of Nicodemus, and the Apocalypse of Peter, Ehrman demonstrates that ancient tours of the afterlife promoted reflection on matters of ethics, faith, ambition, and life’s meaning, the fruit of which has been codified into Christian belief today.

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

For thousands of years, philosophers, theologians, and poets have tried to pierce through the veil of death to gaze with wonder, fear, and awe on the final and eternal state of the soul. Indeed, the four great epic poets of the Western tradition (Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton) structured their epics in part around a descent into the underworld that is both spiritual and physical, both allegorical and geographical. This book not only considers closely these epic journeys to the "other side," but explores the chain of influences that connects the poets to such writers as Plato, Cicero, St. John, St. Paul, Bunyan, Blake, and C. S. Lewis. Written in a narrative, "man of letters" style and complete with an annotated bibliography, a timeline, a who's who, and an extensive glossary of Jewish, Christian, and mythological terms, this user-friendly book will help readers understand how heaven and hell have been depicted for the last 3,000 years.

A fascinating exploration of ideas of life after death ranging from ancient times to the present and from religion and philosophy to literature and science.

Lydia was seated on her bed reading her Bible on an ordinary August morning, oblivious of what she was about to hear and what would become her life from that day forward. Her son and nephew rushed into her bedroom. Her son was shouting, "Mum, there were two angels at the gate at night!" Her son was six years old at the time. He held her face and said, "I know the names of the two angels. They are called Angel Gabriel and Angel Michael." The two boys went on to say that Angel Michael was at the right side of the gate and was holding his sword facing upwards, while Angel Gabriel was on the left side of the gate and had his sword pointing downwards. She was amazed! How did they know the names of these two mighty archangels? Instantly, she realized that her son had had a supernatural encounter, together with his five-year-old cousin! This was the beginning of a series of incredible journeys with Jesus Christ. This book records their breathtaking trips to heaven and hell, their conversations with God the Father, their encounters with angels, relatives they met in heaven, and even the twenty-four elders who worship before the Throne of God all day and all night. These accounts will reveal to you how God is using children to bring home the simple truth that the Bible is the Word of God, heaven is real, and the only way to get there is through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Bob and Penny Lord have gone to Europe to research the lives of eminent saints and blesseds, focusing on visions of heaven, hell, and purgatory and presenting a case for the reality of these teachings of the Catholic Church.

The second book in an addictive urban fantasy series of gods and demons, martial arts and mythology, from the author of White Tiger.

Exciting new book by Ivan S Tuttle, depicting the journey between Heaven & Hell after he died and then came back to life. Never has a book been written quite like this one before, it takes you through the journey of his life up until his death, then it takes you through his death experience and back to life. Maybe one in five-hundred billion can every say they have been to both places after dying. He takes you into the pit of hell where people spoke to him. He will describe the sights and smells of hell, why he was there and why hell couldn't keep him. One of the most interesting part of the book is when he goes to heaven and is greeted by an angel of the Lord, what that angel showed him about the future and what he was supposed to do when he was sent back to earth. There were gifts that God bestowed upon him before leaving heaven. He was ordered not to talk about the experience until the Holy Spirit spoke to him to tell him to start telling people about it. All in all you will find this book to be intriguing with some of the twists and turns in his life and what happened after he died. Very few if any can speak about this subject with authority like he has. Sit back and enjoy reading this unique perspective of heaven and hell, once you start, you won't want to put it down!

Dozens of books, articles, television shows, and films relating "near-death" experiences have appeared in the past decade. People who have survived a close brush with death reveal their extraordinary visions and ecstatic feelings at the moment they died, describing journeys through a tunnel to a realm of light, visual reviews of their past deeds, encounters with a benevolent spirit, and permanent transformation after returning to life. Carol Zaleski's Otherworld Journeys offers the most comprehensive treatment to date of the evidence surrounding near-death experiences. The first to place researchers' findings, first-person accounts, and possible medical or psychological explanations in historical perspective, she discusses how these materials reflect the influence of contemporary culture. She demonstrates that modern near-death reports belong to a vast family of otherworld journey tales, with examples in nearly every religious heritage. She identifies universal as well as culturally specific features by comparing near-death narratives in two distinct periods of Western society: medieval Christendom and twentieth-century secular America. This comparison reveals profound similarities, such as the life-review and the transforming after-effects of the vision, as well as striking contrasts, such as the absence of hell or punishment scenes from modern accounts. Mediating between the "debunkers" and the near-death researchers, Zaleski considers current efforts to explain near-death experience scientifically. She concludes by emphasizing the importance of the otherworld vision for understanding imaginative and religious experience in general.