Summary Of Bart D Ehrman S Journeys To Heaven And Hell

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Gospel of Peter, which was discovered in Egypt in 1886, was a book that claimed to be written by Peter, one of Jesus’s apostles, and it described the afterlife. However, scholars today believe that the book was written by a later Christian who simply wanted to seem like he was Peter. #2 The Book of Tobit describes the torments of the damned, who are being punished for their most characteristic sin while living. Those who maligned both the ways of God and the saints who tried to practice them were hanged over unquenchable fire. #3 The Apocalypse of Peter is a graphic and detailed description of the eternal torment of sinners, but it also includes a brief and vague description of the blessings of the saints, who come to the glorious Elysian fields. #4 The book, called the Passion of Perpetua, was written in Latin and is one of the most moving pieces of early Christian literature. It is purportedly a firsthand account of time in prison experienced by a Christian awaiting trial and execution.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Odyssey is an epic about the return home, nostos, of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. It is narrated in the first person by Odysseus, and it describes his various traumas and narrow escapes from characters such as the Lotus-Eaters, the Cyclops, and Circe. #2 The nekuia is the name given to Odyssey 11, which describes Odysseus’s journey to Hades. It is not a necromancy-like act, but a trip to the land of the dead. #3 The term nekuia is traditionally used to describe the journey that Odysseus takes to the underworld in Odyssey 11. However, the broader phenomenon of katabasis, or going down, is what we should be referring to. #4 The nekuia is the central and turning point of the Odyssey. It is a place of complete darkness, where Odysseus travels to meet with the dead and receive a prophecy about what will happen once he returns home.

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

When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible. Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction of texts, most people have assumed that when they read the New Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New Testament as closely as possible. Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes -- alterations that dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible.

One Bible, Many Answers In God's Problem, the New York Times bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus challenges the contradictory biblical explanations for why an all-powerful God allows us to suffer.

This comprehensive classic textbook represents the most recent approaches to the biblical world by surveying Palestine's social, political, economic, religious and ecological changes from Palaeolithic to Roman eras. Designed for beginners with little knowledge of the ancient world, and with copious illustrations and charts, it explains how and why academic study of the past is undertaken, as well as the differences between historical and theological scholarship and the differences between ancient and modern genres of history writing. Classroom tested chapters emphasize the authenticity of the Bible as a product of an ancient culture, and the many problems with the biblical narrative as a historical source. Neither "maximalist" nor "minimalist'" it is sufficiently general to avoid confusion and to allow the assignment of supplementary readings such as biblical narratives and ancient Near Eastern texts. This new edition has been fully revised, incorporating new graphics and English translations of Near Eastern inscriptions. New material on the religiously diverse environment of Ancient Israel taking into account the latest archaeological discussions brings this book right up to date.

Leading biblical scholar Bart Ehrman reveals the many challenging and even disturbing early variations of our cherished biblical stories.