Antti Savinainen - Finland
photo credit: NEEDPIX.COM
Introduction
Bart D. Ehrman (b. 1955) is a respected New Testament scholar who describes himself as an agnostic or atheist. He is a professor at the University of North Carolina. Ehrman is the author of a fascinating book on how contemporary Christianity’s concept of heaven and hell came to be (Heaven and hell. A History of the Afterlife, Simon & Schuster, 2020). It might be better to speak of the plural concept of heaven and hell, since there are differences, sometimes quite large, in the teachings of Christian denominations. The most common understanding, however, is that there are only two possible destinations for a human being: eternal heaven or damnation, which in the interpretation of some denominations may mean eternal suffering in hell. What are these beliefs based on? Did Jesus himself, or perhaps the Apostle Paul, teach this? These are the questions Ehrman seeks the best reasoned historical answers to in his book. I will present Ehrman’s perspectives and examine the subject from a theosophical perspective.
Bart Ehrman
Afterlife in Antiquity
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were written in the eighth or seventh century BC. Homer addresses also the afterlife in his poems. When a human being ceases to breathe, the breath of life or soul (psyche) leaves, never to return. The soul enters the underworld, where the soul has form but not the substance of human life. Nothing happens in the underworld and the soul experiences neither happiness nor suffering there. In fact, the soul is a mere shadow (eidolon) of the past man. All this is revealed when Odysseus goes to the House of Death to seek advice from the famous prophet, Teiresias. The advice to meet the dead prophet is given to Odysseus by the witch Circe. Odysseus sacrifices an animal, which attracts the souls of the dead. Teiresias also arrives and says, “Hades is a dark and cheerless place.” The souls are powerless and know nothing of life on earth. The souls are not immortal; this is the privilege of the gods. Odysseus meets Achilles, who is greatly revered and regarded as a god by the Greeks. Achilles replies harshly: “I’d rather slave on earth for another man… than rule down here over all the breathless dead.” (Odyssey, Book 11, p. 265
https://classics.domains.skidmore.edu/lit-campus-only/primary/translations/Homer%20Od%2011.pdf)
Virgil’s poem Aeneid (published in 19 BC) is a sort of sequel to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Aeneas receives instructions from the Sibyl on how to cross the river Styx to the underworld. They get past the three-headed hound of Hell, Cerberus. Aeneas comes to a crossroads where the right-hand road leads to Elysium, the place of eternal happiness, and the left-hand road leads to Tartarus, the place of terror. There, the righteous judge Rhadamanthys forces everyone to reveal even the most secret transgressions. For every crime there is a penalty. There is a significant difference with Homer’s presentation: according to Virgil, in the afterlife the soul receives either a reward or a punishment, whereas according to Homer almost everyone had the same fate, regardless of the life lived. Another critical difference is that, according to Virgil, most souls in the underworld are reborn on earth. This is possible after the souls have paid for the sins committed during life. The souls are then allowed to drink from the river Lethe, after which they forget all their past experiences and are reborn. According to Virgil, the time between incarnations is a thousand years. Of course, it should be noted that both Homer’s and Virgil’s works are collections of metaphorical poems, not realistic representations of the afterlife.
Plato (427–347 BC) writes about death in his works. In the words of Socrates, Plato says that at death the eternal soul leaves the body, which is only a shadow and companion of the soul. The soul is the actual human being. Plato presents life after death as a myth that conveys deeper truths. In Phaedo (On the Soul), Socrates classifies the afterlife of different people. Those who have lived a neutral life (not very virtuous, but not bad) enter a state of purification, where they receive punishment for their evil deeds and reward for their good deeds. Those who commit great sins, such as murderers, go to Tartarus and never get out. Those who commit minor sins are also sent to Tartarus for a limited period of time. The minor wrongdoers seek forgiveness from those they harmed, who have the ability to grant their release. Those who have lived a virtuous life will enter a divine place. It is worth noting that Socrates says that a reasonable person does not insist that things are exactly as described. The purpose of the myth is to encourage virtuous living.
Plato tells the story of the soldier Er in his The Republic, probably the first literary description of a near-death experience. The story of Er also introduces the doctrine of reincarnation. Er, who survived back to life, tells of the judgment that awaits everyone after death. Every transgression carries tenfold punishment, but the good deeds of pure souls are rewarded. The worst sinners are sent to Tartarus, from which they will not escape for a thousand years. After purification, souls are passed on and reborn as humans or animals. Each drinks from the river of forgetfulness before a new incarnation. Ehrman notes that in numerous ancient Greek and Roman writings, Plato’s concept of punishment and reward after death appears.
Death in the Old Testament and the Teachings of Jesus
The ancient Hebrews did not believe in the immortality of the soul. Their concept of a human being was not dualistic. The Hebrew term nepnesh means life force, life, or breath. It cannot leave the body like a soul; when the breath ceases, the body becomes dead. The final place of a human being is Sheol, which does not mean hell, though it is sometimes so translated; Ehrman suggests that the term refers to the grave. In the Old Testament, there is no heaven or hell, reward or punishment after death. Life is here on earth and there is nothing else. However, the Old Testament is not unanimous in all its representations of death (e.g. the exorcism by the medium, 1 Samuel 28).
Over time, Jewish thinkers began to believe in the possibility of life after death. However, they did not believe in heaven and hell; their hope for life after death was based on the bodily resurrection and the coming of the kingdom of God on earth. God will destroy all his enemies, after which the resurrected will live on earth in a perfect, eternal utopia. The resurrection also includes evil people, but they are then either destroyed or physically tortured. In Greek thought, the soul was immortal, but in Jewish resurrection thought, God makes humans immortal. However, Ehrman points out that there were also those among the Jews who believed in the immortality of the soul.
The Jews of Jesus’ day generally thought that the world was under the power of evil forces and that God would soon remedy this unfortunate state of affairs by destroying his enemies. The consensus among scholars is that Jesus also held this apocalyptic view. According to Ehrman’s interpretation, Jesus did not teach that a person would die and go to heaven or hell. Instead, he taught the imminence of the Day of Judgement and the annihilation of sinners, not conscious suffering in the fires of hell. On the other hand, the resurrected faithful live blissfully in a world without any trace of evil.
Christian Interpretations of the Afterlife
Paul’s importance in the formation of Christianity can hardly be overstated. There are thirteen letters in the New Testament bearing Paul’s name, but critical scholarship considers only seven of them to have been written by Paul. Paul interpreted that salvation was attainable only through the death and resurrection of Christ. God’s judgment could only be avoided if one believed in Christ, who died for the world’s sins. Ehrman notes that this is not the same message as that of Jesus, who proclaimed the nearness of God’s kingdom and love for neighbors. Ehrman acknowledges that scholars have different ideas about this topic.
According to Paul, God will judge people, and some will not be saved. Good life does not save people because, according to Paul, no one is sinless. Resurrection awaits the followers of Jesus, who will receive glorified resurrection bodies. Eternal life is not life as a spirit in heaven, but life in a glorified body. However, the resurrection is preceded by an intermediate state. Believers who die before the day of resurrection will spend the interregnum in the presence of Christ. What about those who do not believe? In Ehrman’s interpretation, Paul, like Jesus, believes in the destruction of the wicked, or annihilation, on the Day of Judgement.
Most Christians, however, do not believe in the annihilation of the wicked or unbelievers, even though Ehrman says this is the teaching of both Jesus and Paul. The kingdom of God did not come as the early Christians expected. So later Christians thought they had misunderstood Jesus' original teachings and changed their interpretation. The Gospels were written many decades after Jesus' death, by which time it was clear that the apocalyptic doomsday had not come. According to Ehrman, the Gospel writers modified their presentation to fit the new interpretation. The kingdom of God became an afterlife, where one could go after one’s death. This was the origin of the modern Christian concept of heaven and hell.
Ehrman looks at Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus. The story implies that there is both reward and punishment in the afterlife. The rich man is in a place of trouble, while Lazarus is in a good place, in “Abraham’s bosom.” The fate of both seems final in the story. Ehrman does not consider the story of the rich man and Lazarus to be the authentic words of Jesus. In his view, it is unhistorical that Jesus would refer to the resurrection faith of later Christians. Ehrman also points out that the story appears only in the gospel of Luke. Ehrman considers this parable the starting point and foundation of the Christian doctrine of heaven and hell. According to Ehrman, other New Testament writings do not support the concept of eternal heaven and hell of eternal torment, not even the Book of Revelation.
Tertullian (c. 150–230) introduced the intermediate state doctrine in his work De Anima (A Treatise on the Soul). According to him, the soul is separated from the body at death, and different souls go to different places. Only the souls of Christian martyrs go immediately to paradise. All others, good and bad, go to Hades, which lies underground. In Hades there are two compartments where righteous souls receive a temporary reward and the wicked are punished. The division becomes permanent after the resurrection of the dead, so that the soul’s punishments in the intermediate state will become body punishments in the resurrection. The wicked will therefore suffer eternally. Later Christian conceptions are variations on Tertullian’s presentation, in which the “righteous” are Christians and all others suffer the punishment of the “wicked.”
Purgatory, Reincarnation and the Salvation of All
Later Christian thinkers began to be troubled by a strict division between heaven and hell. Could the fate of the Christian who had lived an exemplary life and that of the ordinary, everyday Christian living an ordinary life, be the same? According to Ehrman, the doctrine of purgatory was born out of these reflections. Most people need to be cleansed of their sins before entering paradise. Purification is painful, and it takes place in purgatory, which lies between heaven and hell. The duration and intensity of purgatory depends on the sins of a Christian’s past life. The idea of purgatory dates back to the first centuries of the Church. However, the term purgatory was not coined until the 11th century, when it became official Catholic doctrine at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274. In some respects, the doctrine is precisely the same as in Antiquity. The only difference is that purgatory applies only to Christians, whereas in Plato’s and Virgil’s representations it applied to (almost) everyone.
On the other hand, some Christians teach universalism, salvation for all. If God is good, just, and omnipotent, is not the salvation of all ultimately a necessity? Can eternal suffering in hellfire be a just punishment for the transgressions of a finite earthly life?
It is sometimes suggested that the doctrine of reincarnation was openly taught among the early Christians. According to Ehrman, there is little evidence for this, although a few passages in the Gospels seem to refer to reincarnation (e.g., Mark 8:27-28, John 9:2). The doctrine of reincarnation appeared in some Gnostic writings and the thought of Origen (c. 185–254). At one point in his career, Origen suggested that those unfit for heaven would reincarnate into lower life forms, animals and plants, before starting a long journey to salvation. However, it seems that Origen later abandoned his doctrine of reincarnation. In any case, Origen put forward the doctrine of apocatastasis, the doctrine of the restoration of all things. He taught the pre-existence of souls and the salvation of all at the end, even though the purifying suffering might last immeasurably long. Apocatastasis was condemned as heresy by the Council of Constantinople in 553. It did not discuss Origen’s doctrine of reincarnation, although this is often claimed in theosophical sources.
Theosophical Interpretation
The theosophical conceptions of life after death cannot be understood without understanding a certain kind of human trinity. Body and soul constitute human personality. It is clear that the body is mortal, but so is the soul to a large extent, even though the soul lives for a long time after death in purification. From a Theosophical point of view, the Catholic Church’s doctrine of purgatory is correct, with the difference that purification applies to all human beings. There is an eternal essence in humans, the spirit, which is called the higher self. After purification, the transfigured person ascends to the heavenly realm (Devachan), where a merger with the higher self occurs. The heavenly state is followed by reincarnation; the higher self gives birth to a new personality based on the balance of karma.
Plato says reincarnation as an animal is possible (Hindu and Buddhist teachers also teach this). However, according to Theosophy, this is impossible because humans have an immortal higher self, which animals do not.
Christianity does not teach reincarnation, although there have been streams within Christianity (for example, the Cathars) where it has been taught. If reincarnation is a fact as Theosophy maintains, it is hard to believe that Jesus would not have known about it. On the other hand, according to critical research, the New Testament writers were not Jesus’ disciples. This could explain why the New Testament does not mention it, except for a few minor references. Interestingly, reincarnation appears also in Kabbalah, which contains the esoteric teachings of Judaism
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgul).
Final Thoughts
Ehrman concludes that there is nothing to fear in death. In his view, there is no consciousness after death: it is like a deep, dreamless sleep. But he leaves a very small possibility that there is something after death. If there is something, it will be happy and apply to all human beings, because such a conception would be compatible with the benevolent force behind the universe. Ehrman finds the concept of hell absurd. If the possibility of a happy life after death, as proposed by Socrates, turns out to be true after all, Ehrman would be very happy to have discussions with Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Jesus of Nazareth. From a theosophical point of view, Ehrman’s interpretation is more beautiful than Christianity’s teaching on eternal torment.
Although well-founded, Ehrman’s interpretation of the Bible is only one of many possibilities. To sum up, the following interpretations of life after death have been put forward within Christianity: classical heaven and hell, Christian heaven and the annihilation or destruction of others, and universalism or the salvation of all. From a theosophical perspective, the concept is quite simple: everyone will eventually reach heaven. However, this will be followed by a new life, offering individuals a fresh opportunity to develop and evolve into fully compassionate and wise human beings.
Published in Finnish in Teosofi 4/2020