Showing results for "hell" in History

Is God a sadistic torturer? Coldhearted judge? Genocidal maniac? Unfortunately, our popular caricatures often make him out to be. God has some skeletons in the closet. At least, that's what many of us fear. "How can a loving God send people to hell?" "Isn't it arrogant to believe Jesus is the only way to God?" "What is up with holy war in the Old Testament?" These are difficult questions that our family, our friends, our culture - even we ourselves - are asking.

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.

While most people know the fairly consistent description of Hell that exists today, the description of Hell has evolved countless times over the centuries, including within the Christian faith. During medieval times, many Christian writers described parts or all of Hell as cold and desolate places, going as far back as the 4th century work Apocalypse of Paul. At the same time, the concepts of the Devil and Hell are not unique to Christianity; other major faiths have similar concepts, while ancient religions had an underworld and assorted characters, such as the Greeks' Hades.

"Miracles in the Early Christian Church" edited by Timothy W. Grogan is a thought-provoking exploration into the historical claims of miraculous events that were believed to have shaped the early Christian faith. Drawing from Conyers Middleton's seminal 1749 work, this annotated edition critically examines the authenticity of miracles attributed to the Christian Church from its earliest days. Grogan provides detailed commentary on the controversies surrounding these events, questioning their origins and the motivations behind them.

Among the pressing concerns of Americans in the first century of nationhood were day-to-day survival, political harmony, exploration of the continent, foreign policy, and - fixed deeply in the collective consciousness - hell and eternal damnation. The fear of fire and brimstone and the worm that never dies exerted a profound and lasting influence on Americans' ideas about themselves, their neighbors, and the rest of the world.