Journeys to Heaven and Hell

Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition

Author	Bart D. Ehrman
Language	English
Subject	Early Christian literature, apocrypha, afterlife
Genre	Religious studies
Publisher	Yale University Press
Publication date	5 April 2022
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print, e-book, audiobook
Pages	344
ISBN	978-0-300-25700-7 hardcover

Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition is a 2022 monograph by New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman. The study situates early Christian katabasis and anabasis narratives within Greco-Roman and Second Temple Jewish afterlife discourse, then analyzes how tours of heaven and hell functioned as moral pedagogy, evangelistic rhetoric, and theological argument in late antique Christianity. ^{[1] [2]}

Background and publication

The volume follows Ehrman's trade book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife and extends that project with a source-critical and historical analysis of narrated visits to the realm of the dead. Ehrman frames the work as a scholarly investigation into how such accounts articulate communal ethics, conversional aims, and christological claims within early Christian discourse. ^[3] Yale University Press issued the e-book and hardcover on 5 April 2022 and a paperback on 7 March 2023. ^[1] The Yale Press also released the audiobook edition in its Yale Press Audio catalog. ^{[4] [1] [2]}

Contents

Ehrman organizes the study around exemplary journeys and their reception, moving from Homer and Virgil to Jewish apocalypses and early Christian apocrypha. ^[5]

Chapter	Title	Focus and principal texts
Intro	The Well-Trodden Paths	Defines tour-of-the-afterlife narratives and method, situates Christian cases within Greco-Roman and Jewish precedents. [5] [1]
1	The Realities of Death and the Meaning of Life I: Journeys to Hades in Homer and Virgil	Odysseus in Odyssey 11 and Aeneas in Aeneid 6, comparative analysis of afterlife geography and purgative motifs used for ethical instruction. [2]
2	The Realities of Death and the Meaning of Life II: Jewish and Christian Journeys	Jewish apocalypses including the Book of Watchers and the Apocalypse of Zephaniah , transition to early Christian tours and their eschatological claims. [2]
3	Incentives from the World Beyond: Christian Ethics and Evangelism	How visionary punishments and rewards function as paraenesis and conversional rhetoric, with attention to wealth, asceticism, and community discipline. [6]
4	The Afterlife of Afterlives: Editorial Interventions and Christology	Redactional and textual interventions that amplify christological agency within tour narratives, with attention to apocryphal traditions. [5]
5	The Justice and Mercy of God in Textual Conflict	Competing depictions of divine justice and mercy across related recensions, analysis of punishment fitting the crime and universalist tendencies. [5]
6	The Power of Christ and the Harrowing of Hell	Development of Christ's descent motif and its narrative uses, including the Gospel of Nicodemus and related materials. [5] [1]
—	Afterword	Synthesis of literary, social, and theological functions of afterlife tours in early Christianity. [5]

Synopsis and argument

Ehrman reads narrated tours as cultural work that instructs communities about conduct and identity, not as ethnographies of the beyond. Progenitors in Homer and Virgil supply narrative structures and evaluative frameworks. Jewish apocalyptic literature contributes judgment scenarios and visionary mediation. Early Christian narratives appropriate those frameworks to model ethics, to warn opponents, and to construe Christ's authority over death. The analysis foregrounds four noncanonical Christian texts in particular, including the Apocalypse of Peter , the Apocalypse of Paul , the Acts of Thomas near-death narrative, and the Gospel of Nicodemus , while also attending to textual redaction and reception across centuries. ^{[2] [7] [1]}

Reception

Ehrman's book was well received and described as a substantive reframing of afterlife tours within their ancient contexts. Publishers Weekly called the study an illuminating deep dive that both broadens and details early Christian notions of heaven, hell, and purgatory, highlighting the pedagogical claim that these stories emphasize what matters in life. ^[2] The New Yorker praised the reconstruction of a trajectory from Homer's egalitarian afterlife to Virgil's rewards and punishments, then to early Christian elaborations, and it included the book in its Best Books of 2022 list. ^{[8] [9]} An academic review for Reading Religion commended the historical surveys and manuscript discussions, then argued that treatment of the devil and the development of Satan traditions was underdeveloped relative to the significance of those motifs in reception history. ^[10]

References

1. "Journeys to Heaven and Hell". Yale University Press. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
2. "Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition". Publishers Weekly. 31 January 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
3. "Heaven and Hell at the scholarly level". The Bart Ehrman Blog. 22 February 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
4. "Yale Press Audio". Yale University Press. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
5. "Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition". JSTOR. Yale University Press. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
6. "Journeys to Heaven and Hell". Reading Religion. 31 August 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
7. "Journeys to Heaven and Hell: project sketch". The Bart Ehrman Blog. 27 August 2017. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
8. "Briefly Noted: Journeys to Heaven and Hell". The New Yorker. 30 May 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
9. "The Best Books of 2022". The New Yorker. 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
10. Denova, Rebecca I. (31 August 2022). "Journeys to Heaven and Hell". Reading Religion. Retrieved 27 September 2025.

External links

• Official website
• JSTOR   j.ctv2g591qp