When in 1498, during his third voyage, Christopher Columbus reached the gulf of Paria at the mouth of the Orinoco river (in what is now Venezuala) he thought that he had found the outward traces of the Garden of Eden, the biblical earthly paradise. Although he believed the garden itself must lie further inland and be situated high up, he thought that the waters of the Orinoco river he saw coming down to form the gulf must come from the primeval river that flowed out of Eden. He wrote in his journal I do not suppose that the earthly Paradise is in the form of a rugged mountain, as the descriptions of it have made it appear, but that it is on the summit of the spot which I have described as being in the form of the stalk [or stem end] of a pear; the approach to it from a distance must be by a constant and gradual ascent; but I believe that, as I have already said, no one could ever reach the top; I think also that the water I have described may proceed from it, though it be far off, and that stopping at the place I have just left, it forms this lake. It might seem incredible that an explorer like Columbus, intelligent and knowledgeable, would think that he had found the Garden of Eden. The most obvious question is why he or anyone else would ever have thought that the Garden of Eden was located in South America? The answer of course is that Columbus didn't know he had discovered the Americas - he was hoping to reach China and India (i.e. the 'East') by sailing west, and the biblical story located Eden in the east. It made perfect sense to Columbus that by sailing to the furthest point east he could imagine, he might discover the location of paradise But more fundamentally we might wonder why Columbus imagined he might find paradise on earth in the first place. Wasn't Eden a mythical garden? Wasn't it part of the primeval history in the book of Genesis, that collection of mythological stories about creation of the cosmos in seven days, the formation of the first humans out of clay and bones, impossible towers to heaven and a world-wide flood that wiped out all living creatures except those who were hiding in the giant boat Noah made (and the fish!). Why in the 15th century would an intelligent cultured European explorer think that he had found the mythical land of Eden? And the answer to that is that ever since the book of Genesis was written countless Jewish and Christian readers of that story in the subsequent centuries continued to believe that the Garden of Eden, paradise, was a real place, a location in space and time. Even though the story tells us that the garden God made was 'far, far away' and 'long, long ago' it was, in their minds, nonetheless a real place, where two historical human beings had once lived and where events took place that were drastically to shape their own history. Some writers and thinkers reflected on that story and believing that it was a story about a real place in the real world and reading that the tree of life had once stood there in the centre of the garden, began to imagine ways in which human beings might find their way back to paradise and to that tree which would heal them of their terrible propensity to die! Paradise became the object of intense speculation and aspiration. People believed that it still existed and they wanted to go back there. And so, over the centuries, people wrote stories trying to describe what may or may not have happened to Adam and Eve during their time in the garden and afterwards; they wrote imaginary visionary tales in which biblical heroes were taken by angels to visit the paradise garden; some people thought about how they could get to paradise without physically going there i.e by ascending to paradise through contemplation of the divine throne/chariot (that Ezekiel had seen); and, in the medieval era, people drew maps of the world in which paradise always featured at the top, as the historical and theological 'starting point' of the history of the world. When Columbus sailed to 'the east' (in a westerly direction!) he was fully aware that he was heading towards that 'far away and long ago place' where paradise lay. I have no idea whether he expected to find it on his voyages but when he discovered the rich, luxuriant beauty of the new land and saw the great Orinoco river flowing into the gulf of Paria, he had no problem in thinking that he had found the earthly paradise or, at least, signs of its proximity. In this post I want to explore the way in which the story of that first garden in Genesis came to have such powerful effect on subsequent expectation in Judaism and Christianity that one day we might find our way back there, and how the nature of the Genesis story laid the foundations for the subsequent paradise tradition.
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According to the gospel of Luke, as Jesus hung on the cross, the two criminals crucified on either side of him both commented on his condition. One, usually depicted in Christian art on Jesus' left, taunted him. He seems to have been contemptuous, delighted that someone who claimed to be the righteous Son of God should now hang where he hung. He was delighted that the 'goodness' of Jesus, had apparently achieved nothing, that the world of evil and violence which his own life represented, had proved bigger and stronger than the claims of a man like Jesus. The other criminal, usually depicted on Jesus' right, seems to have recognised that the cross was not a symbol of the failure of divine love but a symbol of the extent of it, the depth of it. This was indeed Goodness, a goodness that reached down into the very depths of human suffering and wickedness, a goodness which could embrace even his history of failure and rebellion against the Divine Law. One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’ Luke 23.39-43 NRSV In Christian art, the two criminals came to represent the two destinies of mankind, salvation and damnation. In many pictures the links are made explicit by the sight of their souls being taken to their respective destinations - paradise and hell. The picture above, the crucifixion scene by Altichiero da Zevio, is one such picture as the details below reveal. It's easy to miss when you look at the main picture!
We are justifiably afraid of fire. Fire burns and when things burn they are damaged or destroyed. Fire has ravaged powerful cities such as ancient Rome and seventeenth century London. Wildfires have recently destroyed huge areas in drought-stricken parts of the world, bringing destruction, death and terror to the people who live there. Fire hurts and burns, leaving terrible scars and injuries. Fires destroy our homes and possessions. But the destructive power of fire is also something that can produce life. I was struck recently by the comments of a friend here in Sweden talking about the positive impact of a large forest fire which swept through the forests in the north of Sweden some years ago. It was horrendously destructive, destroying tens of thousands of trees and injuring and killing wildlife and people. And yet my friend, who at that time worked for the organisation that manages the forests, explained to me (an ignorant city dweller) that the forests depend on fires like these to grow and develop. Usually of course the fires are managed and kept within safe bounds and clearly this one wasn't! But the effect of such fires, controlled or not, is to is strip away the dead and old material in the forest, to allow new, young life to emerge. And the trees grow back, stronger and better and the wildlife returns and and forms a new ecology. And life goes on and flourishes better and stronger because of the fires. Something like this effect of fire, the rooting out and burning up of the old and tired, lies as the background for the trial scene in the Testament of Abraham, the ancient Jewish comic novel which describes the attempts of Abraham to escape the inevitability of death. Abraham's angel guide, Michael, shows Abraham what happens to souls after they die and Abraham passes through the gate of heaven at the East of the world, where he sees the souls of the dead being judged. He discovers that their eternal fate is decided partly on the basis of how the record of their lives responds to the divine fire blown from a trumpet held by Puriel, the 'angel of fire'. Their record of actions while alive, their 'works', are subjected to a 'trial by fire'. Good deeds survive the flames. They are clearly made of solid stuff, worthy and true, like a precious metal. Bad deeds are consumed by the flames, burnt up entirely, reduced to ashes. These are the deeds done in disregard for God's Law, the deeds born of selfish desire and Godless passions. So, as the dead and ancient material of the forest which inhibit the growth of the new are stripped away by the forest fires, here Puriel's fire consumes the dead and dying parts of individual human lives. The Testament of Abraham of course is not trying to say that the souls so-judged pass through to Paradise, better and wiser people; rather that those who see their life's work burn up pass directly to a place of horrendous torment and punishment (without passing go!). There is no sense here that these flames are intended to purify the souls who pass through them but, like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, they decide where the souls belong, in Paradise or in the 'other place'. But it was this very idea of flames that consume the dross, the old, the broken and the godless and leave the good and the new and the Godly unharmed that led some in the early church to imagine that what might happen after death is that souls would face the fire of judgement, not to destroy them but, like the beautiful forests of Sweden, to make them better. It was ideas like those we find in the Testament that led eventually to the birth of the idea of purgatory, to the idea of the flames that purify. In this post we come close to that place where such powerful ideas began to emerge. Once upon a time, the bible tells us, Abraham the great patriarch of the Hebrews was visited by God. The story says that God came to Abraham in the form of three 'men' (who were, in fact, divine messengers or angels) and without knowing who these three men were, Abraham welcomed them into his home and fed them. This was a sign of Abraham's holiness and generosity of spirit. If he had known who it was he was entertaining and was lavish with his hospitality then that would be unremarkable. Everyone would put on a special spread for God! But Abraham didn't. What made the story so special was in being hospitable to three complete strangers Abraham was in fact being hospitable to God. And so the story became the basis for a whole tradition of seeing God in 'the stranger', which we find again in the New Testament story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection, who unwittingly entertained Jesus, and which in the last century found it's best known moral expression in the work of Mother Teresa of Calcutta who famously said that when she took care of the destitute in Calcutta she saw in each one 'Jesus in disguise'. For the rest of us mere mortals, we are reminded by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews that when that unwelcome knock comes on the door, late on a friday night when we are ready to go to bed or entertaining friends Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13.1-2) But this story also became the basis for a wonderful comedy-fantasy adventure based on Abraham's life (or more precisely, his death) called the Testament of Abraham. It was written sometime in the first or second centuries A.D. by a Jewish writers for a Jewish audience, but the story also found a home in Christian groups and it was in fact they who preserved the story so that it reached us today. The story is about God's desire to prepare Abraham for his death. Most of us assume that we would appreciate the chance to know when we are going to die so that we could come to terms with the fact and put all our affairs in order. But I wonder if that's really true. Wouldn't most of really prefer just to go quickly, peacefully and unexpectedly? Wouldn't we prefer ignorance? Well, despite his best intentions, that's what God discovers in this wonderful, irreverent and hilarious story. First of all God discovers that it's almost impossible even to tell Abraham (how do you tell someone you love that they are going to die . . . many of us have been there and know how hard that is!). Next he discovers that even the godly Abraham doesn't want to leave his life behind and God is forced to grant him a 'last wish' which turns out to be a disaster and has to be cancelled. And then, thirdly, when eventually God sends Death (yes a figure called Death . . . . and with a scythe!) to wrap things up, he discovers that Death just isn't up to the job! This whole idea of telling his friend he is going to die to allow him time to come to terms with it gradually unravels as the story goes on and begins to look like a very bad idea! The reader is left with the impression that God made a big mistake by telling his friend the news of his impending death. The story is really about how messy death is (I don't mean blood and gore but socially and psychologically). We talk about a 'good death' and 'preparing ourselves' and 'letting go', but in reality death is chaotic and terrible. We poor human beings hold on to life for as long as we can and even the best laid plans (even God's, it seems) can go terribly awry in the face of the grim reality that faces all of us. When faced with the prospect of leaving 'all this behind' even the best of us can become irrational, fearful, angry and manipulative. Even the greatest of the great heroes of faith, Abraham is no exception. We don't like death. It's not natural. There is something deeply wrong about it. The story is a great insight into this struggle between the reality we all face and our stubborn, powerful hold on life. But the story (because it is about death) is also a fascinating insight into the attitudes of some Jews in the first two centuries after the birth of Christ (and possibly before) towards the afterlife. Here in the Testament of Abraham souls leave their bodies and face immediate post mortem judgement. Here the writer imagines that post mortem judgement in terms of passing through either the broad or the narrow gates, being weighed in the balance by angels and having our works 'tested by fire'. It is a story that reveals that in this era some people believed that the righteous find eternal life in paradise if the weight of their good deeds is greater than the weight of their bad deeds and that if they don't, their destiny lies in hell, a place of everlasting fire and torture. We discover here that it is possible for God to restore the lives of some who have died before their time and send them back to their lives on earth. In other words it is a story that shows that around the time the New Testament was being written, God-fearing Jews (and the Christians who valued and preserved this story) believed in most of the things that went on to form the popular view of death and afterlife that people believe today! Now of course if you have been following these posts you will realise that I think most of those things just mentioned are not part of the biblical picture of death and afterlife. But the reason for writing about the story (apart from the sheer joy I have found reading this wonderfully witty story) is my fascination in finding so many of these ideas already in currency in such an early story from the Jewish tradition. The point of the blog is not (just) to attack views I think are wrong but to try to understand how we got from the biblical perspective to the place we are today and I think stories like these show that the powerful influence of Greek thought was already having on Jewish (and so christian) thinkers and writers of faith at this time. In the Greek, Hellenistic word-view, souls could be detached from bodies, people could exist in a meaningful way after death and the worth of your soul could be discovered by placing it on a set of scales. None of these ideas is found in the Hebrew bible. But they are found here, in this fantastical Jewish 'fairy story'. Yes all these things are possible here . . . . but before we are tempted to think that this story is a reflection of the authentic biblical tradition we should also remember that the story also asks us to believe that Abraham lived to the age of a thousand years, that he could take a tour of the entire creation in the divine chariot in the space of half a day and that our lives are ended by the arrival at our houses one day of a tall, scary figure holding a scythe! Or maybe it doesn't ask us to believe any of these things. Maybe it is just a wonderful story about an old man who loved his life and didn't want to give it up! Maybe these popular motifs about the afterlife are just the tools the writer uses to tell a far more meaningful story about the tenacity of human life and its deep seated resistance to death. So, how do you imagine heaven? Green meadows? Rolling hills? Golden cities? Cloudy vistas? I imagine we all have our own personal vision of what heaven might be like, but I doubt if anyone reading this would have gone for the 'alien mothership' vision employed by Francesco Botticini in his masterpiece The Assumption of the Virgin into Heaven now on display as part of an exhibition in the National Gallery in London. Like a great otherworldly vessel, the huge resplendent 'dome' appears to hover over the earth, its insides open to view from below. Inside we can see row upon row of 'superior beings' sat in an ordered hierarchy of importance watching the action in the centre - a human being is physically being lifted up (on what appears to be a magic carpet) to the apex of the structure where she is greeted by the 'supreme being' (seated but also seated on a magic carpet). The human being of course is Mary the mother of Jesus and it is the risen and exalted Jesus himself who greets her. This is no medieval representation of alien abductions or a foretelling of the invention of hover boards, but rather a vision of heaven, heaven as the destination of the righteous and the home of God and the angels, but a heaven which is a truly 'alien' physical space just beyond the stars. Colourful, magisterial, bizarre, and, in the views of some of that era, heretical, this painting (also known as the Palmieri Altarpiece) is one of the strangest and most imaginative depictions of heaven ever attempted in art. In this and the following posts I want to explore this wonderful painting in some detail especially looking at the ideas about heaven and paradise that might have influenced Botticini. The pilgrim continues to retreat from the fierce animals but suddenly he is confronted by a shadowy figure While I was fleeing to a lower place When I saw him in that vast wilderness The shade replies revealing that he is the shade of Virgil the great roman poet He answered "Not a man, though once I was. I was born under Julius Caesar (though late in his reign) I was a poet and I sang of that just He asks the pilgrim why he is heading back to the wretched misery of the dark forest rather than climbing the mountain towards paradise "But you, why do you turn back to wretchedness? The pilgrim is overwhelmed with joy at the realisation that this is his hero, the Roman poet Virgil "Are you Virgil that source "You are the glory of all other poets you are my master and my 'author' After commenting on the eventual fate of the three beasts, Virgil reveals that he has been asked to be the pilgrim's guide, first through hell, the place people burn hopelessly, and then through purgatory where they burn hopefully! "Therefore for your sake I think it wise where you shall hear despairing cries And after, you shall see the ones who are content Finally he reveals that he cannot take the pilgrim into heaven (paradise) itself because he has not been counted fit by God. Another (Beatrice) will lead the pilgrim there "Should you desire to ascend to these, For the Emperor who lives on high Everywhere He reigns and there He rules. The pilgrim readily accepts the offer of guidance and help. And I answered: 'Poet, I entreat you. lead me to these realms you speak of Inferno Canto 1:61-87; 112-135 Just as Dante the pilgrim is about to re-enter the dark forest, despairing of ascending the mountain and finding the light of God, a strange, shady form appears in front of him. Amazingly, (since he had been dead for over a thousand years) it is Virgil, the famous Roman poet and Dante's literary hero. In Dante's day Virgil was perhaps the most famous Latin author and it is clear that Dante admired him greatly. He was most famously the author of an epic poem called the Aeneid, the story of the journey of the Trojan hero Aeneas after the destruction of Troy by the Greeks, to Italy where he founded the city of Rome. The book, written in Latin, is written in verse and deals with heroic and epic themes and includes a famous (and hugely influential) visit by the hero, Aeneas, to the underworld, where he sees various characters from mythology and from his own life and the punishments and rewards they experience. And yet although we shouldn't be surprised that Dante employs as his (and our guide) to the afterlife someone who had written so masterfully on such themes before, it is a surprising and 'edgy' choice. Part of the genius of Dante is that time and time again we are challenged morally and intellectually by the choices he makes. The readers of Dante's day would have been surprised that a pagan author would play such a crucial role in the story. Here, right at the beginning Virgil acknowledges his distance from the Christian vision. He says he does not belong in paradise so another must guide Dante the pilgrim through that part of his adventure. He was alive during the time of the false and lying gods (presumably implying his own part in their devotion). He confesses that he was a rebel against His law. So, a man who did not know Christ as saviour and Lord will guide the pilgrim away from the forest of dark ignorance and sin towards the light! Because the poem is so well known we barely bat an eyelid at this choice but at the time it was a remarkable one. Dante could have employed a Christian guide, the Apostle Paul (who had visited paradise while he was alive), a church father such as Augustine whose writings had helped to define church thinking on the afterlife, or even, perhaps, as in earlier tours of hell and heaven, an angel. But he didn't. He chose the pagan poet Virgil. But the reasons for that choice help us to understand his purpose in writing the Commedia and the manner in which he writes it.
When people talk about being in the 'seventh heaven' they mean they are as happy as they can possibly be. But where did the notion that there are seven heavens come from? What does the seventh heaven contain that should make us so happy and what are the other six like? Sadly there is no one definitive source book we can turn to to explain this but there are some ancient writings from the Jewish-Christian tradition that reveal that during the first century A.D. (if not earlier) some people believed that there were multiple levels of heaven. In the pseudepigraphal writing known as Slavonic Enoch (or 2 Enoch), the writer describes the ascension of Enoch to the throne of God in heaven but in his version, (unlike that of the Book of the Watchers discussed in the previous post), Enoch ascends through seven heavens to find God. Each heaven has its own distinct identity, purpose and occupants. Like the apostle Paul, the writer locates paradise, i.e the garden of Eden, in the third heaven. Alongside paradise, on the same level, there is a place of terrible punishment reserved for the wicked, and staffed by specially prepared 'torture angels'. On other levels Enoch sees the workings of the cosmos, the legions of weeping angels (long before Dr Who was ever thought of) and the gates and galleries where the weather is stored. His may not have been the first account of multiple heavens but the author(s) of Slavonic Enoch provides a fascinating insight into how some Jews and Christians imagined heaven in the first centuries of the Common Era. "At last Enoch arrives in the seventh heaven and sees God. God, of course, is seated on his throne and attended by a vast number of angelic beings, the divine council or court. It seems that their chief job is to come forward in designated ranks and orders to bow before God. This is an image of God as supreme potentate, the imperial ruler, receiving obeisance from the subject kings and potentates. The heavenly beings here represent the 'powers and principalities' who govern the affairs of the cosmos. These are the forces that shape human destiny. What Enoch sees is that they bow before the authority of the Almighty. Enoch reports that they do so 'in joy and merriment'. There is laughter in heaven!"
In Matthew 16.18 Jesus tells Peter that "the gates of hell will not prevail" against the rock that is the church. Many of us imagine that what Jesus meant was that the forces of hell (i.e. the devil and his demonic hordes) will never be able to overcome the church. The devil and his demons will try but the rock-like church will withstand their onslaught. The problem with this interpretation is that the word translated as 'hell' in the King James Version is the greek word Hades, which meant simply the land of the dead. In this light his statement seems rather odd. Is Jesus saying that the dead will not be able to destroy the church? The statement makes more sense when we realise that usually gates don't move. They are normally to be found in a fixed spot keeping people out, or in. So, Jesus is saying that the gates of death's kingdom will not be able to withstand the onslaught of the church! Jesus is not painting a picture of his church under siege, but rather of the church triumphant, breaking down the doors of death and proclaiming the hope of resurrection to those within. However much the church might enjoy living under a siege mentality, the reality is that the church is invested with great power, the power of the gospel to utterly transform the landscape of human existence. If we can rid ourselves of the unbiblical and medieval notions of 'hell' and understand what Jesus really meant the church might reclaim it's confidence in the power of Christ's resurrection to overthrow the reign of death with all its terror, despair and hopelessness. "So, when people read or heard Jesus telling Peter that to him and the church has been given dominion over the gates of Hades, they would have had a clear understanding of what Jesus meant. Now, the eschatological fulfillment had arrived. These were the last days, the days of the defeat of death, the end of the darkness which had become the paramount enemy of God and of his purpose of life. It is not a text about Satan, the powers of evil or "spiritual conflict". It is not a text about a place called hell. It is a text about resurrection, triumph and the gates of death/Hades being burst open. It is a text about the hope for a world in which there is no more mourning and no more tears." Christians sometimes talk about heaven as our true 'home'. It may well be true that as the apostle Paul put it "we are in the world but not of it", and we may well find hope and comfort an the anticipation of life in a recreated cosmos which conforms fully to the purpose of God. But it is not true to say that heaven is our true home. Nowhere in the bible are the words heaven and home connected and nowhere are believers encouraged to believe that their eternal destiny lies beyond or outside the world that God so lovingly and carefully created. The creation stories in Genesis remind us that our hope should always be very firmly focused on this amazing and beautiful world, so full of possibilities, beauty and wonder and on the promise that we will once again live life in this world in harmony with one another, with the creation and with God, just as Adam and Eve once did in the garden in Eden. If there is a hope in this story it is that the garden remains somewhere on the earth. The gates are locked and guarded by weapon-wielding angels but paradise has not been "closed down" for good. All those who read this story knew that somewhere on the earth there was a place in which there were no "thorns" or "sweat", and where there grew a tree that gave everlasting life (Genesis 3.22-23). That image was to inspire a hope for better things, a hope for a respite from the struggles and the thorns. But the remarkable thing is that the hope was focused on the earth. Paradise had not moved or been "transferred" to a heavenly location. If the life of thorns and struggle was an earthly one, so too was the imagery of release from those thorns and that struggle. The Eden paradise was not locatable in any known geographical space. But neither was it a spiritual place. It lay at the origin, the reader is told, of the great rivers that watered the known world (Genesis 2.10-14). It is not fantasy or legend, but neither is it fact and geography. It is real but elusive. And, more importantly for every reader of these chapters, it is still there . . . . somewhere
When the ancient writers of the Hebrew bible and the christian New Testament wrote about a place called heaven they really meant a place up above the sky. That was where God lived. If they wrote about people being dragged down to Sheol or descending to Hades they really did meant a place below their feet in the depths of the earth. For the writers of the bible, heaven and the land of the dead were real places that lay above and below them. Their writings may seem naive and even ridiculous to us because of that but the modern 'scientific' reader must understand that these ideas were shaped in a word that looked and felt very different from ours, a world which had a very different 'shape'. This post tries to describe that 'shape' and understand how a physical heaven above us and Sheol below us were very logical implications of their world view. Such a view of heaven was “upper-worldly” rather than “other-worldly.” Furthermore, the gulf between heaven and earth was constantly bridged by etherial beings. Angels and demons shared the same physical space as human beings. Far from being empty, the upper air was filled with boisterous, contending powers. Angels stood close to hand, to impart comfort and guidance to the faithful. Demons would frequently create chill pockets of moral and physical disorder in the everyday world. Demons, indeed, were believed to occupy distinct ecological niches on earth, lurking in out of the way corners within the settled world and claiming as their own the threatening silence of the desert spaces. In the words of an exorcistic prayer, scratched on a tile in northern Spain, that was where the demons should remain: “where no cock crows nor hen cackles, where no ploughman ploughs nor sower sows.” Peter Brown |
Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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