If you’ve ever read the book of Genesis in the Bible, and exercised at least a little bit of skepticism, you might have noticed that the Official Creation Story contains several conspicuous omissions. I’ve already discussed one of them — the strange case of the Tree of the Knowledge — and now I’m going to discuss another one: who created hell and why?
Why doesn’t the book of Genesis discuss this? The holy text goes to considerable length to credit the god-of-the-Bible with creating everything else in our universe — the sun, the moon, the stars, our planet, every living thing, etc. In fact, the authors of the Old Testament were so enamored with this story that they included a second version of it in Genesis chapter 2. So, why doesn’t the Bible mention who created hell? Indeed, why doesn’t the Bible mention who created *any* of the Bad Stuff — the Serpent who supposedly tempted Eve and forever tainted the entire human race, the demons who supposedly serve the Serpent, the burning hellfires of damnation where they all live…? Obviously, if the god-of-the-Bible created everything in our universe, then he *must* also have created the bad stuff, but why doesn’t the Bible ever mention this?
And, more to the point, why did the god-of-the-Bible create this stuff? Why did he create the Serpent, knowing (because he knows the future) that the Serpent would eventually cause humanity to fall from grace? Why did he create demons, knowing their sole function would be to spread turmoil and strife? And why did he create the burning pit of hellfire, knowing that its sole purpose would be to torture humans who, for whatever reason, didn’t get his message? If you were the Supreme Creator of the Universe, and you had infinite love for all the humans you created, would you create all this bad stuff? Do human parents arrange such things for their disobedient children? Really, was it necessary for the god-of-the-Bible to create eternal torment just to punish people who didn’t sufficiently worship him? Why not condemn heretics to eternity in, say, a sports bar, or a lukewarm Jacuzzi, or a casino in Vegas? You know, something bad but not really that bad. Why hell?
I don’t know about you, but it makes no sense to me that any infinitely loving god would create hell. It’s obviously a self-contradiction: an infinitely loving god would never have created that stuff; therefore, if the god-of-the-Bible created that stuff, as the Bible implies, then the god-of-the-Bible either doesn’t exist or is not infinitely loving.
Maybe that’s why the Bible doesn’t discuss it.
Grumpypilgrim writes:
"I don’t know about you, but it makes no sense to me that any infinitely loving god would create hell. It’s obviously a self-contradiction: an infinitely loving god would never have created that stuff; therefore, if the god-of-the-Bible created that stuff, as the Bible implies, then the god-of-the-Bible either doesn’t exist or is not infinitely loving.
Maybe that’s why the Bible doesn’t discuss it."
Karl Kunker writes
If you read more than the first few chapters of the Old Testament you'll find more of the full message of the Bible.
God dwells in inexorable light. This means that from his throne (where ever you may happen to think that is) the word, the will, the power and the presence of God are inescable – as well as a bunch of other characteristics including love.
Anything that is not in the light of God is there by an active choice of some being to either want to believe that either God is not existent or that God is himself evil and not worthy of being God.
Satan's fall from spendor is described in several places. This happened before time and the earth as we know it even existed. In a very real sense as I understand it, the earth is both part of the eternal sentence of Satan, but also the training ground for those God is revealing as Sons of God.
What most people can't really fathom is how in the world could Satan's errors be responsible for evil unless God made the possibility of evil. Making the possibility for something does not mean you created it.
Giving a child a choice to decide between poor, good and better options does not make the author of free will the creator of evil options. Evil exists because God must permit it to exist inorder for it (the evil) to one day reveal the Sons and Daughters of God. When evil is done away with, the perfect will have come and God will fill all. Jesus had to live in a world full of imperfections, and he had to experience life as a man before he would actually know experientially how to make the right choices. It is wrong to blame God's process of revealing the Sons of God just as much as it is to describe the process of raising children as a parental evil.
Darkness is the place reserved for those who willfully choose either of the options that in a temporal sense either try to run from God's light or who try to supplant the true light with an imperfect one. Does this make God the creator of hell and evil. Those who try to twist logic and reason claim such things.
It is clear from a reading of the Bible that there were spiritual beings that existed before the earth as we know it took form. Evil and demonic spiritual beings don't like to reveal themselves now a days because they have a strong hold upon the hearts and minds of the intellectual elites who claim that science disproves God's word. We no longer need to cast the demons out of individuals, we need to cast them out of our universities and other institutions that refuse to believe that God is our creator and that one day every individual will give an account of their own use of the true light God has given them.
Maybe hell was actually created by one of the other gods. For example, one of those that the first commandment warns not to worship before insecure Mr. I. Am. Other gods are easy to find in the Old Testament; that's why the commandment doesn't say that there is but one God.
Perhaps hell is just the environment in which God and his ilk evolved. As it was the eternal background, it didn't need to be mentioned in a book about creation. A book that also doesn't mention most of what has been discovered about our world in the last few centuries, like the existence and constitution of chemical elements, the quality and size of space, the relationship between acceleration, velocity, and distance, an accurate measure of π (it is in there as 3.0), the six basic ratios (constants) that govern all mass and energy, the nature of light, conservation of energy, the cellular nature of most Earth life and the germ and genetic bases of disease, tectonics including vulcanism such as hit Herculaneum and Pompeii in historic times and Sodom and Gomorrah in prehistory, and so on.
As for Karl's
If a left turn from a road is possible, but a law is written and filed somewhere making it illegal, someone will make that left. Eventually. Most likely sooner rather than later. Creating the possibility for something practically guarantees that that something will occur.
Even if every driver has been told that this turn is illegal, and passes a test in which he has to answer that question, it will happen. I'd put money on it. A momentary lapse of judgment, a willful adolescent disobedience, or following malicious instructions from a backseat driver, someone will eventually make that turn.
"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." Bet your eternal soul on it.
Dan: Hell as the caldron of creation? Just as metals are formed in stars, the moral elements are formed in Hell?
If so, then hell is not a bad place, but simply a place.
I mentioned nothing about laws in the discussion over who created hell.
Laws do not make something evil. Most laws are designed for a proper purpose with an intended end in mind. Probablities like those you speak of must mean you know by experience how easy it is to willfully choose to ignore spiritual realities. Laws are going to be broken, I'm sure Jesus violated several of the natural laws in the miracles he performed. I guess that makes Jesus one of the most evil men that ever walked the planet.
"L'enfer c'est les autres"
– Jean-Paul Sartre
I find reading the comments of the Palin supporters, whether it be crazy feminist Clinton supporters or moronic Republicans, to be a torture indeed.
I used "law" in the vernacular sense, as "rule". The point is that if something is possible, then it will happen. If omniscient God creates the possibility for something, then she has created the thing itself with one degree of separation. Evil would not exist if God had not made a place for it. Even allowing/causing Satan's vanity to rival God's own must be part of God's creation/plan.
The question posited in the post is, who created hell? After all, it isn't addressed in the Bible. Historically, it didn't seem to exist in any philosophy until you get to Zoroaster. Yet most brands of Christianity depend on it.
Personally, I think Hell is a mighty silly filter for separating those most sycophantic humans to surround God's throne adulating for all eternity. Those of us bound for the eternal chum bucket are likely to have a more interesting afterlife, after all.
Here's an interesting Christian analysis of the Hell issue from 1888
Grumpy, Karl, et al
Hell (from a Germanic root that means "to cover") is the English translation of the Hebrew word Sheol, which is found 65 times in the Hebrew bible, and the Greek word Hades, which is found 26 times in the Apocrypha and 10 times in the New Testament.
Both Sheol and Hades refer to a place where souls dwell after death. (Genesis 37:35 and Acts 2:27) There are several traditions leading into this, a few older than Judaism. Postexilic Judaism set aside a specific part of Hell for punishment (noted in 1 Enoch 22:10 – 11). In the New Testament this place is known as Gehenna.
In places in the scrolls from Qumran, you can find more specific references to Gates leading into Hell.
All of this stems from a general cosmology, shared by many cultures, of a tripartite make-up of the universe—Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld. The Underworld serves different functions depending on the culture, but in all of them it concerns the dead.
Once the concept was fully integrated into Judaism, it began to evolve until finally you have the New Testament expression of a place for sinners, segregating them out after death from those who were faithful and went, presumably, to heaven.
There's nothing particularly unique to Christianity about Hell, but it seems to be part and parcel of Judaic and Christian obsession over guilt and death. Like other aspects of such things, Christianity insists that its view is somehow the correct one and that, furthermore, it possesses a tangibility which, when talked about in "other" religions, we take as fanciful nonsense.
there is only One God in the Bible. The different names in the OT describe His Character. If you know, a name in the Bible refers to a person's character. The names of God in the OT are characteristics of the same One God!!! Know your facts before you share what you THINK.
HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.
The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic(absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law(gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote this.
[admin note: Snopes has ID'd this story as not true in various respects. http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp ]
Just as cold is the absence of heat and darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of God in men's hearts. What is love unless one has the ability to choose not to love?
Hell is the ultimate symbol of human freedom. If I choose to be free from God, I can actually go to the very place where I can be free from His presence.
Hell is really an act of God's mercy. If I do not want want to be in the presence of God, it would be hell just being in His presence. Hell was created for the Devil and his fallen angels. Ironically, even though it wasn't designed for us, because of God's love, He will not stop us from going there.
Grumpy,
I'd be interested to know what your take is on the matter that some people call the "spiritual aspects of life."
If you choose to discuss the matter you mighyt want to include include where in tarnation labels like good and evil, and rigth and wrong come from?
I like Duke's answer to my question, though it still doesn't address the burning pit of hellfire we so often hear about from over-excited evangelicals.
As regards Karl's comment, the phrase "spiritual aspects of life" is your phrase, not mine. Accordingly, I have no "take" on what that phrase might mean to "some people." Indeed, spirituality is such an internal adventure that I suspect if you were to ask ten people about the "spiritual aspects of life," you'd get ten different answers.
As regards labels like good and evil, right and wrong, I would say these are relatively arbitrary labels that are affixed by whomever is in power. Consider, for example, Bush's invasion of Iraq. Even among Bible-thumping Christians, some call it right and some call it wrong.
Re: "spiritual aspects of life" – good answer, Grumpy!
To me, it seems like the Karls of this world are unable to accept science, the field where there we can get close to the one right answer about this or that aspect of the world. At the same time, in the field of spirituality (or art or the art of life or however you choose to phrase it), where there are a multitude of possible answers, they limit themselves to a very narrow range of possibilities.
Re: right and wrong – of course we're not limited to what those in power label to be so. But they are culturally defined. Imagination plays a big role in the moral character of a culture I think. When a society persecutes artists and writers, other atrocities are sure to follow.
Grumpy and Vicki,
Please read about spirituality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality
Notice how science and spirituality by most definitions (perhaps 9 out of ten) just do not intertwine them in any material sense.
As to how your references concerning good and evil and right and wrong are defined I take it this is why you believe in political activism and cultural relativism.
What if there really are instinctive animalistic behaviors that are part of the human condition? What if there are also noble and transcendent spiritual ideals and relational qualities of human existence that are not merely animalistic?
How would either of you reconcile these two dicotomies?
This is essentially what I ask when I ask what is your take on human spirituality?
This argument always seems to follow the same twisted logic that causes people to assume automatically that God cannot possibly exist because He does not fit into their idea of how the "world works."
Grumpy, you speak about the story of Genesis and the creation of the world. Nowhere there does it mention the creation of Hell or Satan, but as explained, those spiritual forces already existed. When humans were created, according to the biblical account, they existed in perfect peace, perfect harmony, and perfect love with God. There was no suffering, there was no death, there was only Life.
But, God put free will into the equation. Yes, he knew "what would happen" if he created free will, but because he is wiser than humans, he understood the different possibilities that would exist. He may have known that Satan would tempt Eve into eating of the tree of knowledge, he would know what would result from that, but that does not mean that he simply wouldn't do it. That defeats the entire purpose of creation and love and free will. Because God is all-knowing, I am sure He understood that the process would prove those souls "worthy" of heaven to actually recieve it, and thats why all this took place.
With the example of the "illegal left turn," I'd like to point out something. If a turn was made to be illegal, it was probably for a reason. Maybe it is a one-way road. That would mean that the law was set into place to protect idiots who can't read road signs from getting hit from oncoming vehicles, or to protect those who ARE following the laws from the actions of others. Even if someone does then break that law, as you say it is "inevitable" then they will undeniably have to face the consequences.
God shows what it is that is necessary for spiritual learning. That isn't ONLY the Bible, by the way. I think all of the major religions have a great part of the idea right. He has "laws" in the sense that they are protections, or important things we as humans should know to prevent our untimely deaths. To break those laws then, we face consequences both physical AND spiritual.
I am someone who thinks that Hell isn't just a place of eternal damnation that people go when they die. Hell is more than that. It isn't that God says:"Oh, you messed up, you're in Hell for eternity." It is that Humans don't realize the truth of spiritual understanding and then get caught up in a Hell of THEIR OWN CREATION. Suffering, Pain, Death, and the Cycle of worshipping the material world make humans get caught up in this Hell, and it is the Bible and other spiritual philosophies that are a blueprint of how to prevent that.
I think you've got a couple of false dichotomies going on here, Karl. Why would a disciplined spirituality, which does not make easily falsifiable claims about the material world, conflict with science?
The wisest of mystics realize that stories and myths are webs woven to try to catch insights that are hard to see when explained in the indicative mood. As in the buddhist saying: "In order to point at the moon, it is necessary to have a finger, but do not mistake the finger for the moon." Wise mystics do not look for meaning in a perfect world beyond this one, but in this world with all its imperfections and impermanence. As in the saying attributed to Jesus in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas : "The kingdom of God is spread out upon the earth, but you do not see it."
As for instinctive animal behaviors and transcendent spiritual ideals, you can't have one without the other. If you had never received the physical nurturing that all baby primates instinctually need to develop normally, you would never be able to conceptualize an abstract ideal of love.
You see physical and spiritual, animal and human, in terms of high and low, with a sharply defined lined between. If you see spirituality more as a journey to the center, that line vanishes. The experiences that humans generally find most transcendent, like sex and birth and death, are also those that are most likely to leave stains on the sheets.
Karl wrote, "Notice how science and spirituality by most definitions (perhaps 9 out of ten) just do not intertwine them in any material sense."
Nowhere have I said that science and spirituality intertwine. Not only do they deal with different subject matter; they rely on different methods. The trouble is that although scientists recognize the limits of what science can answer, religious zealots often utterly fail to recognize the limits of what spirituality can answer. Indeed, most of the hostility that believers express deal with scientific realities that contradict their religion: evolution, contraception, sex education, homosexuality, stem cell research, prayer, marriage…the list goes on.
Karl continues, "As to how your references concerning good and evil and right and wrong are defined I take it this is why you believe in political activism and cultural relativism."
Atheists and believers alike participate in political activism and cultural relativism, so what is your point?
Karl continues, "What if there really are instinctive animalistic behaviors that are part of the human condition?"
I respond: please state your question more clearly.
Karl continues, "What if there are also noble and transcendent spiritual ideals and relational qualities of human existence that are not merely animalistic?"
Again I respond: please state your question more clearly.
How would either of you reconcile these two dicotomies [sic]?
I am trying to understand Karl's questions, but they really make no sense to me. Humans are animals. As animals, we have many instinctive behaviors: the instinct to survive, to reproduce, to care for our young, etc. As conscious, self-aware animals, we ask questions such as, Why are we here? Where did we come from? What is the purpose of life? Where do we go after we die? etc. To attempt to answer these questions, many humans posit the existence of invisible, apparently imaginary, deities. Many other humans don't see a need for such deities, other than to pacify the humans who do.
Vicki asked:
"I think you’ve got a couple of false dichotomies going on here, Karl. Why would a disciplined spirituality, which does not make easily falsifiable claims about the material world, conflict with science?"
If the thoughts and imaginations which may be false claims about the material world (but can nonetheless still be called respectable science)
are stated in ways that rule out a disciplined spirituality then the dicotomy has a rift that can not be restored.
If you are part animal and part spiritual being, and you were forced to decide which of the two you would consider more important? How would you make that determination?
For me, I try to not deny either one, but asserting the animal side over the spiritual side leads my mind to look for ways to eliminate the spiritual side.
This then amounts to my thoughts and imagination going to work considering how the natural world can eliminate any dependence upon the spiritual side of life. Some call this naturalism, I call it idolatry.
Like wise asserting the spiritual side over the animal side, can lead me to be tempted to create any manner of false diety that suites my desires for my animal nature because I think I have overcome the animal nature, but am actually hopelessly its slave in these regards.
In this same regard, when I try and answer spiritual questions for which science has no philosophical underpinning to be asking I am using my imagination to come up with a possible answer which I know really isn't an answer for the spiritual matter.
As long as I am alive as primarily a human animal, unless I keep both realities as part of my nature which will influence my character I recognize that I will eventually either serve an unreal created diety of my own making or I will believe I haven't done so (only to have decieved myself).
As long as I am alive as primarily a spiritual being, and if I keep both realities as part of my nature which will influence my character I can recognize those aspects of the spirit that could actually be parts of the nature and character of God whose Spirit is greater than our spirit.
The fool has said in his heart there is no God.
Send in the gods, there ought ot be gods, don't bother they're here.
God almighty could very well have a design that eventually brings everyone to a place in the after life that is appropriate. The actual after life they imagine may be exactly what is being prepared for them. I don’t discount that in the least.
The message of the Bible however is more than it seems at the surface.
Those who knowingly participate in the active creative and restorative will of the Father are accorded a specific consideration. (works) Be ye perfect as God is perfect.
Those who trust His Son are accorded a specific consideration. (faith)
They can become the Sons of God, joint-heirs not primarily in an earthly sense but primarily in a spiritual sense.
I believe the words that Jesus says when he states a man must be born again. This statement was not literal because it confused Nicodemus greatly, it was a statement of spiritual reality about both the present and the after life.
You may not want to actually be like Jesus, but it is the heart cry of billions across this world.
One comes to a hard task master by the enslavement by spiritual demons.
Hindu’s believe they reincarnate until they have found the best position in either the present or the afterlife.
Some misguided Muslims are promised a reward with sex galore, that’s a pretty tempting offer wouldn’t you say? But the reward will be rather short lived over an eternity.
Who has the truth? They all may have it to some degree or another, because they have a piece of the spirit of God, but only Jesus had it to the fullest extent possible while alive as a man.
This is why I choose to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I know those who claim to be his followers are not perfect, I am not perfect, but when that which is perfect has come I pray I will be able to identify with Him.
its none of your business why god created hell!!everything has its own purpose and the purpose of hell is to swallow you
Gameshia writes:—"its none of your business why god created hell!!everything has its own purpose and the purpose of hell is to swallow you"
On the assumption that you'll come back to see if anyone noticed your leavings, I have to say that since according to the theology you evidently subscribe to many of us will end up there, it very much is our business. That's one of the most off-the-wall rebuttals I've seen in a while, though. It's nobody's business? Come now.
I would propose that in your case, you're already in hell—one of your own creation—and its nature is to drive you insane that anyone might think that hell is manmade. That would mean you could get out of it. And since you don't believe you can, you never will. Must be galling!
I'm stumped! but I look forward to "hearing" more on the subject of Jesus, hell.
I am a Christian and I do not want to take the chance of going to hell. I chose God and He seems to "work" for me
There are questions, how lucifer who was expelled from paradise could once more pass the gates and gaurdians to seduce adam & eve since there was our God, the all-beholding watchful eye; why did he let him to come if he wanted mankind to inhabit in heavens. i think it was all predestined, like a plot that a writer begins and ends. if man has a free will he was to choose whether it is good or evil. god created us with this free will, if he knew the existance of our kind and our potentiality to do wrong which may end in poisoning his holy chamber of heavens, why he did not created us in somewhere else?if our ancestors made a mistake why this had to such a severe punishment, and why should We also be sacrificed for their sin. is it fair? are we all in a game or a ridiculous challenge between God and satan?
It didn't say Lucifer, it said The Serpent—we have subsequently assumed it was Lucifer, but Lucifer, whose first appearance is all the way up in Isaiah, was originally a metaphor for the king of Babylon (or, if you want to be historically accurate, Assyria) who is soundly condemned in Isaiah.
But "Lucifer" is a Roman name given to Venus (the planet), otherwise known as the Day Star or Light Bringer. By the times of the New Testament, Jewish tradition had conflated the legend of Satan with the story of rebel angels and named the leader Lucifer.
So right there we have a bit of a problem with sources and the "pure word", since the serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden was not identified with Lucifer until well into the Christian Era. (So if this were really being handed down by Yahweh to some scribe, you'd think that it would have been indicated that this serpent and the leader of the rebel angels was the same being, but it doesn't say that.)
Now, as to your theological question, well, yeah, why should we be on the receiving end of a punishment which, if we take the Gospels and Paul at their word, should be all taken care of after the Sacrifice? And why would the descendants of Adam and Eve (we're still taking this at face value for the moment) be held responsible for something they did? Unethical to say the very least.
As for Hell, well, Hell went through a long process of becoming worse and worse. It started out as just a place where souls went after death of no particular condition—no torture, no pain, no joy, no nothing—called Sheol. It didn't become a nasty place until nearly the end of Old Testament time, and probably it was worsened as a threat to hurl at all the powers that kept antagonizing, defeating, torturing, enslaving the Hebrews. It was the place all their enemies were going to go. (probably, Hell—which also became associated with Gehenna—was really a temporal place, Topheth, which enjoyed a revival of sorts under Josiah, circa 638 B.C.E.)
As to predestination, it is utterly inconsistent with free will and you will bend your mind into pretzels trying to make it work out. Ain't no such thing. Get over it.
Bottom line, IT'S A STORY! NO MORE NO LESS. It should be taken as metaphor, not as literal anything.
Mark: As you so often do, you've short-circuited a spirited debate by carefully injecting the FACTS!
Grumpy – I've often been challenged by the mere concept of hell – ever since my childhood as a catholic, attending mass, and catholic school with nuns & priests and a Mom who seemed to possess a direct line to the pope!
One question I had (that you also raise) is where did Hell come from?
I read the bible as a kid, and again (many times) as a teenager and as a young adult looking for answers to this. As a catholic we were taught that catechism was our guide, and that the bible was the word of god, but that the bible was often allegorical and required the interpretation of our priests.
Despite this, I found nothing about where hell came from. I asked questions, incessantly. My parish priest suggested I should enrol in a Jesuit seminary, I was so full of questions! But I never got answers.
I found many references to hell as a destination, and as the home of Satan and his demons. But nothing about demonic origins.
However, as I read more in other religions (Bhagavad Gita, the Norse Eddas, the Greek, Egyptian and Roman pantheons, etc.) and other ancient writing (especially that originating in the fertile cresent from Sumeria and Babylonia) I came to realize that almost every religion identified a 'place distinct from heaven' where those who have 'lost the favor of god' would languish (even the Hindu Bardo has affinity with this concept of approbation).
Many heaven concepts were reserved for heroes or nobility (the Roman concept of Elysium, or the Norse Valhalla). The corresponding Hell, or Hades, was not a bad 'place for sinners' – it was merely the place reserved for those who failed to make the cut as heroes. The Assyrians (and Sumerians) according to translations, saw Hades, or hell, as simply the place where the dead resided. Heaven was simply the home of the gods, and it was entirely in the hands of the gods whether you were invited to join them in heaven (likely for kings and priests, possible for heroes, unlikely for the average joe).
Overall – the Christian (and Jewish and Moslem) definitions of Heaven and Hell can be seen as cherry picking among previous concepts. In many cases the thought of hell being a place of specific punishment is one unique to the monotheistic Abrahamic religions – since the greatest sin is denial of the 'one true god'. The Christians have uniquely taken human fallibility as a one-way-ticket to hell (through original sin), unless the person 'gives their life to god'.
All in all – a lot of interesting cross cultural anthropology – but not a whole heap of sense or reason.
Hell, like Heaven, and Gods, is an invention of our desire to impose pattern on nature. Prior to a better, more complete understanding of the world, it was, perhaps, the best we could do to make sense of what seemed to be a capricious nature.
We do so much better now (but the memes are still insidiously rampant – through implantation in children).
Tony,
If you can find it, there is a wonderful book called "The History of Hell" by Alice K. Turner that does a great job of tracing all the sources of this non-place. According to her, the first writings were Sumerian, most notably in Gilgamesh, and the traditions just mounted one atop the other.
Hell isn't the problem. Heaven is the one that has the really problematic provenance. It wasn't much of a feature of any pre-late-period Judaic religions and wasn't perfected until the Christian Era.
Thanks Mark!
I'll look out for it in my local bookstore (unfortunately in Northern GA they're unlikely to carry anything that smacks of 'investigation' or lack of obeisance to the Christian mythos). I'll definitely add it to my Amazon list (for backup).
I agree that the provenance of heaven is even poorer than that of hell (but hell was the topic 😀 ). As I alluded in my comment above, heaven was most simply 'the place where gods lived'. Heroes and kings & such might be awarded a special invitation (especially in the Egyptian mythos – where the pharaohs were already gods), or there might be a special 'annex' where heroes were rewarded. But heaven as a destination for everyone wasn't even a suggestion until very late in the first millennium AD (AFAIR).
As I understand it, the interpretation of "sitting at the right hand of god" was extended to all Christians in "your reward shall be in heaven", etc. It wasn't until late in the first millennium that this came to mean that good christians went to heaven when they died. Previously a boon granted only to the 'heroes' (i.e saints).
Most prophesies and interpretations prior to that time had referenced what modern day fundamentalists call 'the rapture' when all would be saved and 'rise up to heaven'.
Heaven is a place I'd rather not go. I'd expect it to be full of the sanctimonious, humor-free, bigoted people who currently call themselves Christian. As Mark Twain so famously said: "Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."