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Within this patchwork of pagan and early Christian sources, Ehrman introduces us to his overarching thesis: that the Christian notions of heaven and hell we know today 'do not represent the earliest Christian views of the afterlife'. Instead, heaven and hell 'emerged over a long period of time as people struggled with how this world can be fair and how God or the gods can be just'. 

Ehrman is no stranger to bold claims about the roots of Christianity. He has previously topped the New York Times bestseller list with Misquoting Jesus (2005) and Jesus, Interrupted (2009). His latest offering argues that heaven and hell do not appear in the Old Testament or indeed in Jesus' own teachings. 'To put it succinctly: the founder of Christianity did not believe that the soul of a person who died would go to heaven or hell.' Instead, we encounter several conflicting views of the afterlife in early Christianity which were influenced by Judaism and Hellenic sources. 

Human motives frequently shape views of afterlife. For example, Jesus taught that people would enter God's kingdom at the Final Judgement, a future day of reckoning when 'God would destroy all that is evil and raise the dead, to punish the wicked and reward the faithful'.

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