We had a good discussion about heaven and hell and how the concepts of eternal reward and punishment appeal to an early stage of moral development. One of the concepts we discussed was the history of the concept of hell. One of the scholars who has written about this subject is Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton. She is an expert on the Gnostic literature and has written multiple books on the subject, including Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas and The Gnostic Gospels. The books that touch on today’s subject are The Origin of Satan and perhaps Adam, Eve and the Serpent. For those interested in a little video, Charlie Rose interviewed Pagels back in 1995 about The Origin of Satan, and you can watch the video here. The Pagels segment begins at 31:08.

I also mentioned a Yale course about the Bible that is available online. That course is available here, and I would highly recommend these lectures if you are interested in a basic university level introduction to the Hebrew Bible but don’t have the time or interest to take an actual course.

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