There is no systematic theology in the New Testament regarding death and aftelife. Therefore, the appropriate question, as it turns out, is not: What does the New Testament say about death and afterlife, but what do various New Testament texts say about it? She explores anthropology, cosmology, eschatology, and, where relevant, theology and Christology.

Philip S. Johnston examines Israelite views on death and afterlife as reflected in the Hebrew Bible and in material remains, and sets them in their cultural, literary and theological contexts.

Over half of Americans believe in a literal heaven, in a literal hell. Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. Ehrman shows that eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament, and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught. He recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. Ehrman shows that competing views were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. -- adapted from jacket

This updated edition by one of the world's leading apologists presents a systematic, positive case for Christianity that reflects the latest work in the contemporary hard sciences and humanities. Brilliant and accessible.

Many people fear dying and are uncertain about life after death. In this engaging book, a Catholic theologian addresses perennial human questions about death and what lies beyond, making a Christian case for an afterlife with God. Nichols begins by examining views of death and the afterlife in Scripture and the Christian tradition. He takes up scientific and philosophical challenges to the afterlife and considers what we can learn about it from near death experiences. Nichols then addresses topics such as the soul, bodily resurrection, salvation, heaven, hell, and purgatory. Finally, he addresses the important issue of preparing for death and dying well.

Get ready for life after death. Combining three books that together have sold nearly 1 million copies, Heaven and the Afterlife gives you Erwin Lutzer’s best reflections on eternity and what it means for you today. The trilogyincludes: One Minute After You Die. A simple and moving explanation of what the Bible teaches about death, this book makes you consider a sobering truth: one minute after you die, your life will not be over. Rather, it will be just beginning—in a place of unimaginable bliss or indescribable gloom. Are you ready for that moment? How You Can Be Sure You Will Spend Eternity with Godsummarizes the Bible’s teaching on salvation, answering questions like, “What role do I play in my own salvation? Can I lose my salvation if I commit a serious sin? What if I doubt that I’m saved?” Your Eternal Reward. This book explores the often-overlooked Scriptures about reward and judgment for Christians, answering questions like, “How will believers be judged? Do rewards for faithfulness vary? If heaven is perfect, why do rewards even matter?” Together these books will help you live faithfully today, readying you for that final hour when you meet your Maker.

This volume, written by eleven first-class scholars, brings into focus the Resurrection message of the New Testament. Much more than just biblical exposition, these essays demonstrate how the resurrection both provides the basis for joyful living now despite the shadow of death and undergirds the Christian belief in a future after death.

In this “compulsively readable exploration of the tangled world of Christian origins” (Publishers Weekly), religious historian James Tabor illuminates the earliest years of Jesus’ teachings before Paul shaped them into the religion we know today. This fascinating examination of the earliest years of Christianity reveals how the man we call St. Paul shaped Christianity as we know it today. Historians know almost nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped and began to spread his message. During this time Paul joined the movement and began to preach to the gentiles. Using the oldest Christian documents that we have—the letters of Paul—as well as other early Chris­tian sources, historian and scholar James Tabor reconstructs the origins of Christianity. Tabor shows how Paul separated himself from Peter and James to introduce his own version of Christianity, which would continue to develop independently of the message that Jesus, James, and Peter preached. Paul and Jesus illuminates the fascinating period of history when Christianity was born out of Judaism.

What happens after death to Jesus and to those who follow him? Jesus and the Demise of Death offers a constructive theology that seeks to answer that very question, carefully considering both Jesus' descent into hell and eventual resurrection as integral parts of a robust vision of the Christian bodily resurrection. Taking on the claims of N.T. Wright and Richard B. Hays, Matthew Levering draws strongly upon the work of Thomas Aquinas to propose a radical reconstruction of Christian eschatological theology--one that takes seriously the profound ways in which Christianity and its beatific vision have been enriched by Platonic thought and emphasizes the role of the Church community in the passage from life to death. In so doing, Levering underscores the hope in eternal life for Jesus' followers and gives readers firm and fruitful soil upon which to base conversations about the Christian's future.

Postmortem existence in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was rooted in mortuary practices and conceptualized through the embodiment of the dead. But this idea of the afterlife was not hopeless or fatalistic, consigned to the dreariness of the tomb. The dead were cherished and remembered, their bones were cared for, and their names lived on as ancestors. This book examines the concept of the afterlife in the Hebrew Bible by studying the treatment of the dead, as revealed both in biblical literature and in the material remains of the southern Levant. The mortuary culture of Judah during the Iron Age is the starting point for this study. The practice of collective burial inside a Judahite rock-cut bench tomb is compared to biblical traditions of family tombs and joining one's ancestors in death. This archaeological analysis, which also incorporates funerary inscriptions, will shed important insight into concepts found in biblical literature such as the construction of the soul in death, the nature of corpse impurity, and the idea of Sheol. In Judah and the Hebrew Bible, death was a transition that was managed through the ritual actions of the living. The connections that were forged through such actions, such as ancestor veneration, were socially meaningful for the living and insured a measure of immortality for the dead.