A Book Group Exploring the Diversity of Religion

Readings on Faiths Around the World is a book group that reads and discusses books covering the vast diversity of world faiths. Of course, the standard seven world religions will be included but we will also explore less well-known religious/spiritual groups. The only prerequisite needed for this group is a desire to learn more about the world’s religious traditions.

Our next book is Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, by Bart D. Ehrman. Ehrman is a leading authority on the New Testament and early Christianity. He is recently retired from the University of North Carolina.  In this book he discusses the origins of ideas surrounding what happens after death. Demonstrating that ideas of heaven and hell / punishments and rewards appear nowhere in the Old Testament and they were not taught by Jesus or his earliest followers. So, Ehrman takes us on a trip further back in human history to discover the origins of afterlife. One discovery he makes is that there never was a single understanding of the afterlife, but rather numerous competing ideas. Fear of death is central to many folks’ thoughts of the afterlife. But why?