Show Summary Details

Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 10 December 2019

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter examines the themes of descent to hell and ascent to heaven in apocalyptic literature, focusing on the period from Homer to late antiquity. It discusses the diachronic developments and interrelationships of descents and ascents within Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. After considering descents into the underworld in the classical world, that is, ancient Greece, it turns to a series of apocalyptic texts composed most probably in Palestine with Enoch. It then looks at descents in ancient Rome and in early Christianity, the ascent of the soul to heaven, and ascent to immortal heavenly life.

Keywords: descent to hell, ascent to heaven, apocalyptic literature, Homer, late antiquity, underworld, ancient Greece, Palestine, ancient Rome, Christianity

Jan N. Bremmer

Jan N. Bremmer is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. His books include Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East and The Rise of Christianity through the Eyes of Gibbon, Harnack and Rodney Stark.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.