Why Did the Concept of the Afterlife Change By The First Century?

Tartarus: the place of Doom

Gary: The ancient Greek author, Homer, writing in the late 8th or early 7th century BCE, tells the story of a living human being, Odysseus, descending into the Underworld to converse with the dead. Six or seven centuries later, the Roman poet, Virgil, tells a similar story, using a different character, Aeneas, to visit the Abode of the Dead. However, in Virgil’s version the concept of the Afterlife has dramatically changed.

[Aeneas … comes to a fork in the road. The right path leads to Elysium, the place of eternal happiness, but the left hand path leads down to Tartarus: the place of doom. Between Elysium and Tartarus is a flaming river; a moat of fire; a barrier to prevent the wicked from escaping their fate.]

Groans resound from the depths, the savage crack of the lash, the grating creak of iron, the clank of dragging chains.

(Aeneid, Book 6, lines 647-48)

Aeneas …then makes his way to Elysium:

…the land of joy; of fresh green fields, the fortunate groves where the blessed make their homes. Here a freer air, a dazzling radiance clothes the fields and the spirits possess their own sun, their own stars.

(Aeneid, Book 6, lines 741-44)

[As wonderful as it sounds, there is an odd ambiguity that is hard to explain: the souls which Aeneas sees feasting and playing sports in the lush green fields of Elysium have no physical existence. They have no bodies. Aeneas tries to hug his deceased father, but just as Homer’s Odysseus tried to hug his mother and “she slipped though my fingers” so too “the phantom” of his father sifted through Aeneas’ fingers.]

Virgil does not populate Hades with shades that all experience the same boring and pleasure-free existence. He writes of hellish torments for some and heavenly glories for others. Most have to be punished for their sins before being given a second chance at life [reincarnation]. Why such a change from Homer? What has led to this invention of heaven and hell?

–NT scholar Bart Ehrman in Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, pp. 47-53

Gary: What or who?

Answer: Plato.

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End of post.