- Feb 26, 2022
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NT Wright, who is an Anglican Evangelical scholar and Church of England bishop, has written a number of popular academic works about St. Paul. One of them is a biography.
In a You Tube presentation about his biography of St. Paul, NT Wright says that when Luther and Calvin and other 16th century theologians discussed St. Paul's views on justification with respect to individual salvation, they looked for biblical answers to late medieval questions.
The same questions weren't asked by the first Christians. Platonists like Plutarch were who thought people went to heaven or hell. Heaven and hell framework was a construct of the high middle ages, to which 16th century reformers provided new twists, but distorted the 1st century positions. To Paul what mattered was not people being taken away to distant heaven, but heaven and earth coming together in an entirely new way. Transformation of the present world and us with it. New bodies in newly constituted creation. Changes everything on the way. The ancients didn't think heaven and earth were widely separated places.
Can anyone suggest books on the history of Christian belief in heaven and hell? Especially the notion that it was a product of medieval thinking?
All I have found so far is short articles that suggest that our beliefs about heaven, hell and individual salvation began to develop in the early middle ages.
In a You Tube presentation about his biography of St. Paul, NT Wright says that when Luther and Calvin and other 16th century theologians discussed St. Paul's views on justification with respect to individual salvation, they looked for biblical answers to late medieval questions.
The same questions weren't asked by the first Christians. Platonists like Plutarch were who thought people went to heaven or hell. Heaven and hell framework was a construct of the high middle ages, to which 16th century reformers provided new twists, but distorted the 1st century positions. To Paul what mattered was not people being taken away to distant heaven, but heaven and earth coming together in an entirely new way. Transformation of the present world and us with it. New bodies in newly constituted creation. Changes everything on the way. The ancients didn't think heaven and earth were widely separated places.
Can anyone suggest books on the history of Christian belief in heaven and hell? Especially the notion that it was a product of medieval thinking?
All I have found so far is short articles that suggest that our beliefs about heaven, hell and individual salvation began to develop in the early middle ages.