Inventing Hell: Dante, the Bible and Eternal Torment

Hell: The word conjures up terrifying images of lakes of fire and demons waving pitchforks, of eternal separation from God. Some people thing the Bible is clear about hell (and who goes there), but what if they're mistaken?

With engaging narrative and solid scholarship, Sweeney charts the evolution of hell from the Old Testament Sheol (the dusty underworld where all souls traveled) to the deep reaches of Virgil's Aeneid, from Ovid's idiosyncratic Metamorphoses to the greatest influence: Dante's graphic Inferno. He demonstrates that our contemporary [Western] understanding of hell is based mostly on Dante's imagination - and in the process, offers a more constructive understanding of the afterlife .

Disturbing and enthralling, Sweeney challenges what we think happens to us after we die - and more importantly, he asks us to reconsider how we live.