Jesus's real teachings on the afterlife, and where our idea of hell actually came from.
The Problem of Hell
Many people have trouble understanding how a loving God could send billions of people to unending torment, punished forever for believing the wrong things or living the wrong way. Many quietly fear they may be among the damned, and do everything they can to escape it.
But is eternal hell what the Bible actually teaches? Is it what Jesus himself believed? When you read the texts in their original Hebrew and Greek, rather than through centuries of translation and tradition, the answer turns out to be far stranger, and far more hopeful, than most of us were ever told.
In this free two-lecture course, Bart Ehrman traces where the idea of hell really came from: not from the Hebrew Bible, not from the lips of Jesus, but from a wider world of ideas that Christianity absorbed only generations after his death.
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Format
A free live course
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Lectures
2 + live Q&A
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Cost
Free, our gift to you
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Instructor
Bart Ehrman
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Access
Recordings on demand
The Two Lectures
Where the idea of hell came from, and how it conquered the Christian imagination, in two sittings, with live Q&A.
A tour of the afterlife across the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, asking whether it truly teaches that a few souls enjoy paradise while most suffer never-ending torment. The answer is a resounding no. Belief in a literal hell was read into the text, built on inaccurate translations of the original Hebrew and Greek.
If hell is not in the Hebrew Bible, and not what Jesus taught, where did it come from? Beginning in the second century, Christianity set aside Jesus’s hope for a future resurrection of the dead and adopted instead the wider non-Jewish belief that the soul lives on forever, in blessing or in despair.
Bart D. Ehrman · 2026 James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he taught from 1988 until his retirement in 2025. Recognized internationally for his scholarship on the New Testament and early Christianity, Professor Ehrman has written or edited thirty-three books, including six New York Times bestsellers. His college-level textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings has remained the best-selling text in the field for more than twenty-five years. His scholarly works have been published by Oxford, Harvard, Yale, and other premier academic presses, and his books have been translated into twenty-seven languages, reaching millions of readers worldwide.
Beyond the classroom, Professor Ehrman is a widely recognized public scholar. He has produced nine acclaimed courses for The Great Courses, in addition to numerous online courses available through BartEhrman.com. His books and courses have sold more than two million copies.
He also writes for his charitable blog, The Bart Ehrman Blog, which has raised millions for organizations addressing poverty, homelessness, and hunger. In addition, he hosts the weekly podcast Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman, available on YouTube and all major podcast platforms, where he brings cutting-edge biblical scholarship to a global audience.
What This Course Offers
Bart Ehrman takes one of the most frightening ideas in Western religion and shows where it actually came from, clearly and rigorously, and for free.
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What the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels, and the book of Revelation really say about death, judgment, and the world to come, in their own words, and in their original languages.
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Bart Ehrman has spent a lifetime in the New Testament and wrote the definitive popular history of the afterlife, Heaven and Hell. You get a specialist’s command of the evidence, not a sermon.
How the West built its picture of the damned.
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Join the live lectures and Q&A on July 18, or watch the full recordings on demand afterward. Either way, it costs nothing.
The pagan underworld that Christianity made its own.
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No background required. Whether the idea of hell terrifies you, puzzles you, or simply fascinates you, the history is told from the ground up.
Common Assumption
The Bible clearly teaches that sinners burn in hell forever.
In fact
Eternal conscious torment is barely in the Bible at all. Most of the passages people cite rest on mistranslations of Hebrew and Greek words that never meant a fiery, never-ending hell.
Common Assumption
Jesus warned his followers to avoid going to hell.
In fact
Jesus proclaimed a coming Kingdom of God and a resurrection of the dead, not the immortal soul’s descent into eternal fire. That idea entered Christianity only later.
Common Assumption
“Sheol,” “Hades,” and “Gehenna” all simply mean hell.
In fact
They don’t. Sheol is the grave, the silent place of all the dead, good and bad alike. The single English word “hell” flattens several very different ancient ideas into one.
Common Assumption
The Christian afterlife came straight from Jesus and the apostles.
In fact
Much of it came from Greek philosophy and the wider non-Jewish world, absorbed by the church beginning in the second century, generations after Jesus himself.
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A 30-minute live question-and-answer session. Ask Bart your own questions about hell, judgment, and the afterlife.
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Can’t attend live, or want to revisit it? Every registrant receives the complete recordings of both lectures and the Q&A to watch anytime.
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This free course is your introduction to Bart’s full library of in-depth courses and to the Biblical Studies Academy community.
The whole course, completely free.
$39.95 Value Bart’s two-lecture courses start at $39.95, but this one is free, our gift to anyone asking the question.
FREE
Bart’s two-lecture courses start at $39.95, but this one is free, our gift to anyone asking the question.
Included Free: Full access to both lectures, the live Q&A, and the recordings.
Access this Course PLUS Every Course in Our Vault
(250+ Hours of Biblical Learning!)
then special rate $49.95/month
Completely free. There is no cost and no credit card required. Register and you’ll get access to both lectures and the live Q&A, plus the recordings afterward.
Bart records the course live on July 18, 2026, with a live Q&A. If you can’t attend live, register anyway, and every registrant receives the full recordings to watch on demand.
Two lectures, “When Hell Disappeared from the Bible” and “Who Invented Hell?”, plus a 30-minute live question-and-answer session with Bart.
After you register, we’ll email you the link to join live and, afterward, instructions for watching the recordings on our online course platform. If you are a member of Biblical Studies Academy (BSA), you’ll also find it inside the community.
None at all. Bart introduces every text, figure, and idea as the course unfolds. Believers, skeptics, and the simply curious are all equally welcome.
No. It’s history. Bart examines what the biblical authors and Jesus actually said about death and the afterlife, and how later beliefs developed. These are questions that matter to believers and non-believers alike.
Yes. Every registrant receives the recordings, and closed captions are available.
Email us anytime at support@bartehrman.com and our team will be glad to help.
