A New York Times bestselling historian of early Christianity takes on two of the most gripping questions of human existence: where did the ideas of heaven and hell come from, and why do they endure?

Marking a departure in our understanding of Christian views of the afterlife from 250 to 650 CE, The Ransom of the Soul explores a revolutionary shift in thinking about the fate of the soul that occurred around the time of Rome's fall. Peter Brown describes how this shift transformed the church's institutional relationship to money and set the stage for its domination of medieval society in the West. Early Christian doctrine held that the living and...

"Millions of people around the world have reported a near-death experience. Do they prove the existence of a loving God? Never in history, until now, have we been able to hear from so many people around the world who have been brought back from clinical death. Modern medical resuscitation and digital communication have revealed a goldmine of intriguing near-death experiences (NDEs) that show us the character of God. John Burke has spent the last three...