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Hell and Its Rivals: Death and Retribution among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Early Middle Ages

2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 86; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jaarel/lfx062

1477-4585

David M. Freidenreich,

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

Hell, as imagined by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, is infinitely capacious. One will never find a “no vacancy” sign at its mouth. In this respect—among many others!—hell differs markedly from scholarship, whose value rests on a degree of expertise that cannot, unfortunately, be all-encompassing in nature. Alan Bernstein’s expertise is on full display in this volume, a sequel to The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Cornell University Press, 1996). So too, however, are the limits of this expertise. Hell and Its Rivals offers a reminder of why scholars should not bite off more than they can chew. Bernstein displays absolute command of Christian conceptions of hell from 400 to 800 CE, the primary focus of this volume. Hell and Its Rivals provides apparently comprehensive coverage of Latin works about hell from this period, and the book will no doubt be indispensable for future research on these sources. Bernstein also makes frequent reference to earlier sources, analyzed in greater detail in his Formation of Hell, and to later sources as well; he concludes by expressing his hope to devote a future volume to the period from Charlemagne to the First Crusade (358).