In reality, the idea of eternal perdition for the wickedest of souls, in a place of unending suffering, appears to have been a Greek notion—mythological, religious, and philosophical—before it ever took (shallow) root in Jewish thought; it is certainly also an idea of only the most dubious “scriptural” authenticity. Plato’s Phaedo, for example, contains a far more unambiguous theory of perpetual damnation than does any text found in the Bible. The spiritual vision common to the pagan world in which Christianity was born accommodated an immense range of speculations and beliefs and doubts
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