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The question of death and the afterlife has been central to all religious systems, right from the origins of man. Whether or not it involves the idea of a judgement and a punishment for sins committed, the belief in the existence of a realm of the dead is found in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in all the great Oriental religions, and in ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman culture.

In all the earliest books of the Bible, to die “an old man and full of years” is a divine grace, and man continues to live through descendancy. However, the dead do not disappear entirely: they “join their ancestors” and their home is the Sheol, a tomb, a ditch, a place in which it is not possible to praise God.  When the Prophets speak of resurrection, they refer to the rebirth of the people of Israel. Around two centuries before Jesus, however, a doctrine of the individual resurrection of bodies was developed, with a prospect of a realm of delight and peace for the righteous, and of torment for the wicked. 

In Christianity, this doctrine would take the form of Heaven and Hell: in a religion of salvation that respects human free will, Hell is necessary to underline the seriousness of the choice between Good and Evil. The Christian Hell involves the suffering of both the senses and the spirit, through remorse and the awareness of the eternity of the pains and of the irrevocable distance from God. Its genesis is unclear. Some extra-Biblical writings tell of the prince of the angels, originally created good, who is said to have rebelled against God and was cast down from Heaven with a host of angels. The myth of the rebellious angels is found in the New Testament: the angels have fallen into the dark abyss of Hell and are kept in eternal chains.