Coast to Coast AM - Dec 01 2004 - Ancient Ghosts & the Underworld

Host: George Noory
Guest: Mike Heiser

Mike Heiser(1), a scholar of ancient history and archaeology, spoke about ghosts and the underworld in the ancient texts of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Bible.

There were similar concepts of the underworld across various ancient civilizations, he said, noting that it was thought of as a watery rather fiery world and that it was positioned as being underneath the Earth.
The notion of hell as a place of eternal punishment began to evolve after the Old Testament, he stated, with Hades or Gehenna (possibly named after a real place that was said to have burning human sacrifices) first being mentioned in writings from before the New Testament.

The story of Samuel from the Bible is one in which a ghost makes an appearance, Heiser shared. Samuel was pulled out of Sheol (the Hebrew underworld) in order to pronounce Saul's fate. In the New Testament, the entities of spirits and angels could sometimes be referring to what we think of as ghosts, Heiser detailed, citing an example related to Peter's escape from jail.

He also discussed how the term "shades" used to describe the dead in Mesopotamia, Greek myth, and the Old Testament possibly relates to modern day reports of Shadow People.

Credit to the original uploader Nefretiri.