My name is Isabel J. Bond, and this website is intended to function as a blog and academic portfolio of sorts. To give a little background: I am a recent graduate of the University of Georgia, where I earned my M.A. in Religion with a concentration in Biblical Studies. For the past two years, my research has focused primarily on the concepts of Hell and salvation after death in early Christianity, as well as Christ’s descent into Hell/Hades. More broadly, I am interested in what Christians believe and have believed about Hell and postmortem punishment.
The title of this website is derived from the title of my M.A. thesis, “Crossing the Chasm: Postmortem Salvation in Early Christian Tradition,” which itself is an allusion to the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke:
In Hades, where he [the rich man] was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” (Luke 16:19-26, New Revised Standard Version; emphasis added)
For my work, the phrase “crossing the chasm” carries two meanings. First, it can refer to instances within the Christian tradition in which the possibility of the damned “crossing over” after death is explored. For instance, in the Rainer Fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter, those in heaven are able to intercede on the behalf of the damned and request that they be delivered out of postmortem punishment. Some have also suggested that Christ freed some or all of the dead in Hell/Hades during his descent. Certain forms of Christian Universalism also suggest that Hell, while real, is ultimately temporary, and that those in Hell will eventually be granted salvation after undergoing a period of purificatory punishment. In these instances, the untraversable becomes traversable, often through the direct intercession of Christ or the righteous; the uncrossable chasm is crossed.
Second, this phrase refers to the overarching goal of my research: to “cross the chasm” between those in and outside of academia, making scholarship on Christianity more accessible for a general audience. Though I am far from being the only scholar of Christianity to pursue this goal, I hope that my perspective – as a Generation Z woman from a mainline Protestant background who is still a practicing Christian – will allow me to make valuable contributions to the ongoing conversations surrounding Hell, the afterlife, and various other biblical and theological topics.
Crossing the Chasm 