If the love of Christ is ours, there is no need to fear " no need to fear death; no need to fear the moment we enter the underworld; no need to fear the underworld spaces; no need to fear the beings we may or may not meet in them. (p.137)
This one sentence captures the message and shape of Peter Bolt's new book Living with the Underworld (Matthias Media. 2007). Despite its harrowing subject matter - the world of evil spirits, demons, ghosts, magic and Satan - it is so well written that it is actually entertaining to read. And, rarely for a Christian book aimed squarely at a popular market, it offers significant new insights and advances in our understanding of its subject matter. Although Peter Bolt and Matthias Media are to be congratulated on Living with the Underworld, the book is not without a few problems as well.
I noticed five strengths and two weaknesses.
Firstly, it is well written and accessible, and for a book on such a grim subject, delightfully entertaining, especially with the use of The Sopranos theme as another model of an "underworld.'
Secondly, behind the easy-going style of this book lies important and extensive scholarly research, especially Peter's doctoral studies in Jesus’ defeat of death in Mark's gospel which involved him in extensive work in issues of the underworld in New Testament times. Maybe the book should have less modestly given a bibliography of some of the solid work that lies behind it for those like me who were stimulated to follow it up.
Thirdly, Bolt is aware that so much of the underworld is on the periphery of the biblical picture whose purpose is to show a light on Christ at the centre. Being on the periphery our information is incomplete and unclear. The book itself reflects this approach. If the reader comes to Living with the Underworld looking for details concerning our knowledge of demons and spirits and ghosts, they will come away somewhat frustrated. Peter Bolt also well integrates the "extraordinary" underworld of the spirits with the more pervasive if hidden power of the underworld in "ordinary life".
And fourthly, this book offers genuinely fresh insights. The most striking is in Bolt's argument that we are to understand the demons (daemons) or unclean spirits of Jesus' day as the spirits of the dead. This is quite a shift because in classic Protestant thought the argument has been the other way round: that so-called ghosts are evil spirits masquerading as spirits of the dead. Bolt reverses this. And in general he shows that the underworld is foremost the place of death in ways that move the secular, western reader like myself to take it all a lot more seriously.
Fifthly, there is a clear and attractive presentation of Christ's victory over the underworld and the need for Christians to live in that victory rather than chasing after or being unduly speculative about demons and ghosts and whatever else there is.
The book has, however, some weaknesses. Two in particular struck me.
One is that while we learn much of what people believed in New Testament times, it does not adequately deal with the further question of what really is out (or is it down?) there. Peter Bolt is aware of the problem of relating classic cosmology with the contemporary scientific understanding but doesn't go far enough. Nor does he really attempt a solid theological understanding of the underworld.
This leads to my second criticism. The book ends somewhat hurriedly. The last chapters on the victory of Christ hit all the right buttons but do not seem to flow smoothly from the careful and rich presentation with which the book has proceeded up to then There is even the occasional paragraph where the reader may suspect an editor has added in pieces to correct or to make the book more orthodox. One example is a late mention of the eternal judgment by God beyond the grave (p.129) absent from and disintegrated with earlier detailed discussions of the underworld. And the warnings in the last chapter to focus on Christ and not to directly engage with the underworld, sound as they may be in general terms, don't quite seem adequate to deal with some of the phenomena which occur in human experience today as in the ancient times.
Whatever limitations it may have, Living with the Underworld is a challenging and refreshing place to begin thinking about the difficult and intimidating topic of the underworld from a thoughtful biblical perspective. I recommend the book very highly.
