Dov Weiss, Associate Professor of Religion, was recently interviewed by Kveller about the television series "Lucifer," a police procedural that touches on themes of sin, forgiveness, and the afterlife.

Read Weiss’ interview with Kveller here.

This interview coincides with Weiss' upcoming book entitled “Rabbinic Inferno: Hell in Classical Judaism,” which will be the first scholarly book on afterlife retribution in the rabbinic era (70-700 CE). Rather than being absent in classical Jewish discourse, or occupying its periphery, hell (Gehinnom in Hebrew) played a central role in ancient Jewish literature and culture. Rabbinic Inferno uses ancient Jewish discourse about Gehinnom—as it emerges in rabbinic biblical interpretation—to unearth the distinctive anxieties, values, aesthetics, fantasies, and hopes within classical Jewish culture. Without such analysis, our understanding of Judaism remains incomplete.