If you're interested in "origin" religions of the various modern religions as well as cultural roots of concepts now commonplace, might I recommend a
nice light read, called:
The History of Hell ~!
http://books.google.ca/books/about/T...MC&redir_esc=y
I read it years ago and it traces the evolution of thought of how a concept of "Hell" came into existence in modern religion as well as the history of what the "afterlife" was thought of prior to the construction of this concept. It traces the roots from religions prevalent in Babylon and Mesopotamia as well as Christianity's roots in Judaism and Zoroastrianism.