be. But the general trend is unmistakable, and it is increasingly toward an eschatological view that sees all the departed as fully conscious in the afterlife and as subject to divine reward or punishment. By the time of Christ, the view articulated in the pseudepigraphal material about sinners being cast into a place of fire and torment had become commonplace, as our examination of some of these texts has shown.40 The authors of these texts no longer had to argue their views of eternal punishment