The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife: The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of BristolBelief in the afterlife is still very much alive in Western civilisation, even though the truth of its existence is no longer universally accepted. Surprisingly, however, heaven, hell and the immortal soul were all ideas which arrived relatively late in the ancient world. Originally Greece and Israel - the cultures that gave us Christianity - had only the vaguest ideas of an afterlife. So where did these concepts come from and why did they develop? |
Contents
Orphism Pythagoras and the rise of the immortal soul | 11 |
Travelling souls? Greek shamanism reconsidered | 27 |
The resurrection from Zoroaster to late antiquity | 41 |
from | 56 |
Ancient necromancy and modern spiritualism | 71 |
ancient medieval and modern | 87 |
Why did Jesus followers call themselves Christians? | 103 |
The birth of the term Paradise | 109 |
Gods heavenly palace as a military court | 128 |
Notes | 134 |
187 | |
225 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Abaris Achaemenid afterlife already Alten Ancient Antike Apocalypse Archaic Aristeas Avesta belief Berlin Bodmer body Bremmer Burkert Cambridge Cathars Christ classical connection cult dead death derived Derveni Papyrus Dionysos Dodds Dorotheus E. R. Dodds early Christian Eleusis Empedocles Epimenides eschatology Essenes FGrH fifth century Gnostic Göttingen Graf Greece Greek Hades heaven hell Hellenistic Herodotus Hippolytus History Homer ideas important influence Jesus Jewish Jews Judaism king Late Antiquity later Leiden Leipzig LIMC literature Livrea London Lore and Science Magic martyrs medieval mention Meuli modern morte Munich Near-Death Experience necromancy oracle origin Orpheus Orphic orphische Orphism Oxford pagan paradeisos Paradise passage Passion Perpetua Persian Plato probably psychê purgatory Pythagoras Pythagorean Qumran recently reincarnation Religion resurrection ritual Rome Scythian seems shamanism soul Studies Stuttgart Testament texts theogony Thesprotian tradition translation Tübingen underworld vision vols Paris York Zoroastrian