A comprehensive survey of how religions understand death, dying, and the afterlife, drawing on examples from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Shamanic perspectives.
- Considers shared and differing views of death across the world’s major religions, including on the nature of death itself, the reasons for it, the identity of those who die, religious rituals, and on how the living should respond to death
- Places emphasis on the varying concepts of the ‘self’ or soul
- Uses a thematic structure to facilitate a broader comparative understanding
- Written in an accessible style to appeal to an undergraduate audience, it fills major gap in current textbook literature
Author(s): Angela Sumegi
Publisher: Wiley Blackwell
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 282
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Understanding Death
....Return from the Dead
....Debates and Definitions
....Death and the Self
....Ritual and Transformation
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
2 Primal Perspectives on Death
....Soul Theories of Primal Peoples
....The Destiny of Souls
....Afterlife among theWarao
....Rituals of Departure
....A Conversation on Understanding Death
....References and Further Reading
3 Death in the Ancient World
....Egypt
....Egyptian Soul Theory
....Transforming the Body
....Egyptian Afterlife
....The Story of Osiris
....Mesopotamia
....Gilgamesh and the Search for Immortality
....The Spirits of the Dead in Mesopotamian Culture
....Persia
....Zoroaster and the Evil of Death
....Salvation for All
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
4 Jewish Perspectives on Death
....The Beginning of Death
....The Soul and Sheol
....Resurrection and the World to Come
....The Journey of the Soul
....Rituals of Departure
....A Conversation on Understanding Death
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
5 Christian Perspectives on Death
....The Death of Jesus
....Developments in Christian Thought on the Soul
....Resurrection and Eternal Life
....Heaven and Hell
....Rituals of Departure
....A Conversation on Understanding Death
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
6 Muslim Perspectives on Death
....The Names of God
....Ruh and Nafs
....The Trial of the Grave
....The Garden (Janna) and the Fire (Jahannam)
....Modern Islamic Views on Heaven and Hell
....Rituals of Departure
....A Conversation on Understanding Death
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
7 Hindu Perspectives on Death
....Feeding the Ancestors
....The First Sacrifice
....Death, the Immortal
....The Inner Controller
....In the House of Death
....The Three Paths to Liberation
....Rituals of Departure
....A Conversation on Understanding Death
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
8 Buddhist Perspectives on Death
....The Life and Death of the Buddha
....The Noble Truths
....Karma, Self, and the Wheel of Becoming
....Nirvana: The Deathless
....Rituals of Departure
....A Conversation on Understanding Death
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
9 Daoist Perspectives on Death
....The Ancestors
....Soul Theories
....The NamelessWay
....Transformations of the Self
....The Search for Immortality
....Rituals of Departure
....A Conversation on Understanding Death
....Notes
....References and Further Reading
....Index
