An Early Afterlife PDF Download

Author: Linda Pastan
Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated
ISBN: 9780393313819
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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"She is always exhilarating for a reader and very educational for a writer. She just happens to be one of the creators among current poets, alive and surprising, and deft." --William Stratford

Author: Guolong Lai
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295805706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In Excavating the Afterlife, Guolong Lai explores the dialectical relationship between sociopolitical change and mortuary religion from an archaeological perspective. By examining burial structure, grave goods, and religious documents unearthed from groups of well-preserved tombs in southern China, Lai shows that new attitudes toward the dead, resulting from the trauma of violent political struggle and warfare, permanently altered the early Chinese conceptions of this world and the afterlife. The book grounds the important changes in religious beliefs and ritual practices firmly in the sociopolitical transition from the Warring States (ca. 453�221 BCE) to the early empires (3rd century�1st century BCE). A methodologically sophisticated synthesis of archaeological, art historical, and textual sources, Excavating the Afterlife will be of interest to art historians, archaeologists, and textual scholars of China, as well as to students of comparative religions. For more information: http://arthistorypi.org/books/excavating-the-afterlife

Author: Craig Rustici
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472115440
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Investigates representations of the legend of Pope Joan in Early Modern England and their implications on social, political, and religious thought

Author: Stephen E. Potthoff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317294068
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage explores how the visionary experiences of early Christian martyrs shaped and informed early Christian ancestor cult and the construction of the cemetery as paradise. Taking the early Christian cemeteries in Carthage as a case study, the volume broadens our understanding of the historical and cultural origins of the early Christian cult of the saints, and highlights the often divergent views about the dead and post-mortem realms expressed by the church fathers, and in graveside ritual and the material culture of the cemetery. This fascinating study is a key resource for students of late antique and early Christian culture.

Author: Jonathan S. Burgess
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421403617
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Achilles’ death—by an arrow shot through the vulnerable heel of the otherwise invincible mythic hero—was as well known in antiquity as the rest of the history of the Trojan War. However, this important event was not described directly in either of the great Homeric epics, the Iliad or the Odyssey. Noted classics scholar Jonathan S. Burgess traces the story of Achilles as represented in other ancient sources in order to offer a deeper understanding of the death and afterlife of the celebrated Greek warrior. Through close readings of additional literary sources and analysis of ancient artwork, such as vase paintings, Burgess uncovers rich accounts of Achilles’ death as well as alternative versions of his afterlife. Taking a neoanalytical approach, Burgess is able to trace the influence of these parallel cultural sources on Homer’s composition of the Iliad. With his keen, original analysis of hitherto untapped literary, iconographical, and archaeological sources, Burgess adds greatly to our understanding of this archetypal mythic hero.

Author: Charles W. King
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477320229
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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A comprehensive study of the manes, their worship, and their place in Roman conceptions of their society. In ancient Rome, it was believed some humans were transformed into special, empowered beings after death. These deified dead, known as the manes, watched over and protected their surviving family members, possibly even extending those relatives’ lives. But unlike the Greek hero-cult, the worship of dead emperors, or the Christian saints, the manes were incredibly inclusive—enrolling even those without social clout, such as women and the poor, among Rome’s deities. The Roman afterlife promised posthumous power in the world of the living. While the manes have often been glossed over in studies of Roman religion, this book brings their compelling story to the forefront, exploring their myriad forms and how their worship played out in the context of Roman religion’s daily practice. Exploring the place of the manes in Roman society, Charles King delves into Roman beliefs about their powers to sustain life and bring death to individuals or armies, examines the rituals the Romans performed to honor them, and reclaims the vital role the manes played in the ancient Roman afterlife. “King ranges widely across literary genres, law, epigraphy, and archaeology. He provides a thorough, rigorous, and well-documented study of an aspect of Roman religion and culture that, despite its importance, has so far not received due attention.” —James B. Rives, author of Religion in the Roman Empire “Groundbreaking . . . An invaluable resource for scholars of religion, funerary practice and afterlife in ancient Rome and more generally . . . King aims to use his model of variability in Roman belief to show the cult of the dead as inclusive of all Romans, living and deceased. Through extensive literary evidence and select cross-cultural comparisons, he largely succeeds. This stands to become a foundational text.” —Antiquity “King presents many attractive impressions of Roman society in his study . . . King’s major thesis—that Romans regarded their dead as gods, thought about them, communicated with them, attended to them, and intended to join them—is conclusively presented.” —Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Author: Gregory Shushan
Publisher: Continuum
ISBN: 9781441130884
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Gregory Shushan challenges post-modern scholarly attitudes concerning cross-cultural comparisons in the study of religions. In an original and innovative piece of comparative research, he analyses afterlife conceptions in five ancient civilisations (Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumerian and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica). These are considered in light of historical and contemporary reports of near-death experiences, and shamanic afterlife 'journeys'. Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations is a significant study, for it presents a comprehensive new comparative framework for the cross-cultural study of myth and religion, while at the same time providing a fascinating exploration of the interface between belief and experience.

Author: Peter Brown
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674967585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Peter Brown explores a revolutionary shift in thinking about the fate of the soul between 250 and 650 CE, showing how personal wealth in the pursuit of redemption led Church doctrine concerning the afterlife to evolve from speculation to firm reality. This new relationship to money set the stage for the Church's domination of medieval society.

Author: J. Harold Ellens
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440801843
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 905

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Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all feature ideas about heaven, hell, and afterlife, and these concepts have evolved over time within these religions. This work supplies a detailed and coherent understanding of the broad scope of spiritual thinking in the last 3,000 years within the Abrahamic traditions. Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife: Eternity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam provides an all-encompassing examination of historic and contemporary perspectives on afterlife in Western religions. In these three volumes, Judaic, Christian, and Muslim scholars join forces, providing an unprecedented review of their individual faith's traditions. Every significant issue and major theme is discussed; no controversial topic is avoided. From ancient doctrines to modern-day outlooks of conservatives, progressives, and liberals in all three religions, all are analyzed and presented here. The framework of the volumes underscores how the ethics and concepts of eternity in the Western "action" religions contrast with Eastern religions that tend to be characterized as "passive" or "withdrawal" religions in their ethics and their notions of afterlife as absorption within universal spirit, Nirvana, or nonexistence. This work is well-suited for undergraduate and graduate students, general readers interested in religion, and professional scholars, particularly those in fields corollary to religious study.

Author: Meghan R. Henning
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300262663
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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The first major book to examine ancient Christian literature on hell through the lenses of gender and disability studies Throughout the Christian tradition, descriptions of hell’s fiery torments have shaped contemporary notions of the afterlife, divine justice, and physical suffering. But rarely do we consider the roots of such conceptions, which originate in a group of understudied ancient texts: the early Christian apocalypses. In this pioneering study, Meghan Henning illuminates how the bodies that populate hell in early Christian literature—largely those of women, enslaved persons, and individuals with disabilities—are punished after death in spaces that mirror real carceral spaces, effectually criminalizing those bodies on earth. Contextualizing the apocalypses alongside ancient medical texts, inscriptions, philosophy, and patristic writings, this book demonstrates the ways that Christian depictions of hell intensified and preserved ancient notions of gender and bodily normativity that continue to inform Christian identity.