ENGLISH

The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife: The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristol

By Jan N. Bremmer

Book information

Year
2001
ISBN
0415141478, 9780415141475, 9780203106228
Open Library ID
OL7483982M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1105826 bytes)
Pages
256\251
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

Belief 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?In this fascinating, learned, but highly readable book, Jan N. Bremmer - one of the foremost authorities on ancient religion - takes a fresh look at the major developments in the Western imagination of the afterlife, from the ancient Greeks to the modern near-death experience.

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