![]() I therefore selected as my topics: the rise of the immortal soul the resurrection the birth of the Christian afterlife until the idea of Purgatory had established itself spiritualism, and the near-death experience. Given this subject, it seemed to me a challenge to analyse the most important developments in Western ideas concerning the soul and the afterlife from the point of view of a classicist and historian of religion. The ReadTuckwell lectureship was established in the 1930s as a residual bequest to the University by Alice Read-Tuckwell for the purpose of lectures on Human Immortality and related matters. This book is a revised, documented and expanded version, with the addition of three appendixes, of the six Read-Tuckwell Lectures that I had the honour of delivering at the University of Bristol in the early summer of 1995. Near-death experiences: ancient, medieval and modernĪppendix 1: Why did Jesus’ followers call themselves ‘Christians’? Appendix 2: The birth of the term ‘Paradise’ Appendix 3: God’s heavenly palace as a military court: The Vision of Dorotheus Notes Bibliography Index of names, subjects and passages The development of the early Christian afterlife: from the Passion of Perpetua to purgatoryĪncient necromancy and modern spiritualism The resurrection from Zoroaster to late antiquity Travelling souls? Greek shamanism reconsidered Orphism, Pythagoras and the rise of the immortal soul In memoriam patris ROLF HENDRIK BREMMER 1917–1995 ISBN 8-7 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 7-8 (hbk) ISBN 8-6 (pbk) Title: 1995 Read-Tuckwell lectures at the University of Bristol. The rise and fall of the afterlife: the 1995 Read-Tuckwell lectures at the University of Bristol / Jan N. ![]() British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bremmer, Jan N. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AFTERLIFE The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristolįirst published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group Bremmer is Professor of the History and Science of Religion, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands. It will be of interest to all those interested in what other cultures have believed about life after death, as well as being a standard work for students and researchers in ancient religions, cultural history, and the history and sociology of religion. This perceptive and intriguing book concludes that every period gets the afterlife it deserves. The new ways of thinking about the afterlife developed by the Greeks that the philosopher Pythagoras pioneered both the concept of the immortal soul and of reincarnation how the Greek Orphic ‘sect’ developed the idea of a type of hell the lack of influence of ancient shamanism on Greek ideas of the soul that the Jews, independently from the Persians, originated the idea of resurrection, but only after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Palestine that Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians all contributed to the birth of the Christian afterlife the origins of the term ‘Paradise’ how ancient necromancy and modern spiritualism converge and differ the similarities and differences between ancient, medieval and modern near-death experiences. 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. So where did these concepts come from and why did they develop? In this fascinating, learned, but highly readable book, Jan N. Originally Greece and Israel – the cultures that gave us Christianity – had only the vaguest ideas of an afterlife. Surprisingly, however, heaven, hell and the immortal soul were all ideas which arrived relatively late in the ancient world. ![]() ![]() The afterlife is still very much alive in Western civilisation, even though the truth of its existence is no longer universally accepted. ![]()
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