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Egyptian, Babylonian, Hebrew, early Christian, and other ancient views of the afterlife are faithfully outlined in this wide-ranging, monumental study. Segal pulls together sociological, anthropological, archaeological, philosophical, and literary evidence to depict historical change and development. 820 pages, hardcover. Doubleday.
This monumental study combines history, geography, mythology, archaeology and
anthropology with biblical text analysis. Segal, a professor of Jewish studies
at Barnard College, spent 10 years on this project, but the erudition he
displays is undoubtedly the result of a lifetime of scholarship. In every
culture, people ask the same fundamental questions about their existence,
including "what happens after we die?" Although Segal maintains that answers
to that question lie "beyond confirmation or disconfirmation in the scientific
sense," he offers a comprehensive overview of how the afterlife is understood
in the three main Western religions. He thoroughly examines early influences
from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, Iran and Greece, then analyzes Jewish views
as expressed in the first and second temple periods, the book of Daniel, the
Dead Sea scrolls and writings from and about New Testament times, the early
rabbis, mysticism and fundamentalism. For Christianity, systematic attention
is given to Paul, the Gospels, the pseudepigraphic literature and the Church
Fathers. Segal also scans Muslim beliefs as they appear in the Qur'an and the
writings of Shi'a mystics and modern fundamentalists. The introductory and
concluding chapters provide the essence of the presentation, enlivened by
quotations from Shakespeare. Impatient readers may begin with these two
chapters as a guide to determining which other sections of the book warrant
further scrutiny. Careful readers, however, will take the trouble and the time
to pore over this impressive contribution to our understanding of human
belief and behavior. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Availability: Available to ship on or about 02/22/10. You may order this item now and we will ship it to you when it arrives. If you are charging this purchase to a credit card, you will not be charged for this item and its portion of your shipping charges until it is shipped.
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