Religious Approaches to Death
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2006
Pages: 358
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2006
Pages: 358
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Religious Approaches to Death examines how cultures and religions around the world understand death, immortality, the soul, and the afterlife through sacred texts, myths, rituals, and historical traditions. Drawing from traditions including Mesopotamian, Islamic, Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Greek, Oceanic, Indigenous, and Mesoamerican beliefs, the course explores how societies have interpreted mortality and the meaning of human existence.
The material also analyzes funerary practices, ancestor veneration, pilgrimage, resurrection, cremation, sacrifice, and cultural responses to death, highlighting both the diversity and common themes found across civilizations.
Chapter 1 The Epic of Gilgamesh
—Translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs
Chapter 2 Gilgamesh in Quest of Immortality
—Mircea Eliade
Chapter 3 Koran: The Heights
—Translated by N.J. Dawood
Chapter 4 Humanity: Nature, Role, and Responsibility
—Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad
Chapter 5 Myths from Oceania
—Mircea Eliade
Chapter 6 Creation in the Book of Genesis: Genesis 1–3. New Oxford Annotated Bible
—Edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger
Chapter 7 The Resurrection of Christ: 1st Corinthians 15. New Oxford Annotated Bible
—Edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger
Chapter 8 Israel’s Exodus from the Grave 55
—Jon D. Levenson
Chapter 9 The Trumpet, the Resurrection [qiyāma], and the Gathering [h.ashr] 65
—Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad
Chapter 10 Death and Resurrection, Time and Eternity
—Bruce Lincoln
Chapter 11 Plato, Pythagoras, and Orphism
—Mircea Eliade
Chapter 12 The Myth of Er
—Translated by H. D. P. Lee
Chapter 13 Phaedo 105
—Translated by John Warrington
Chapter 14 Tibetan Book of the Dead
—David Chidester
Chapter 15
Orientation to the Existence Between
—Translated by Robert A. F. Thurman
Chapter 16 The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
—Thomas Lynch
Chapter 17 Locating the Dead: A Cultural History of Death in the Antebellum, Anglo-Protestant Communities of the Northeast
—Gary Laderman
Chapter 18 Manikarnikā Cremation Ground
—Diana L. Eck
Chapter 19 The Last Sacrifice
—Diana L. Eck
Chapter 20 Megaliths, Temples, Ceremonial Centers
—Mircea Eliade
Chapter 21 Magic and Ritual for the Dead
—John H. Taylor
Chapter 22 The Hindu Rite of Entry into Heaven
—David M. Knipe
Chapter 23 Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors
—Arthur P. Wolf
Chapter 24 Hopi Stories of Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Magic
—Ekkehart Malotki and Ken Gary
Chapter 25 The Third Place
—Jacques Le Goff
Chapter 26 The Otherworld Journey as Pilgrimage: St. Patrick’s Purgatory
—Carol Zaleski
Chapter 27 Stories of the Departed
—Translated by Henry Snyder Gehman
Chapter 28 Night of the Growing Dead: A Cult of Vırabhadra in Coastal Andhra
David M. Knipe
Chapter 29 Days of the Dead in Oaxaca
—Kristin Norget
Chapter 30 Double Immolations in Ancient Mexican Sacrificial Ritual
—Michel Graulich
Chapter 31 Death Kingship, and Royal Ancestors in Buganda
—Benjamin Ray
Chapter 32 Cults of the Dog
—Mary Oldfield Howey
David Gordon White, PhD is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His scholarship specializes in South Asian religions and the connected histories of Eurasian religious traditions, with research focusing on mythology, demonology, Tantra, alchemy, Indo-European traditions, and the historical exchange of religious ideas across Asia and Europe.