Conception Of Afterlife Research Articles

The Mysteries, Resurrection, and 1 Corinthians 15: Comparative Methodology and Contextual Exegesis

The Mysteries, Resurrection, and 1 Corinthians 15 focuses on the extent to which Paul’s understanding of the resurrection of the dead was affected by Greco-Roman cults. To accomplish her task, Moore delineates in her introduction what the concepts of afterlife and resurrection mean and the limitations of the study. “Afterlife” encompasses “all possibilities beyond the grave,” which includes resurrection, immortality of the soul, and transmigration of souls (p. xvi). Resurrection refers strictly to restoration of a physical body. The study is limited to a comparison between the Pauline understanding of resurrection and the most representative mystery cults of first-century Corinth: the Eleusinian mysteries, the local cult of Melikertes-Palaimon, and the cult of Isis.In ch. 1, Moore provides a brief literature review of previous comparisons between the mysteries practiced in Corinth and 1 Cor 15. While some scholars, such as Marvin Meyer, conclude that mysteries share enough of a cultural milieu that emergent Christianity could be considered a form of “mystery,” others, such as A. J. M. Wedderburn and N. T. Wright disagree, arguing that the Christian idea of resurrection is fundamentally at odds with the concept of the mysteries.In chs. 2 and 3, Moore examines literary and iconographic evidence providing information on the views of adherents of the Eleusinian mysteries and the cult of Isis. In the second chapter’s discussion of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Demeter’s daughter Persephone was captured by Hades and confined to the underworld. Demeter grieved over her daughter at the Temple of Eleusis. Eventually, Persephone was reunited with Demeter but needed to spend four months each year in Hades, resulting in infertility during the winter season. On her return to Hades, Persephone received special honors. Later literature, including Aristophanes’s Frogs, Plato’s Republic, and Pausanias’s Description of Greece, described how initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries believed that participation in the cult’s rituals would enable them to share in Persephone’s honor, resulting in an enjoyable, yet nonphysical, afterlife.In ch. 3, Moore asserts that the Isis cult promised adherents a blissful afterlife. According to literary sources, such as Josephus and Apuleius, Isis’s reign extended to Hades, and “her protection of her initiates extends to that realm” (p. 66). Ancient authors often identified or equated Isis with Demeter, so that Isis’s devotees shared similar expectations to those of the Eleusinian cult. Here, Moore needs to exhibit more care in her analysis, because in antiquity comparison of religious systems differed from equating those systems, as Josephus’s descriptions of Jewish sects as “philosophies” illustrates.Chapter 4 describes the practice of the mysteries in Corinth. Although Pausanias mentions a shrine to Isis on the road to the Acrocorinth, only Apuleius described her connection with the mysteries in the region of Corinth. On the other hand, grave inscriptions indicate Corinthian devotion to the cult of Demeter/Persephone, as represented in the Eleusinian mysteries. In addition, we have evidence of a local mystery of Melikertes-Palamaion, whose rituals included the ritual reenactment of his. This ritual also indicates that the cult’s “focus on the underworld and afterlife” (p. 90). This cult also understood afterlife as enjoying special status in Hades.Chapter 5 compares Paul’s understanding of the afterlife with the mysteries. Moore concludes that, while Paul’s views on the afterlife shared with the mysteries a common hope of life after death, his hope is fundamentally different from that of the Corinthian cults. Paul’s hope entailed participating in Christ’s resurrection, whereas the cults focused on participation in cultic ritual. However, in 1 Cor 15:29, where Paul addresses “baptism for the dead,” Paul appears to share his recipients’ understanding of the afterlife. Moore, however, contends that this practice was a funerary ritual to assist the dead on their way to the afterlife. Whatever may have been his personal views on the ritual, Paul used it to illustrate his point about the resurrection of the dead, since he asserted the practice made no sense if it were disconnected with hope in the resurrection (pp. 121–22).In conclusion, Moore has indicated the different religious matrixes of the Corinthian cults of the Eleusinian mysteries, Melikertes-Palamaion, and Isis. Her exegesis of “baptism for the dead” (1 Cor 15:29) is helpful. Nevertheless, she has neglected some problematic exegetical issues. In particular, she does not address the question whether the resurrection appearances of 1 Cor 15:3–11 were physical events or visionary experiences. Likewise, how does she answer those who say that the phrase “spiritual body” of 15:35–52 refers to some sort of noncorporeal existence? Finally, she may wish to consider expanding her comparison of the mysteries and Christian faith beyond 1 Corinthians. For example, an analysis of the mysteries of Samothrace compared with 1 Thess 4–5.

An exploration of afterlife beliefs in religiously-and secularly-oriented adults

ABSTRACTOne of the ways that religion helps individuals to find meaning and purpose in life is through the enrichment of the concept of an afterlife. Afterlife beliefs are more likely to be held by religious than non-religious individuals. However, research findings also suggest that even individuals that are self-characterised as non-religious, also endorse the continuation of several psychological states in the afterlife. The present study aimed to investigate whether secularly- and religiously-oriented individuals hold one, common representation about the afterlife or if more than one concepts of afterlife exist. One-hundred and seventy-five adults participated in the study (97 females). Participants were interviewed individually with a vignette and a questionnaire that explored the endorsement of perceptual, psychobiological and emotional capacities, desires, and communication aspects of a dead agent and to provide justification for their answers. Their level of religiosity was also assessed. All participants were Greeks and members of the Greek Orthodox Church. By applying a Two-Step Cluster Analysis, we identified four clusters/representations of the afterlife that range from the conception of death as the end of human existence to the conception of an afterlife where numerous human capacities continue to exist. Religious orientation related to the four conceptions in different ways.

Ištar’s Journey: Above and Below

Astral information appears in a wide variety of cuneiform texts: astronomical manuals, omen series, reports written by celestial diviners to the kings, letters, prayers, and myths. This paper examines one of these myths, Inanna/Ištar’s Descent into the Netherworld, to trace the parallels between Inanna/Ištar’s journey in the netherworld and the planet Venus. The Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ištar is represented in her astral aspect as Venus, who is both the evening star, visible after sunset, and the morning star, visible before sunrise. In the myth, she travels from the ‘great heavens above’ into the netherworld, the ‘great below’, where she passes through seven gates. At each gate, she is symbolically stripped of her divine radiance (mêlammū) by the removal of her clothing and adornments. She is held prisoner by the queen of the netherworld, her older sister, Ereškigal. During the goddess’ captivity, procreation and fertility of the land cease. She is eventually rescued and released in exchange for her lover, Dumuzi/Tammuz, who must reside half of the year in the netherworld in her place. Though the myth is traditionally understood as a seasonal aetiology, with its familiar ancient Mediterranean dying-rising god motif, and as the Mesopotamians’ conception of afterlife, using iconographic representations and linguistic comparisons with the astral omen texts, another interpretation explaining the movements and periodic disappearance of Venus is noticeable.

Uwe Fleckner and Peter Mack, eds., The Afterlife of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg: The Emigration and the Early Years of the Warburg Institute in London. Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus 12. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Pp. 250, 52 illustrations. €39.95 (paper).

Uwe Fleckner and Peter Mack, eds., <i>The Afterlife of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg: The Emigration and the Early Years of the Warburg Institute in London</i>. Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus 12. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Pp. 250, 52 illustrations. €39.95 (paper).

Vaizdinės-scheminės GYVENIMO metaforos XVI amžiaus pabaigos lotyniškoje LDK gedulingoje poezijoje

This article analyses the Latin mourning poetry of the late 16th century in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). Funeral verses chosen for analysis are written by the students of Vilnius Academy and Renaissance poet Petrus Royzius. This article aims at revealing the specificity of image-schematic metaphors LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LIFE IS A THREAD and LIFE IS A SCALE of the mourning poetry of the late 16th century in the GDL. George Lakoff suggests source-path-goal scheme, which refers to moving from point A (source) to point B (goal). The study reveals that schema of a path metaphorically is connected with life in this world from birth until death, and schema of scale is connected with afterlife (heaven, Olympus is direction UP; underworld, Tartarus, Hades is direction DOWN). Conceptual metaphors LIFE IS A JOURNEY and LIFE IS A THREAD reveals that people realised its impermanence and fragility. LIFE IS A SCALE is related to Christian conception of afterlife: clean-lived people come to God in Heaven and unrighteous come to Tartarus.

The various views and hidden issues - the study on the ancient history of China of Korean historical academia from 2014 to 2015

I intoduced the research results on the ancient history of China of Korean historical academia from 2014 to 2015, and commented on them. About 70 of books and articles were announced in this period. Among them, the history of Shang and Zhou and the history of Chin and Han dynasty used by the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects or documents on Bamboo and wooden slips were studied actively.BR There was a signigicant step in various fields, such as the mutual relation between Shang-Zhou dynasty and local powers, mechanism of county administration of Qin dynasty and its status, aspect and change of governing area of Lelangjun, law and land ownership system of Chin and Han dynasty, the folk belief in Han dynasty involving concept of afterlife, and character and trace of development of ritual system and study of Cunfucian classics. Of course, there are different views of research and delitescent issues in these studies. Moreover, in terms of law and thought, the trends that tried to understand in countiunity, not severance, between ancient of Chin and Han dynasty and Middle Age of Wei-Jin and Southern and Northen Dynasties is remarkable. There is much attention towards further studies.BR The unequal distribution of subjects of research is a task to overcome. Now we concentrate on control system of country such as administration and law of Chin and Han dynasty. But we are indifferent in the society of the Spring and Autumn Period and the thought of Warring States Period. We need to study of these issues to understand of ancient history of China in a balanced way.

Funerary painting and sculpture: tangency and divergence in the formation process of Early Christian repertoire

The transmission lines of the subjects within the funerary art of early Christian period have often taken similar paths both in painting and in sculpture, as long as they complied with the main funeral theme, where the concepts of afterlife or the various manifestations of faith derive from a common ideological basin. When, however, new early Christian figures enlarge the repertoire, creating lines seem to diverge, having to take into account diverse socio-cultural inputs. When, finally, the feat of the decoration of religious buildings dominates and spreads through all areas of art, significant episodes of tangency come out, determined by a common spirit of emulation, outlined in different reworking and adapting forms according to the medium which is used.

“His saints, that are in the land of Him”: Pico and More’s conceptions of the Afterlife

Freed from “the storms of this world”, Giovanni Pico’s soul was deemed to be spending some time “in the dark fire of purgatory,” before its final place of abode “in the country of heaven,” with its “blessed citizens.” According to Savonarola, Pico had avoided hell, “that other side deputed unto perpetual pain.” This paper examines Thomas More and Giovanni Pico’s conceptions of afterlife through the imaginary representations of the three eschatological places: heaven, hell and purgatory, and concludes on an evolution of the conception of heaven, from the Italian’s more medieval representation and the English author’s more modern conception.

Conceptions of Afterlife in Jewish Inscriptions

Conceptions of Afterlife in Jewish Inscriptions

Review: Conceptions of Afterlife in Jewish Inscriptions. With Special Reference to Pauline Literature

Conceptions of Afterlife in Jewish Inscriptions. With Special Reference to Pauline Literature Joseph S. Park xi + 227 Tübingen (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2/121.) Mohr Siebeck 2000 PaperbackDM 98 3 16 147373 6

The American Church of Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame

It has been noted that Americans, residents of great secular state, are among most religious people in world. However, by design, United States, home of devout, has no official state religion. There is no Church of America. What, then, takes place of a national religion, a monolithic church with a single unifying doctrine? In this country, where secular is frequently imbued with religious significance, baseball, national pastime, may be said to serve as American religion. Indeed, our vocabulary is filled with references likening baseball and places it is played to religion and religious practice. Discredited for its epic inaccuracies, Alfred Goodwill Spalding's Base Ball: America's National Game is nevertheless advertised as first Bible, and its author as the baseball messiah. (1) The great, old ballparks, both those still standing and mythic homes of long departed teams, are spoken of with awe generally reserved for great cathedrals of Europe . They are our Green Cathedrals. The modern, luxurious retro-stadiums, and even domed monstrosities of 1970s, with their artificial turf and football seating, are thought of as temples to sport. And they are not alone. Every Minor League stadium, every little league diamond, serves as somebody's place of worship. But if ballparks are our churches, where is our Vatican, our Salt Lake City, our Canterbury Cathedral? It is possible to suggest that offices of Major League Baseball, professional sport's governing body, are administrative center of American religion, and commissioner, Pope? But to take this stance is to suggest that spiritual center of our religion is not open to average worshiper. Though Major League Baseball, as an organization, may dictate doctrine, its offices do not serve as a large-scale sacred space. In this respect, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown is baseball's Vatican, baseball's Canterbury Cathedral, baseball's Mormon Tabernacle, a central place, open equally to every worshiper, no matter what his or her local affiliation may be, where all of baseball's devout are on equal ground. And just as droves of pilgrims flock to holy sites of their religions, so too do they flock to Cooperstown, to observe relics of baseball's saints and martyrs. Simply stating that baseball is our American religion and Cooperstown is its spiritual center is one thing; calling baseball truly sacred is another. Unlike virtually every author on subject, I will not invoke Bull Durham's Annie Savoy's opening soliloquy as proof that baseball is a bona fide religion. Instead, I will refer to an article by Frank Hall, which states that analogy between baseball and religion is limited. While baseball, with all its rituals and ceremonies, certainly mirrors religion, it lacks a metaphysics. It may have saints and heroes, but baseball has no real sense of divine. (2) In order for baseball to be a religion, Hall suggests, it must include in its cosmology a concept of afterlife. However, there are other ways to look at it. As early as 1919, hardly a banner year for professional baseball, French theologian and philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen noted that sport offers us, as Americans, from limitations of our petty lives and mystic unity w ith a larger life of which we are a part. (3) Of group worship that leads to this redemption and mystic unity, A. Bartlett Giamatti, a Renaissance scholar well versed in European theological tradition, as well as having been one of our more esteemed popes, writes, Here we are led to America's moral hunger for egalitarian collectivity which impels us as individuals to aggregate and invest aggregation with numinous meaning, over and over again, as if for first time every time. (4) This statement may be said to serve as an example of theory suggested by social scientist W. …

Secular Eschatology: Beliefs about Afterlife

The development of the concept of afterlife was traced through examination of extinctionism, existentialism, pre-historic Shamanism, the Hebrew Torah, the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Qur'an of Islam, Eastern religious and philosophical systems regarding reincarnation, pluralistic death, and secular alternatives of positivism and humanitarianism. Beliefs about afterlife were investigated for 270 healthcare workers and 414 university students. The extinctionist view was endorsed by 13.6 percent. The predominant view of 85.1 percent was a hope for an afterlife. Belief in a specific type of afterlife was acknowledged by 53.3 percent. Belief in reincarnation was indicated by 29.5 percent. The belief system of 13.6 percent was based on traditional religious concepts modified by secular influences about eternal life and resurrection into heaven or hell, depending on our earthly deeds. An additional 10.2 percent believed that we will all obtain heaven. Detailed post-hoc analyses by gender, race, and the religious identification categories of Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, and agnostic are reported.

New Evidence on the Early Chinese Conception of Afterlife—A Review Article

In reviewing Michael Loewe's Ways to Paradise: The Chinese Quest for Immortality, the author presents, on the basis of recent archeological discoveries at Ma-wang-tui, Ch'angsha, Hunan, and other places, the indigenous Chinese views of afterlife, contrary to the dominant modern theory that there was no “other world” in Chinese thought before the advent of Buddhism. Newly found silk paintings and wooden documents of the early Former Han. period show beyond doubt that the Chinese had long developed their own beliefs in a “Heaven” and an “Underworld” after death. The author also discusses the evolution of the early Chinese conception of souls, such as hun and p'o. The symbolic meanings of silk paintings and other burial-related objects are examined from the anthropological point of view.

John Hick’s Lives After Life

JOHN HICK'S LIVES AFTER LIFE JOHN HICK HAS written extensively on the philosophy of religion. In fact, he has, with the appearance of his book on survival of death,1 elaborated a rather complete philosophical theology. We find in Hick's writings his argument for believing in God,2 his concept of religious faith,3 his proposed solution to the problem of evil,4 his answer to critics of religious language,5 and his account of and arguments for life after death. An examination of Hick's works reveals that his concept of after-life is central to his entire view. In this paper I shall indicate how after-life is central for Hick and analyze his description of and arguments for it. I shall also discuss some of the major criticisms of Hick's after-life view and consider how Hick has replied or could reply to these. I shall conclude by offering my own assessment of Hick's view. I With regard to the rationality of theistic belief, Hick contends that the arguments for God's existence do not prove 1 Death and Eternal Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1976). Further references to this volume will be within the text and denoted by DEL. Editor's Note: Cf. the review by Bruce Reichenbach of this volume that immediately follows in the Book Review Section. •See esp. Arguments for the Existence of God (New York: Seabury, 1971), pp. 101-l!W. Further references to this volume will be within the text and denoted by AEG. •Faith and Knowledge (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957; second edition, 1960), esp. pp. 95-268. •See esp. Evil and the God of Love (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), pp. 279-400. •See esp. "Theology and Verification," Theology Today, 17 (April, 1960), pp. l!'!-81, reprinted in The Logic of God: Theology and Verification, eds. Malcolm L. Diamond and Thomas V. Litzenburg, Jr. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), pp. 188-208. References are to this reprint. 653 654 HOUSTON CRAIGHEAD God's existence but show it to be possible (AEG, p. xiii). He then goes on to state that any Christian understanding of human existence requires a belief in after-life.6 For God to create us and then let us be eternally obliterated is inconsistent with Judeo-Christian theism. So, for Hick, a belief in after-life is necessary from the very outset. We find that a belief in after-life is also central to Hick's attempt to deal with the problem of evil. Stated very briefly, Hick's move here is to say that God's purpose in creating the world was to produce free, moral beings who could, ultimately, commune with God and with one another. Since this purpose requires human free will, moral evil is accounted for. Since it also requires a natural order with natural laws (free beings cannot develop morally in a paradise), natural evil is accounted for. Further, since God's purpose is rarely fulfilled in this present world there must be a series of incarnations (see esp. DEL, pp. 414-422) for each person freely to realize his potential , and, ultimately, there must be a state of complete fulfillment (DEL, ch. 22). Hence, a doctrine (and defense) of after-life is needed. Also, Hick's response to the verificationist challenge is interms of what he calls "eschatological verification." Religious beliefs will be verified after death. Again, an after-life doctrine is needed. II In this section I shall give an account of Hick's doctrine of a£ter-life and his argument for the plausibility of this doctrine. Hick contends that it is logically possible for there to be a number of worlds, each in its own space, and all observed by God, but only one being observed by the embodied beings which inhabit these worlds. To explicate his position Hick presents •DEL, p. 11. See also "Eschatological Verification Reconsidered," Religious Studies, 18 (June, 1977), p. !WI: "Hence I can only say that a Christian understanding of the universe includes a belief in life-after-death as an indispensable component, and if that belief could be proven to be false Christian theism (though not...