Publisher's description: How do our ideas about dying influence the way we live? Life has often been envisioned as a journey, the river of time carrying us inexorably toward the unknown country--and in our day we increasingly turn to myth and magic, ritual and virtual reality, c…
Departing from scholarship dedicated to the socio-historical realities of priesthood at Qumran, this book explores, in two parts, the most pervasive literary representations of priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls as a reflection of the religious worldview of the Qumran community …
Philip S. Johnston examines Israelite views on death and afterlife as reflected in the Hebrew Bible and in material remains, and sets them in their cultural, literary and theological contexts
Nowadays references to the afterlife--angels strumming harps, demons brandishing pitchforks, God enthroned on heavenly clouds--are more often encountered in New Yorker cartoons than in serious Christian theological reflection. Speculation about death and its sequel seems to emba…