Some Greeks, such as the philosophers Pythagoras and Plato, also embraced the idea of reincarnation, though this was only accepted by a few. Epicurus taught that the soul was simply atoms which were dissolved at death, so one ceased to exist on dying.
Afterlife
Ancient Greek religion
Ancient Greek religion | Afterlife
They believed in an underworld where the spirits of the dead went after death ,also embraced the idea of reincarnation. A few Greeks, like Achilles, Alcmene, Amphiaraus Ganymede, Ino, Melicertes, Menelaus, Peleus, and a great number of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars, were considered to have been physically immortalized and brought to live forever in either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean, or beneath the ground. Yes, the Greeks believed in an underworld where the spirits of the dead went after death. Yes, in reincarnation,
where is sedna located in the solar system
user
In the outer reaches of the Solar System.
assistant
who discovered it?
user
Michael Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), and David Rabinowitz (Yale University).
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who gave it it's name?
user
Michael Brown.
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what does it look like?
user
It is a large planetoid, surface is redd.
assistant
the system mentioned above, what does it consist of?
user
Sun, the giant planets, four terrestrial planets, the dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets.
assistant
the first thing mentioned, does it have any religious inclusion?
user
Yes, the Sun was worshipped as the god Ra, personified as the goddess.
assistant
which religion did they worship him as the above?
user
Proto-Indo-European religion,  ancient Greek religion, ancient Sumerians.
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does the ancient religion have any concepts of after death revival?
user
Some Greeks, such as the philosophers Pythagoras and Plato, also embraced the idea of reincarnation, though this was only accepted by a few. Epicurus taught that the soul was simply atoms which were dissolved at death, so one ceased to exist on dying.
Ancient Greek religion | Afterlife
As may be witnessed even into the Christian era, not least by the complaints of various philosophers over popular beliefs, traditional Greek believers maintained the conviction that certain individuals were resurrected from the dead and made physically immortal and that for the rest of us, we could only look forward to an existence as disembodied and dead souls. Greek philosophers generally denied this traditional religious belief in physical immortality. Writing his "Lives of Illustrious Men" (Parallel Lives) in the first century, the Middle Platonic philosopher Plutarch in his chapter on Romulus gave an account of the mysterious disappearance and subsequent deification of this first king of Rome, comparing it to traditional Greek beliefs such as the resurrection and physical immortalization of Alcmene and Aristeas the Proconnesian, "for they say Aristeas died in a fuller's work-shop, and his friends coming to look for him, found his body vanished; and that some presently after, coming from abroad, said they met him traveling towards Croton".
Resurrection | Ancient Greek religion
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and resurrects. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which involves the same person or deity coming back to live in a different body, rather than the same one. The resurrection of the dead is a standard eschatological belief in the Abrahamic religions. As a religious concept, it is used in two distinct respects: a belief in the resurrection of individual souls that is current and ongoing (Christian idealism, realized eschatology), or else a belief in a singular resurrection of the dead at the end of the world.
Resurrection | Introduction
A few Greeks, like Achilles, Alcmene, Amphiaraus Ganymede, Ino, Melicertes, Menelaus, Peleus, and a great number of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars, were considered to have been physically immortalized and brought to live forever in either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean, or beneath the ground. Such beliefs are found in the most ancient of Greek sources, such as Homer and Hesiod. This belief remained strong even into the Christian era. For most people at the moment of death there was, however, no hope of anything but continued existence as a disembodied soul.
Ancient Greek religion | Afterlife
According to Herodotus's "Histories", the seventh century BC sage Aristeas of Proconnesus was first found dead, after which his body disappeared from a locked room. Later he found not only to have been resurrected but to have gained immortality. Many other figures, like a great part of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars, Menelaus, and the historical pugilist Cleomedes of Astupalaea, were also believed to have been made physically immortal, but without having died in the first place. Indeed, in Greek religion, immortality originally always included an eternal union of body and soul. The philosophical idea of an immortal soul was a later invention, which, although influential, never had a breakthrough in the Greek world.
Resurrection | Ancient Greek religion
There were numerous ways for Egyptians to secure their fate. Many of the actions Egyptian people took after death were to influence the god's decision in allowing for another life. After judgement, entities were thought to return to the Mother Goddess' womb. During this stage, the soul meets its former body that is restored. To demonstrate, in the Book of Dead there is a series of lines that read as follows, "I unite your limbs, I hold your discharges together, I surround your flesh, I drive away the fluids of your decay, I sweep away your bow, I wipe away your tears, I heal all your limbs, each being united with the other; I surround you with the work of the weaving goddess, I complete you and form you as Re." The belief continues as the nude being approaches the Goddess and enters her womb as her son.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Rebirth
In ancient Greek religion a number of men and women became physically immortal as they were resurrected from the dead. Asclepius was killed by Zeus, only to be resurrected and transformed into a major deity. Achilles, after being killed, was snatched from his funeral pyre by his divine mother Thetis and resurrected, brought to an immortal existence in either Leuce, the Elysian plains or the Islands of the Blessed. Memnon, who was killed by Achilles, seems to have received a similar fate. Alcmene, Castor, Heracles, and Melicertes, were also among the figures sometimes considered to have been resurrected to physical immortality.
Resurrection | Ancient Greek religion
T. Wright suggests that "the Bible offers a spectrum of belief about life after death." While Goldingay suggests that Qohelet points out that there is no evidence that "human beings would enjoy a positive afterlife," Philip Johnston argues that a few Psalms, such as Psalm 16, Psalm 49 and Psalm 73, "affirm a continued communion with God after death," but "give no elaboration of how, when or where this communion will take place." Neyrey suggests that, "for a Hebrew, 'soul' indicated the unity of a human person," and "this Hebrew field of meaning is breached in the Wisdom of Solomon by explicit introduction of Greek ideas of soul.
Christian mortalism | Modern scholarship
Many pieces of evidence suggest that the mysteries of Isis were connected in some way to salvation and the guarantee of an afterlife. The Greek conception of the afterlife included the paradisiacal Elysian Fields, and philosophers developed various ideas about the immortality of the soul, but Greeks and Romans expressed uncertainty about what would happen to them after death. In both Greek and Roman traditional religion, no god was thought to guarantee a pleasant afterlife to his or her worshippers. The gods of some mystery cults may have been exceptions, but evidence about those cults' afterlife beliefs is vague. Apuleius's account, if it is accurate, provides stronger evidence for Isiac afterlife beliefs than is available for the other cults.
Mysteries of Isis | Connection with the afterlife
The Christian doctrine of resurrection is based on Christ's resurrection. There was no ancient Greek belief in a general resurrection of the dead. Indeed, they held that once a body had been destroyed, there was no possibility of returning to life as not even the gods could recreate the flesh.
Universal resurrection | Nicene Creed and early Christianity
Most Christian traditions teach belief in life after death as a central and indispensable tenet of their faith. Critics argue that the Christian conception of the afterlife is inconsistent with that described in the Old Testament. George E. Mendenhall believes there is no concept of immortality or life after death in the Old Testament. The presumption is that the deceased are inert, lifeless, and engaging in no activity. The idea of Sheol ("שׁאול") or a state of nothingness was shared among Babylonian and Israelite beliefs. "Sheol, as it was called by the ancient Israelites, is the land of no return, lying below the cosmic ocean, to which all, the mighty and the weak, travel in the ghostly form they assume after death, known as Rephaim.
Criticism of Christianity | Inconsistency with Old Testament conception of the afterlife
Ancient Greeks believed that the dead are able to reanimate and exist in a state that is neither living nor dead, but rather "undead". Burials of suspected revenants have been discovered throughout the ancient Greek world. The earliest examples are from Cyprus and date to the Neolithic period (ca. 4500–3900/3800 BCE). At Khirokitia, flexed bodies buried in pit graves were pinned by millstones that were placed on either their heads or chests in order to trap the body in its grave. Similar burials were found at Argolid. In the necropolis of the city of Kamarina, two burials were found which were different from the rest: the first contains an adult of indeterminate sex and stature.
Vrykolakas | Ancient Greece
This, however, never became the general norm in Hellenistic thought. As may be witnessed even into the Christian era, not least by the complaints of various philosophers over popular beliefs, many or perhaps most traditional Greeks maintained the conviction that certain individuals were resurrected from the dead and made physically immortal and that others could only look forward to an existence as disembodied and dead, though everlasting, souls.
Immortality | Ancient Greek religion
The concept of resurrection is found in the writings of some ancient non-Abrahamic religions in the Middle East. A few extant Egyptian and Canaanite writings allude to dying and rising gods such as Osiris and Baal. Sir James Frazer in his book "The Golden Bough" relates to these dying and rising gods, but many of his examples, according to various scholars, distort the sources. Taking a more positive position, Tryggve Mettinger argues in his recent book that the category of rise and return to life is significant for Ugaritic Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Osiris and Dumuzi.
Resurrection | Ancient religions in the Near East
In ancient Greek religion immortality originally always included an eternal union of body and soul, and a number of men and women were considered to have gained physical immortality and brought to live forever in either Elysium, the Fortunate Isles, heaven, the ocean or literally right under the ground. Among these were Amphiaraus Dionysus, Ganymede, Ino, Iphigenia, Menelaus, Peleus, and a great part of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars. Some were considered to have died and been resurrected before they achieved physical immortality, like Asclepius, after being killed by Zeus, Achilles who was snatched from his funeral pyre by his divine mother Thetis, resurrected brought to an immortal existence in the distant periphery, Alcmene who also vanished from her own funeral, and the seventh century B.C.
Resurrection of Jesus | Greco-Roman
The Greeks had a definite belief that there was a journey to the afterlife or another world. They believed that death was not a complete end to life or human existence. The Greeks accepted the existence of the soul after death, but saw this afterlife as meaningless. In the underworld, the identity of a dead person still existed, but it had no strength or true influence. Rather, the continuation of the existence of the soul in the underworld was considered a remembrance of the fact that the dead person had existed, yet while the soul still existed, it was inactive.
Greek underworld | Greek attitudes
The dead were commemorated at certain times of the year, such as Genesia. Exceptional individuals might continue to receive cult maintenance in perpetuity as heroes, but most individuals faded after a few generations into the collective dead, in some areas of Greece referred to as "thrice-ancestors" "(tritopatores)", who also had annual festivals devoted to them.
Ancient Greek funeral and burial practices | Commemoration and afterlife
The Egyptians had elaborate beliefs about death and the afterlife. They believed that humans possessed a "ka", or life-force, which left the body at the point of death. In life, the "ka" received its sustenance from food and drink, so it was believed that, to endure after death, the "ka" must continue to receive offerings of food, whose spiritual essence it could still consume. Each person also had a "ba", the set of spiritual characteristics unique to each individual. Unlike the "ka", the "ba" remained attached to the body after death. Egyptian funeral rituals were intended to release the "ba" from the body so that it could move freely, and to rejoin it with the "ka" so that it could live on as an "akh".
Ancient Egyptian religion | Afterlife
As knowledge of different religions has grown, so have claims of bodily disappearance of some religious and mythological figures. In ancient Greek religion, this was a way the gods made some physically immortal, including such figures as Cleitus, Ganymede, Menelaus, and Tithonus. After his death, Cycnus was changed into a swan and vanished. In his chapter on Romulus from Parallel Lives, Plutarch criticises the continuous belief in such disappearances, referring to the allegedly miraculous disappearance of the historical figures Romulus, Cleomedes of Astypalaea, and Croesus. In ancient times, Greek and Roman pagan similarities were explained by the early Christian writers, such as Justin Martyr, as the work of demons, with the intention of leading Christians astray.
Resurrection | Disappearances (as distinct from resurrection)
Orphics believed that they would, after death, spend eternity alongside Orpheus and other heroes. The uninitiated ("amyetri"), they believed, would be reincarnated indefinitely. In order to maintain their purity following initiation and ritual, Orphics attempted to live an ascetic life free of spiritual contamination, most notably by adhering to a strict vegetarian diet that also excluded certain kinds of beans.
Orphism (religion) | Introduction
Ancient Egyptians, like many cultures, believed in an afterlife and much of what remains of their civilization reflects this because only the temples, tombs and other religious structures survive well. One belief that was at the center of Egyptian beliefs about life after death was the belief in the ka. The ka was believed by the Egyptians to be one's life source, essence, and soul, which would live on in the afterlife. Egyptians also believed that the ka had to have a body to return to, and because of this belief they would mummify their dead. Egyptians also took precautionary measures, in case their body did not survive, by commissioning ka statues; statues of the deceased that were buried in the tomb, along with the body, and would serve as a replacement if the body decayed beyond recognition.
Ancient Egyptian retainer sacrifices | Egypt's beliefs about the afterlife
This shift may have been in response to traditional Greek expectations that immortality always included both body and soul. N.T. Wright, a theologian and former Bishop of Durham, has said many people forget the physical aspect of what Jesus promised. He told Time: "Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will 'awake', be embodied and participate in the renewal. Wright says John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: 'God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves.' That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death (the Intermediate state) is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom." This kingdom will consist of Heaven and Earth "joined together in a new creation", he said.
Immortality | Christianity
The Greeks believed in an underworld where the spirits of the dead went after death. One of the most widespread areas of this underworld was ruled over by Hades, a brother of Zeus, and was itself also known as Hades (originally called 'the place of Hades'). Other well known realms are Tartarus, a place of torment for the damned, and Elysium, a place of pleasures for the virtuous. In the early Mycenaean religion all the dead went to Hades, but the rise of mystery cults in the Archaic age led to the development of places such as Tartarus and Elysium.
Ancient Greek religion | Afterlife
at a fixed season of the year. If you yearn for it in the winter, you are a fool." There was no real consensus, at least among surviving Roman texts and epitaphs, of what happened to a person after death or the existence of an afterlife. Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia claims that most people are of the opinion that after death one returns to the non-sensing state that occurred before birth but admits, however scornfully, that there are people who believe in the immortality of the soul. Seneca the Younger seems to be less consistent, arguing both sides, indicating that death brings about utter annihilation while also talking about some survival of the spirit after it escapes from the prison of the body.
Roman funerary practices | Philosophy
This, according to the gospels, was the stance of Jesus, who defended it in an exchange with the Sadducees: "Those who are accounted worthy ... to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they ... are equal to the angels and are children of God..." (). The Greeks, by contrast, had long held that a meritorious man could be resurrected as a god after his death (the process of apotheosis). The successors of Alexander the Great made this idea very well known throughout the Middle East, in particular through coins bearing his image – a privilege previously reserved for gods – and although originally foreign to the Romans, the doctrine was soon borrowed by the emperors for purposes of political propaganda.
Post-resurrection appearances of Jesus | Background
At the same time, Osiris's death and rebirth were related to the Egyptian agricultural cycle, in which crops grew in the wake of the Nile inundation, and provided a template for the resurrection of human souls after death.
Ancient Egyptian religion | Mythology
In this Hellenistic resurrection paradigm Jesus dies, is buried, and his body disappears (with witnesses to the empty tomb); he then returns in an immortalised physical body, able to appear and disappear at will like a god, and returns to the heavens which are now his proper home.
Post-resurrection appearances of Jesus | Background
Alcmene, Castor, Heracles, and Melicertes were also among the figures sometimes considered to have been resurrected to physical immortality. According to Herodotus' Histories, the 7th century BC sage Aristeas of Proconnesus was first found dead, after which his body disappeared from a locked room. Later he was found not only to have been resurrected but to have gained immortality. The parallel between these traditional beliefs and the later resurrection of Jesus was not lost on early Christians, as Justin Martyr argued: "when we say ... Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus." The philosophical idea of an immortal soul was a belief first appearing with either Pherecydes or the Orphics, and most importantly advocated by Plato and his followers.
Immortality | Ancient Greek religion
More recently, a revival has begun with the contemporary Hellenism, as it is often called (a term first used by the last pagan Roman emperor Julian). In Greece, the term used is "Hellenic Ethnic Religion" (). Modern Hellenism reflects Neoplatonic and Platonic speculation (which is represented in Porphyry, Libanius, Proclus, and Julian), as well as classical cult practice. However, there are many fewer followers than Greek Orthodox Christianity. According to estimates reported by the U.S. State Department, there are perhaps as many as 2,000 followers of the ancient Greek religion out of a total Greek population of 11 million; however, Hellenism's leaders place that figure at 100,000 followers.
Ancient Greek religion | Modern revivals
Plutarch openly scorned such beliefs held in traditional ancient Greek religion, writing, "many such improbabilities do your fabulous writers relate, deifying creatures naturally mortal."
Resurrection | Ancient Greek religion
Practitioners of the reconstructed religion of Ancient Greece, known as Hellenic Polytheists, seek to restore ancient festivals such as Anthestria. Reconstructionists take from primary and secondary sources to reconstruct the festival. Drinking watered down wine, having potlucks, and reciting hymns to Dionysus are some ways Hellenic polytheists celebrate. Other ways include making Garlands, celebrating the coming of spring, and reconstructing other aspects of the festival. Honouring the dead is also reconstructed. Some make the dead a meal, panspermia is the best option, but eggs, leeks and garlic also work well. Worshipping Dionysus is a large aspect of modern celebration. The previous celebration methods can be dedicated to him, and offering flowers and Garlands may be offered to the god.
Anthesteria | Modern Celebration and Revival
The majority of modern historians agree that the religion practiced by the ancient Greeks had been extinguished by the 9th century AD at the latest and that there is little to no evidence that it survived past the Middle Ages. (in certain isolated areas it survived until the 12th century, see Tsakonia and Maniots) The majority of modern Hellenic polytheist organizations view their religious traditions as either "revivalist" or "reconstructionist", though most modern individual adherents exist somewhere on a reconstructionist to revivalist spectrum. Revivalists view Hellenic Polytheism as a living, changing religion. Hellenic Revivalism allows room for practitioners to decide what feels right to them, and to adapt historical religious practices to modern life.
Hellenism (religion) | Relationship to ancient Greek religion
Greek religion and philosophy have experienced a number of revivals, firstly in the arts, humanities and spirituality of Renaissance Neoplatonism, which was certainly believed by many to have effects in the real world. During the period of time (14th–17th centuries) when the literature and philosophy of the ancient Greeks gained widespread appreciation in Europe, this new popularity did not extend to ancient Greek religion, especially the original theist forms, and most new examinations of Greek philosophy were written within a solidly Christian context. Early revivalists, with varying degrees of commitment, were the Englishmen John Fransham (1730–1810), interested in Neoplatonism, and Thomas Taylor (1758–1835), who produced the first English translations of many Neoplatonic philosophical and religious texts.
Ancient Greek religion | Modern revivals
Jehovah's Witnesses occasionally use terms such as "afterlife" to refer to any hope for the dead, but they understand Ecclesiastes 9:5 to preclude belief in an immortal soul. Individuals judged by God to be wicked, such as in the Great Flood or at Armageddon, are given no hope of an afterlife. However, they believe that after Armageddon there will be a bodily resurrection of "both righteous and unrighteous" dead (but not the "wicked"). Survivors of Armageddon and those who are resurrected are then to gradually restore earth to a paradise. After Armageddon, unrepentant sinners are punished with eternal death (non-existence).
Afterlife | Jehovah's Witnesses
Reconstructionism is a methodology that attempts to accurately base modern religious practice on culturally and historically genuine examples of ancient religious practices. The term is frequently used in the United States to differentiate between syncretic and eclectic Neopagan movements, and those based on the traditions, writings, history, and mythology of a specific ancient polytheistic culture. In contrast to revivalist traditions, Reconstructionists are culturally oriented and attempt to reconstruct historical forms of religion and spirituality, in a modern context. Therefore, Kemetic, Canaanite, Hellenic, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic Reconstructionists aim for the revival of historical practices and beliefs of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Canaan and Phoenicia, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Celts, the Germanic peoples, the Balts and the Slavs, respectively.
Hellenism (religion) | Relationship to ancient Greek religion
Roman beliefs about an afterlife varied, and are known mostly for the educated elite who expressed their views in terms of their chosen philosophy. The traditional care of the dead, however, and the perpetuation after death of their status in life were part of the most archaic practices of Roman religion. Ancient votive deposits to the noble dead of Latium and Rome suggest elaborate and costly funeral offerings and banquets in the company of the deceased, an expectation of afterlife and their association with the gods. As Roman society developed, its Republican nobility tended to invest less in spectacular funerals and extravagant housing for their dead, and more on monumental endowments to the community, such as the donation of a temple or public building whose donor was commemorated by his statue and inscribed name.
Religion in ancient Rome | Funerals and the afterlife
He and his disciples were strongly attached to paganism; but he is said to have been able to see that its end was near at hand, and he predicted that after his death all the splendid temples of the gods would be changed into tombs: He foretold to all his followers that after his death the temple would cease to be, and even the great and holy temples of Serapis would pass into formless darkness and be transformed, and that a fabulous and unseemly gloom would hold sway over the fairest things on earth. To all these prophecies time bore witness, and in the end his prediction gained the force of an oracle.
Antoninus (philosopher) | Introduction
The concept of Hellenistic religion as the late form of Ancient Greek religion covers any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of the people who lived under the influence of ancient Greek culture during the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire ( 300 BCE to 300 CE). There was much continuity in Hellenistic religion: people continued to worship the Greek gods and to practise the same rites as in Classical Greece. Change came from the addition of new religions from other countries, including the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis, and the Syrian gods Atargatis and Hadad, which provided a new outlet for people seeking fulfillment in both the present life and the afterlife.
Hellenistic religion | Introduction
The Fields of Punishment were for people that had sinned often, but not so much as to be deserving of Tartarus. In Tartarus, the soul would be punished by being burned in lava, or stretched on racks. Some heroes of Greek legend are allowed to visit the underworld. The Romans had a similar belief system about the afterlife, with Hades becoming known as Pluto. In the ancient Greek myth about the Labours of Heracles, the hero Heracles had to travel to the underworld to capture Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog, as one of his tasks.
Afterlife | Ancient Greek and Roman religions
sage Aristeas of Proconnesus, after his body disappeared from a locked room. The parallel between these traditional beliefs and the later resurrection of Jesus was not lost on early Christians, as Justin Martyr argued: "when we say ... Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus."
Resurrection of Jesus | Greco-Roman
The Egyptian concept of 'eternal life' was often seen as being reborn indefinitely. Therefore, the souls who had lived their life elegantly were guided to Osiris to be born again. In order to achieve the ideal afterlife, many practices had to be performed during one's life. This may have included acting justly and following the beliefs of Egyptian creed. Additionally, the Egyptians stressed the rituals completed after an individual's life has ended. In other words, it was the responsibility of the living to carry out the final traditions required so the dead could promptly meet their final fate. Ultimately, maintaining high religious morals by both the living and the dead, as well as complying to a variety of traditions guaranteed the deceased a smoother transition into the underworld.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Introduction
Some scholars are skeptical the afterlife was a major focus of the cult. Ramsay MacMullen says that when characters in "The Golden Ass" call Lucius "reborn", they refer to his new life as a devotee and never call him "renatus in aeternam", or "eternally reborn", which would refer to the afterlife. Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price say "The Golden Ass" shows that "the cult of Isis had implications for life and death, but even so more emphasis is placed on extending the span of life than on the after-life—which is pictured in fairly undifferentiated terms." Some inscriptions provide evidence of Isiac afterlife beliefs outside Apuleius's work.
Mysteries of Isis | Connection with the afterlife
Though the extent of his actual devotion to Ancient Greek spirituality remains unknown, brief descriptions written by others about him tend to portray him as a sincerely devout polytheist. One such sketch, written by Isaac D'Israeli, describes Taylor delaying answering his door until he has finished his mid-day hymn to Apollo, and reports that his study contained a hanging globe of clear glass, representing Zeus, that scattered sunbeams he would use to read and write, shifting his position in the room to follow them throughout the day. His work inspired a limited number devotees. The most notable was Godefroi Izarn, the Marquis de Valadi, a young member of a wealthy French family who adopted a "Pythagorean mode of life".
Hellenism (religion) | Early reconstructionists
In this Hellenistic resurrection paradigm Jesus dies, is buried, and his body disappears (with witnesses to the empty tomb); he then returns in an immortalised physical body, able to appear and disappear at will like a god, and returns to the heavens which are now his proper home.
Historicity and origin of the resurrection of Jesus | Resurrection and the afterlife of the soul
General resurrection or universal resurrection is the belief that a resurrection of the dead, or resurrection from the dead (Koine: , "anastasis [ton] nekron"; literally: "standing up again of the dead") by which most or all people who have died would be resurrected (brought back to life). Various forms of this concept can be found in Bahai, Christian, Islamic, Jewish and Zoroastrian eschatology.
Universal resurrection | Introduction
The Greek god Hades is known in Greek mythology as the king of the underworld, a place where souls live after death. The Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the gods, would take the dead soul of a person to the underworld (sometimes called Hades or the House of Hades). Hermes would leave the soul on the banks of the River Styx, the river between life and death. Charon, also known as the ferry-man, would take the soul across the river to Hades, if the soul had gold: Upon burial, the family of the dead soul would put coins under the deceased's tongue.
Afterlife | Ancient Greek and Roman religions
Although the Greeks developed an elaborate mythology of the underworld, its topography and inhabitants, they and the Romans were unusual in lacking myths that explained how death and rituals for the dead came to exist. The ruler of the underworld was Hades, not the embodiment of death/personification of death, Thanatos, who was a relatively minor figure. Performing the correct rituals for the dead was essential, however, for assuring their successful passage into the afterlife, and unhappy revenants could be provoked by failures of the living to attend properly to either the rite of passage or continued maintenance through graveside libations and offerings, including hair clippings from the closest survivors.
Ancient Greek funeral and burial practices | Commemoration and afterlife
Modern English translations of the Bible maintain this distinction (e.g. by translating "Sheol" as "the Pit" and "Gehenna" as "Hell"), but the influential King James Version used the word "hell" to translate both concepts. The Hellenistic views of heroic descent into the Underworld and successful return follow traditions that are far older than the mystery religions popular at the time of Christ. The Epic of Gilgamesh includes such a scene, and it appears also in "Odyssey" XI. Writing shortly before the birth of Jesus, Vergil included it in the "Aeneid". What little we know of the worship in mystery religions such as the Eleusinian Mysteries and Mithraism suggests that a ritual death and rebirth of the initiate was an important part of their liturgy.
Harrowing of Hell | Conceptions of the afterlife
Eliade also explained how traditional man could find value for his own life (in a vision of where all events occurring after the mythical age cannot have value or reality); he indicated that, if the Sacred's essence lies only in its first appearance, then any later appearance must actually be the first appearance. Thus, an imitation of a mythical event is actually the mythical event itself, happening again—myths and rituals carry one back to the mythical age: In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time.
Eternal return (Eliade) | Myths, rituals, and their purpose
Examples of male modifications included name combinations, in which women engraved “Osiris” before their own name on their coffins. This demonstrated the collaboration of women and a god who was capable of rebirth, because alone her sex restricted her. These displays of gender transformation are just one of many ways that people of today are able to identify the idea of rebirth after death in Egyptian practices.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Gender
According to Liadinis, the notion of death occupied the ancients to such a degree that one could see their whole culture as arising from the radical views they held on the subject. They saw death as an unchanging cosmic law, much like today's notion of entropy, and did not associate whatever afterlife they had conceived with a moral system of reward and punishment (like the ones found in the great Judaic religions). Although individual myths, like that of Sisyphus who was condemned to eternal punishment in the realms of Hades, "did" exist, they were largely exceptions to the rule and never developed into a proper system of beliefs about life after death.
Dimitris Liantinis | Views on death
Jewish beliefs with regard to an afterlife are highly variable. Physical resurrection of the dead at the time of the Mashiach is a traditional belief (with some European Jews being buried facing Jerusalem, so they would be ready on that day). Other Jewish sages promoted the idea of a purely spiritual resurrection. Adherents of Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism are more likely to believe in a general Messianic Age than in a physical Moshiach, with or without resurrection. There is also the possibility of reincarnation in some cases. In general, religious Jews believe that the soul undergoes a period of reflection and penance after death, before moving on to whatever comes next.
Judaism and Mormonism | Afterlife
The secular use of "Hellene" revived in the 9th century, after paganism had been eclipsed and was no longer a threat to Christianity's dominance. The revival followed the same track as its disappearance. The name had originally declined from a national term in antiquity, to a cultural term in the Hellenistic years, to a religious term in the early Christian years. With the demise of paganism and the revival of learning in the Byzantine Empire it had regained its cultural meaning, and finally, by the 11th century it had returned to its ancient national form of an "ethnic Greek", synonymous at the time to "Roman".
Names of the Greeks | Revival in the meaning of "Hellene"
In the "Republic" Plato makes Socrates tell how Er, the son of Armenius, miraculously returned to life on the twelfth day after death and recounted the secrets of the other world. There are myths and theories to the same effect in other dialogues, in the Chariot allegory of the Phaedrus, in the Meno, Timaeus and Laws. The soul, once separated from the body, spends an indeterminate amount of time in "formland" (see The Allegory of the Cave in "The Republic") and then assumes another body. In later Greek literature the doctrine is mentioned in a fragment of Menander and satirized by Lucian.
Reincarnation | Classical Antiquity
Universalists disagreed on whether there would be torment after death before ultimate salvation. "Restorationists" believed there would be a time of suffering after death while "Ultra-Universalists" believed there was no suffering after death. In the Book of Mormon, Nephi's older brothers also wonder if punishment will happen in this life, and ask him if hell is "the torment of the body in the days of probation, or doth it mean the final state of the soul after the death of the temporal body?" Nephi's answer sides thoroughly with the anti-Universalists, "There is a place prepared, yea, even that awful hell of which I have spoken, and the devil is the preparator of it; wherefore the final state of the souls of men is to dwell in the kingdom of God, or to be cast out because of that justice of which I have spoken."
Universalism and the Latter Day Saint movement | Restorationists vs. Ultra-Universalists
These religions often had a goal of personal improvement, which would also extend to the afterlife.
Hellenistic religion | Classical Greek religion
After bodily death, the soul takes up a level in the afterlife corresponding with the level at which it lived during its earthly life. The neoplatonists believed in the principle of reincarnation. Although the most pure and holy souls would dwell in the highest regions, the impure soul would undergo a purification, before descending again, to be reincarnated into a new body, perhaps into animal form. Plotinus believed that a soul may be reincarnated into another human or even a different sort of animal. However, Porphyry maintained, instead, that human souls were only reincarnated into other humans. A soul which has returned to the One achieves union with the cosmic universal soul and does not descend again; at least, not in this world period.
Neoplatonism | Return to the One
The preservation of a dead body was critical if the deceased wanted a chance at acceptance into the afterlife. Within the Ancient Egyptian concept of the soul, ka, which represented vitality, leaves the body once the person dies. Only if the body is embalmed in a specific fashion will ka return to the deceased body, and rebirth will take place. The embalmers received the body after death, and in a systematized manner, prepared it for mummification. The family and friends of the deceased had a choice of options that ranged in price for the preparation of the body, similar to the process at modern funeral homes.
Ancient Egyptian funerary practices | Embalming
Such festivals include Vėlinės (day of dead souls, common with Celtic Halloween), Užgavėnės (festival when winter ends and spring begins), and Rasa or Joninės. For Užgavėnės, people in Samogitia may dress in costumes including masks and burn an idol of an old lady, called Morė or Giltine, goddess of death.
Romuva (religion) | Revival
Mummification was a practice that the ancient Egyptians adopted because they believed that the body needed to be preserved in order for the dead to be reborn in the afterlife. Initially, Egyptians thought that like Ra, their physical bodies, or Khat, would reawaken after they completed their journey through the underworld. Once the Egyptians realized that the bodies of their dead would eventually decay, they started to see the remains of the dead as a vessel for the deceased's spirit. The body was dismembered and wrapped in bandages to safeguard it, if the soul decided to return.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Mummification
Early Greek discussion of the concept dates to the 6th century BCE. An early Greek thinker known to have considered rebirth is Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 540 BCE). His younger contemporary Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BCE), its first famous exponent, instituted societies for its diffusion. Some authorities believe that Pythagoras was Pherecydes' pupil, others that Pythagoras took up the idea of reincarnation from the doctrine of Orphism, a Thracian religion, or brought the teaching from India. Plato (428/427–348/347 BCE) presented accounts of reincarnation in his works, particularly the "Myth of Er". In "Phaedo", Plato has his teacher Socrates, prior to his death, state: "I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead." However Xenophon does not mention Socrates as believing in reincarnation and Plato may have systematised Socrates' thought with concepts he took directly from Pythagoreanism or Orphism.
Reincarnation | Early Greece
Faith in some form of afterlife is an important aspect of many people's beliefs. For example, one aspect of Hinduism involves belief in a continuing cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth (Samsara) and the liberation from the cycle (Moksha). Eternal return is a non-religious concept proposing an infinitely recurring cyclic universe, which relates to the subject of the afterlife and the nature of consciousness and time. Though various evidence has been advanced in attempts to demonstrate the reality of an afterlife, these claims have never been validated. For this reason, the material or metaphysical existence of an afterlife is considered by many to be a matter outside the scope of science.
Death and culture | Philosophy, religion and mythology
A dying-and-rising, death-rebirth, or resurrection deity is a religious motif in which a god or goddess dies and is resurrected. "Death or departure of the gods" is motif A192 in Stith Thompson's "Motif-Index of Folk-Literature" (1932), while "resurrection of gods" is motif A193. Examples of gods who die and later return to life are most often cited from the religions of the Ancient Near East, and traditions influenced by them include Biblical and Greco-Roman mythology and by extension Christianity. The concept of a dying-and-rising god was first proposed in comparative mythology by James Frazer's seminal "The Golden Bough" (1890). Frazer associated the motif with fertility rites surrounding the yearly cycle of vegetation.
Dying-and-rising deity | Introduction
are equal to the angels and are children of God..." (Mark 12:24-25, Luke 20:34-36). Nor would the resurrected body be one of flesh and blood, but an immortal fleshless body of the same celestial nature as the sun, moon and stars. Jews did not believe that the dead could enter Heaven – mankind's place was the earth, and heaven was for God and the heavenly beings. The Greeks held a similar view, but they also held that a man of exceptional merit could be exalted as a god after his death. The successors of Alexander the Great made this idea very well known throughout the Middle East, in particular through coins bearing his image – a privilege previously reserved for gods – and although originally foreign to the Romans, the doctrine was soon borrowed by the emperors for purposes of political propaganda.
Historicity and origin of the resurrection of Jesus | Resurrection and the afterlife of the soul
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death or the world to come or reincarnation) is an existence some believe that the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to have after the death of their physical body. According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary nirvana. Belief in an afterlife is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.
Afterlife | Introduction
The afterlife played an important role in Ancient Egyptian religion, and its belief system is one of the earliest known in recorded history. When the body died, parts of its soul known as "ka" (body double) and the "ba" (personality) would go to the Kingdom of the Dead. While the soul dwelt in the Fields of Aaru, Osiris demanded work as restitution for the protection he provided. Statues were placed in the tombs to serve as substitutes for the deceased. Arriving at one's reward in afterlife was a demanding ordeal, requiring a sin-free heart and the ability to recite the spells, passwords and formulae of the Book of the Dead.
Afterlife | Ancient Egyptian religion
However, the price of death was considered a great one. Homer believed that the best possible existence for humans was to never be born at all, or die soon after birth, because the greatness of life could never balance the price of death. The Greek gods only rewarded heroes who were still living; heroes that died were ignored in the afterlife. However, it was considered very important to the Greeks to honor the dead and was seen as a type of piety. Those who did not respect the dead opened themselves to the punishment of the gods – for example, Odysseus ensured Ajax's burial, or the gods would be angered.
Greek underworld | Greek attitudes
However, it was also important that the body of the deceased be preserved, as the Egyptians believed that the "ba" returned to its body each night to receive new life, before emerging in the morning as an "akh". In early times the deceased pharaoh was believed to ascend to the sky and dwell among the stars. Over the course of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC), however, he came to be more closely associated with the daily rebirth of the sun god Ra and with the underworld ruler Osiris as those deities grew more important. In the fully developed afterlife beliefs of the New Kingdom, the soul had to avoid a variety of supernatural dangers in the Duat, before undergoing a final judgment, known as the "Weighing of the Heart", carried out by Osiris and by the Assessors of Maat.
Ancient Egyptian religion | Afterlife
According to the New Testament, some Christians reported that they encountered Jesus after his crucifixion. They argued that he had been resurrected (belief in the resurrection of the dead in the Messianic Age was a core Pharisaic doctrine), and would soon return to usher in the Kingdom of God and fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy such as the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment.
Jewish Christian | Resurrection
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs were centered around a variety of complex rituals that were influenced by many aspects of Egyptian culture. Religion was a major contributor, since it was an important social practice that bound all Egyptians together. For instance, many of the Egyptian gods played roles in guiding the souls of the dead through the afterlife. With the evolution of writing, religious ideals were recorded and quickly spread throughout the Egyptian community. The solidification and commencement of these doctrines were formed in the creation of afterlife texts which illustrated and explained what the dead would need to know in order to complete the journey safely.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Introduction
Pharisees believed that in death, people rest in their graves until they are physically resurrected with the coming of the Messiah, and within that resurrected body the soul would exist eternally. Maimonides also included the concept of resurrection in his Thirteen Principles of Faith. Judaism's view is summed up by a biblical observation about the Torah: in the beginning God clothes the naked (Adam), and at the end God buries the dead (Moses). The Children of Israel mourned for 40 days, then got on with their lives.
Christianity and Judaism | Heaven and Hell
Some scholars believe that this practice demonstrates that hippopotamus goddesses facilitated the process of rebirth after death, just as they aided in earthly births. These statues, then, assisted the deceased's passing into the afterlife.
Taweret | History and development
There were many challenges the dead had to face before they were able to enter into the final stages of the afterlife. However, through the support of the living, the dead had access to the protection and knowledge they would need to be reborn in the netherworld.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Funeral practices
The ancient Mesopotamians believed in an afterlife that was a land below our world. It was this land, known alternately as "Arallû", "Ganzer" or "Irkallu", the latter of which meant "Great Below", that it was believed everyone went to after death, irrespective of social status or the actions performed during life. Unlike Christian Hell, the Mesopotamians considered the underworld neither a punishment nor a reward. Nevertheless, the condition of the dead was hardly considered the same as the life previously enjoyed on earth: they were considered merely weak and powerless ghosts. The myth of Ishtar's descent into the underworld relates that "dust is their food and clay their nourishment, they see no light, where they dwell in darkness." Stories such as the Adapa myth resignedly relate that, due to a blunder, all men must die and that true everlasting life is the sole property of the gods.
Ancient Mesopotamian religion | Afterlife
This factor appears to less advantage in the unfolding of the views concerning life after death. Throughout all periods of Babylonian-Assyrian history, the conception prevailed of a large dark cavern below the earth, not far from the Apsu—the fresh water abyss encircling and flowing underneath the earth—in which all the dead were gathered and where they led a miserable existence of inactivity, amid gloom and dust. Occasionally a favoured individual was permitted to escape from this general fate and placed in a pleasant island. It would appear also that the rulers were always singled out for divine grace, and in the earlier periods of the history, owing to the prevailing view that the rulers stood nearer to the Gods than other mortals, the kings were deified after death, and in some instances divine honours were paid to them even during their lifetime.
Religions of the ancient Near East | Ethic
The beliefs of many cultures, including Judaism and Hinduism as well as classical paganism, consider the dead ritually impure and avoid mixing temples and cemeteries (though see above for Moche, and below for Islamic culture). An exception in the Classical World were the Lycians of Anatolia. There are also the Egyptian mortuary-temples, where the object of worship was the deified royal person entombed, but Egyptian temples to the major gods contained no burials. An extreme example was ancient Delos. Christians believed in a bodily resurrection of the dead at the Second Coming of Christ, and the Catholic Church only relaxed its opposition to cremation in 1963.
Funerary art | Christianity
In Ancient Egyptian spirituality, one can only completely achieve sanctity when confronted with death itself, meaning that the physical body is only one place where a person exists. Destruction of a person's body after death leads to an incomplete passing into the afterlife. Existence itself continues in the afterlife, experiences such as sexual and material pleasure do not stop after death. The Book of the Dead scroll was a culturally common item that is used as a guide into the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was a privately owned item, the spells only gained significance through the use of imagery throughout the text.
Book of the Dead (Art Institute of Chicago) | Mythology
According to him, in contrast to Shiite belief, the return of the Prophet Muhammad is not limited to a specific time in the future. Al-Sayuti did not mention if any other religious figures will return after death before the resurrection. According to Abu ʽAbdullah Al-Qurtubi, rajʽa is understood as the lack of physical presence of a prophet, who marks his apparent death by absence in the physical world but will reappear, from time to time, to those who are pure in heart. The Maliki scholar Ibn al-Arabi, known for his exegesis of the Sunan al-Tirmidhi, stated that seeing and hearing the prophets while awake is possible for the pure believer.
Rajʽa | In Sunni Islam
It was the first time that anything other than Ancient Greek had been allowed in education. However, change was slow; some Ancient Greek continued to be taught in primary schools until 1917, and secondary schools were allowed nothing else until 1909.
Greek language question | End of hopes for the resurrection of Ancient Greek
During the period of the Second Temple ( 515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire. Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them. Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology. By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.
Heaven | Second Temple Judaism
Immortality in ancient Greek religion originally always included an eternal union of body and soul as can be seen in Homer, Hesiod, and various other ancient texts. The soul was considered to have an eternal existence in Hades, but without the body the soul was considered dead. Although almost everybody had nothing to look forward to but an eternal existence as a disembodied dead soul, a number of men and women were considered to have gained physical immortality and been brought to live forever in either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean or literally right under the ground.
Immortality | Ancient Greek religion
It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world, in places such as Australia, East Asia, Siberia, and South America. Although the majority of denominations within the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Kabbalah, the Cathars, Alawites, the Druze, and the Rosicrucians. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of recent scholarly research.
Afterlife | Reincarnation
To compare, this dogma is deeply related to the birth of the sun god Ra, who enters the goddess's womb every night, and is reborn as the sun rises. Ra's relation to the afterlife is very connected through the religious components that justify the rising and setting of the sun. Ultimately, the immortality desired by ancient Egyptians was reflected in endless lives. By doing worthy deeds in their current life, they would be granted a second life for all of eternity.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Rebirth
Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious concept that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each death. It is also called rebirth or transmigration and is a part of the Saṃsāra doctrine of cyclic existence. It is a central tenet of all major Indian religions, namely Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by historic Greek figures, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. It is also a common belief of various ancient and modern religions such as Spiritism, Theosophy, and Eckankar.
Afterlife | Reincarnation
With the advent of Christianity in the third century, traditional motifs, like the seasons, remained, and images representing a belief in the afterlife appeared. The change in style brought by Christianity is perhaps most significant, as it signals a change in emphasis on images of retrospection, and introduced images of an afterlife.
Ancient Roman sarcophagi | Third- and fourth-century sarcophagi
World religions put forth various theories which affirm life after death and different kinds of postmortem existence. This is often tied to belief in an immortal individual soul or self (Sanskrit: atman) separate from the body which survives death, as defended by Plato, Descartes, Monotheistic religions like Christianity and many Indian philosophers. This view is also a position on the mind body problem, mainly, dualism. This view then must show not only that dualism is true and that souls exist, but also that souls survive death. As Kant famously argued, the mere existence of a soul does not prove its immortality, for one could conceive that a soul, even if it is totally simple, could still fade away or lose its intensity.
Philosophy of religion | Afterlife
Prior to a person’s death, they would make arrangements for the care of their families and property, to say their final farewells and to pray. After the person had died, the body was washed and anointed with oil and often a wreath would be put around the deceased person’s neck. Then, coins would be put on the person’s eyes, it was believed that this would allow the individual to pay Charon, the ferryman of the dead, to transport them across the river Styx into the afterlife. In some cases, an amulet would be put on the mouth instead, while in some mystery cults, they would use a golden ornament, sometimes known as a ‘passport of the dead,’ which carried important information for helping the deceased to find their way around in the underworld.
Ceremonies of ancient Greece | Funeral rites
In the Hall of Two Truths, the deceased's heart was weighed against the "Shu" feather of truth and justice taken from the headdress of the goddess Ma'at. If the heart was lighter than the feather, they could pass on, but if it were heavier they would be devoured by the demon Ammit. Egyptians also believed that being mummified and put in a sarcophagus (an ancient Egyptian "coffin" carved with complex symbols and designs, as well as pictures and hieroglyphs) was the only way to have an afterlife. Only if the corpse had been properly embalmed and entombed in a mastaba, could the dead live again in the Fields of Yalu and accompany the Sun on its daily ride.
Afterlife | Ancient Egyptian religion
According to Julius Firmicus Maternus of the fourth century, this play was re-enacted each year by worshippers who "beat their breasts and gashed their shoulders... When they pretend that the mutilated remains of the god have been found and rejoined...they turn from mourning to rejoicing." ("De Errore Profanarum Religionum").
Osiris | Death or transition and institution as god of the afterlife
The "eternal return" is an idea for interpreting religious behavior proposed by the historian Mircea Eliade; it is a belief expressed through behavior (sometimes implicitly, but often explicitly) that one is able to become contemporary with or return to the "mythical age"—the time when the events described in one's myths occurred. It should be distinguished from the philosophical concept of "eternal return".
Eternal return (Eliade) | Introduction
A belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by Greek historic figures, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. It is also a belief in various modern religions. Although the majority of denominations within Christianity and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Cathars, Alawites, the Druze, and the Rosicrucians. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of recent scholarly research.
Reincarnation | Introduction
Practitioners of the reconstructed religion of Ancient Greece, known as Hellenic Polytheists, seek to restore ancient festivals such as the Lenaia. Reconstructionists take from primary sources and secondary sources to reconstruct the festival itself. Some ways Hellenic Polytheists celebrate is by drinking, partying, and overall merriment. Other ways they celebrate is by watching plays, especially Aristophanes’s plays; such as The Frogs. Reciting hymns to Dionysus, especially the Orphic hymns, may also be done to honour the god to celebrate. Overall, the key elements of the modern festival try to match the one in antiquity.
Lenaia | Modern Celebration and Revival
During the 18th century, several notable authors and freethinkers embraced Ancient Greek religion to some extent, studying and translating ancient works of theology and philosophy, and in some cases composing original hymns and devotionals to the Ancient Greek pantheon. The English author John Fransham (1730–1810) was one example, considered an eccentric by his peers, who was also referred to as a pagan and a polytheist. In Fransham's 1769 book "The Oestrum of Orpheus", he advanced a theology similar to that of the Neoplatonists: that the first cause of existence is uncreated and indestructible, but not intelligent, and that the universe is shaped by "innumerable intelligent powers or forces, 'plastic and designing,' who ruled all sublunary affairs, and may most fitly be designated by the nomenclature of the Hellenic theology." Despite his apparent belief in the Hellenic gods, Fransham does not seem to have been particularly devoted to their worship.
Hellenism (religion) | Early reconstructionists
Levenson has been called, “the most interesting and incisive biblical exegete among contemporary Jewish thinkers.” He is described as “challenging the idea, part of Greek philosophy and popular now, that resurrection for Jews and the followers of Jesus is simply the survival of an individual's soul in the hereafter.” In "Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel", Levenson asserts that in classical Christianity and Judaism,” “resurrection occurs for the whole person — body and soul. For early Christians and some Jews, resurrection meant being given back one's body or possibly God creating a new similar body after death”. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the "Jewish Review of Books".
Jon D. Levenson | Areas of specialization
And even after a person had been buried, it was important to continue to offer libations and cuttings of hair, as well as to regularly celebrate both recently deceased ancestors and the whole host of the dead at major ceremonies like the Genesia. However, funeral rites did vary both throughout the history of Ancient Greece as well as between the different city-states. For example, cremation was a common practice within the city-state of Athens.
Ceremonies of ancient Greece | Funeral rites
Once crossed, the soul would be judged by Aeacus, Rhadamanthus and King Minos. The soul would be sent to Elysium, Tartarus, Asphodel Fields, or the Fields of Punishment. The Elysian Fields were for the ones that lived pure lives. It consisted of green fields, valleys and mountains, everyone there was peaceful and contented, and the Sun always shone there. Tartarus was for the people that blasphemed against the gods, or were simply rebellious and consciously evil. The Asphodel Fields were for a varied selection of human souls: Those whose sins equalled their goodness, were indecisive in their lives, or were not judged.
Afterlife | Ancient Greek and Roman religions
Urban pagans continued to utilize the civic centers and temple complexes, while Christians set up their own, new places of worship in suburban areas of cities. Contrary to some older scholarship, newly converted Christians did not simply continue worshiping in converted temples; rather, new Christian communities were formed as older pagan communities declined and were eventually suppressed and disbanded. The Roman Emperor Julian, a nephew of Constantine who had been raised Christian, initiated an effort to end the suppression of non-Christian religions and re-organize a syncretic version of Graeco-Roman polytheism which he termed "Hellenism". Julian's Christian training influenced his decision to create a single organized version of the various old pagan traditions, with a centralized priesthood and a coherent body of doctrine, ritual, and liturgy based on Neoplatonism.
Ancient Greek religion | Decline and suppression
Throughout the centuries, the Egyptian people decorated their tombs and coffins with religious spells and texts hoping to help the dead in the afterlife. As Egyptian culture developed these texts, too, evolved, becoming more complex and extensive in nature.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Afterlife texts
Ancient Egyptians believed that death occurs when a person's kꜣ leaves the body. Ceremonies conducted by priests after death, including the "opening of the mouth ("wp r")", aimed not only to restore a person's physical abilities in death, but also to release a "Ba"'s attachment to the body. This allowed the bꜣ to be united with the kꜣ in the afterlife, creating an entity known as an ꜣḫ. Egyptians conceived of an afterlife as quite similar to normal physical existence – but with a difference. The model for this new existence was the journey of the Sun. At night the Sun descended into the Duat or "underworld".
Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul | Relationships
To demonstrate, there was no justification for the sun's orbit, so religious myths redefined and answered the questions prehistoric people had. Yet, since natural incidences were explained by religious beliefs, other realms of creed mimicked the natural patterns of life. For instance, the general ideology associated with the path to the underworld was believed that as night overshadowed the land, the deceased would begin their journey. And with the rising of the sun, a new day was not only thought to have begun, but a new life as well. Boat passages to the underworld were strictly reserved for pharaohs who had died.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs | Journey to the afterlife