The document discusses religious views of life after death from ancient to modern times. It describes archeological evidence from Neanderthal burials that showed early concepts of death and survival. Ancient texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh depicted the afterlife as gloomy underworlds. During the Axial Age (800-200 BCE), religions developed ideas of the soul and beatific afterlives. Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism taught reincarnation, while Judaism, Christianity and Islam taught bodily resurrection.

1. Religious Views of Life After Death
Views of life after death associated with the ancient
and modern religious traditions of the world

2. Earliest Evidence of Human Belief
in Survival of Death
Archeological Evidence
The practice of intentional human burial, which
dates back to at least the Neanderthal period
(300,00 - 30,000 BCE), provides prima facie
evidence of the concept of death among early
humans.

3. The practice of ritual
burials among later
Neanderthal and Cro
Magnon humans is prima
facie evidence of the
concept of survival of death
among early humans.
Archeological Evidences of Ritual Burial
1. Unique positioning of the corpse (e.g., fetal position)
2. Painting the corpse or covering it with carved stones or plants.
3. Clothing and decorating corpses with jewelry (e.g., pendants,
bracelets, necklaces, beads).
4. Burying corpses with other “grave goods” (e.g. jewelry, tools)

4. Between 1957-1961Columbia
University archeologists
excavated nine Neanderthal
skeletons in the caves of the
Zagros Mountains. The
corpses date between 60,000
and 80,000 BCE.
Some of the bodies had been
buried with carved rocks and split
animal bones around the grave.
Substantial pollen deposits found
in the soil around one skeleton
(Shanidar IV) suggest that the
body was buried with flowers. Zagros Mountains, Northern Iraq
Shanidar Caves

5. Shanidar IV

6. Pre-historic humans exhibited a concept of death
and belief in survival of death.

7. Written Evidence
Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2000 BCE): After death, the human
person goes to the netherworld as an etemmu (ghost or
shade).
The “shade” is a ghostly double of the human person, and the
netherworld is a gloomy subterranean realm.

8. The idea of the continued
existence of a person as a
ghost in the Netherworld was
common throughout
Mesopotamia by 2000 BCE.

9. Portions of the Hebrew Scriptures (circa 800-500 BCE)
The dead go to “sheol,” but some are capable of being raised
as spirits or ghosts. (e.g., I Samuel 28)
The Iliad and the Odyssey (circa 750-650 BCE )
The dead go to Hades (the underworld). “There remains
then even in the house of Hades a spirit and phantom of
the dead, but there is no life within it.” (Iliad 23).

10. Significance of this Ancient
Conception of the Afterlife
The afterlife is not a desirable place.
The conception of the afterlife is not a beatific one. It
isn’t a place of happiness and joy. It also isn’t a place of
punishment.
The prevalence of this negative concept of the afterlife in
the ancient world undermines the idea that belief in an
afterlife arose because people wanted a better life than
they had during their earthly lives.
If the afterlife does not distinguish between the just and the
unjust, afterlife beliefs cannot be used as ways of enforcing
morality and controlling people’s behavior.

11. Morally Relevant Conception of the Afterlife in
Mesopotamia and India around 1400 BCE….
Mesopotamia - the 12th tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The quality of life in the Netherworld varies depending
on the quality of one’s earthly life.
India – Rig Veda (of the sacred Vedas)
The virtuous receive a new body after death and enter “the
world of the fathers” after death (a heavenly realm of
pleasure and joy occupied by one’s ancestors and the
gods), but the wicked are cast into a dark pit.

12. With the exception of survival beliefs in Egypt and
South Asia, the conception of the afterlife in the
ancient world prior to the first millenium BCE was
not a positive one.

13. The Axial Period (800-200 BCE)
Zoroaster (prophet of Zoroastrianism)
Buddha
Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
Completion of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old
Testament)
Composition of the Upanishads and
Bhagavad Gita

14. Two Important Features of the Axial Period
Ideal Self
Beatific Conception of the Afterlife

15. The Rise of Soul
The Socratic dialogues affirmed the existence of the self as an
individual soul, an immaterial, simple substance that intrinsically
has immortality. The soul can enter into a divine world after
death, otherwise it might be reborn in a new body on earth.
The Upanishadic Hindu tradition in India affirmed the
existence of a true self (atman) that transcends the
individual self of our present experience.
The Persian and Hebrew traditions affirmed the existence of
an individual self that will survive death, first in the form of a
disembodied soul and subsequently as a unity of soul and
body.

16. Zoroastrianism: Ancient Religion of Persia

17. Zoroastrianism affirmed a beatific
afterlife for all worshippers of the
one true God.
The soul (urvan) of the dead person
goes to a heavenly realm after
death. The soul is rejoined to the
body at some time in the future
when God conquers all the forces of
evil.
The wicked enter a place of
punishment after death (hell), but
exist there only for a limit time.
All people are eventually
redeemed.

18. By the 2nd century BCE, the doctrines of disembodied soul-
survival and a future bodily resurrection from the dead are
present in Judaism.
These ideas eventually work their way into
Christian and Islamic theology in the
common era.

19. Asian Religion
The Upanishads (circa
800-500 BCE) and the
Bhagavad Gita (500-200
BCE) explicitly affirm the
doctrine of reincarnation
(samsara), roughly the idea
that souls are reborn in new
bodies until the cycle of
death an rebirth is broken.
Buddhism taught a similar doctrine of rebirth from
its inception in the 6th century BCE.

20. The Heart of Hinduism and Buddhism

21. Afterlife Views at a Glance
Eastern Religions Western Religions
(Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism) (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
Reincarnation Bodily Resurrection
Eastern and Western
Religions
Disembodied Survival
(Intermediate State)