Afterlife and the ANE

Milkman

I'm looking for a book that specifically deals with the afterlife within the ANE thought. Preferably within Logos or a kindle version.

For example. What did the Assyrians, Mesopatamians, Babylonians, Egyptians or Persians believe about the afterlife.

The one resource that I have - Life in the Face of Death: The Resurrection Message of the New Testament - has some information (one chapter) very little tagging and extremely few references to primary sources such as; Ancient Near Eastern Texts, The Context of Scripture or Writings from the Ancient World. Walton's book, Ancient Near Eastern Thought And the Old Testament is ok, but still short on a full book's worth of afterlife thought.

So any help would be much appreciated.

mm.

Mark Barnes

I'm looking for a book that specifically deals with the afterlife within the ANE thought.

There's a chapter in Morris Jastrow's Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, and another in his Religion of Babylonian and Assyria. There's 10 pages in Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature, and a chapter in Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament. The Christian Doctrine of Immortality has chapters on Indian, Egyptian, Babylonian/Assyrian, Persian, and Greek beliefs.

For the Egyptians a search for "Book of the Dead" should yield at least a few dictionary articles which you can then follow up. There are many extracts from this ancient Egyptian work in Hymns, Prayers and Songs: An Anthology of Ancient Egyptian Lyric Poetry and in Volume 2 of Context of Scripture.

The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible has articles on (a) After Life, (b) Book of the Dead, (c) Dead, Abode of The and (d) Burial, all of which include ANE information.

The most useful search in my own library was ("funeral rites", afterlife, "burial practices") NEAR (ane, babylon*, Mesopot*, egypt*, assyria*, persia*).