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New Book by Religion Professor Alan Segal on Afterlife in Western Religion Offers Wide-Ranging Intellectual and Cultural History of Beliefs and Human Behavior
Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion Available in Stores July 20
 New York, NY-- Throughout the ages and in every culture, people have grappled with the question of what happens to us after we die. Alan Segal, renowned scholar and Professor of Religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College , has spent nearly 15 years studying and researching how Western religions have approached the question. His new book, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion , due July 20 from Doubleday, offers perhaps the first comprehensive historical and cultural analysis of the subject, and brings new understanding to both Western beliefs and human behavior.
Segal has written an intellectual and cultural history in the tradition of James Carroll and Harold Bloom. At the heart of this book lies the question of why a particular culture chooses to imagine the afterlife in a specific way.
Starting from contemporary American views on the afterlife from the religious and political right to the left, to Islamic suicide bombers and terrorists, Segal, who has studied the interconnections of Western cultures and religions for decades, combines history, geography, mythology, archaeology, and biblical analysis to help us understand how the Western belief systems and patterns of human behavior have come about.
"The book is not just a historical analysis of afterlife, but it asks a specific question about why people envision their afterlife in one form or another," said Segal. "What is at stake when you imagine your afterlife as an immortal soul or a resurrected body? I see the afterlife as a mirror of our selves, so in constructing afterlife, people are really making a statement about what is important in their lives."
In Life After Death , Segal weaves together an extensive historical analysis of why a particular culture chooses to comprehend the afterlife in a specific way, and how we have developed our contemporary views of ourselves. Segal begins the book by looking at contemporary American views on afterlife, in particular Jewish Americans and Arab Americans, and draws parallels between these contemporary values and ancient cultures. He makes the timely comparison between ancient Islamic ideas about the afterlife and martyrdom with those held by modern suicide bombers and terrorists. He also explores why the representatives of the left and the right wing in our political scheme have different views of the afterlife.
Segal discusses the modern phenomenon of near-death experiences and their ancient equivalents of when people ascended to heaven and saw what was there. "There are neuro-physiological explanations to these experiences and people have been experiencing them throughout the ages through physical drama, narcotics and meditation," said Segal.
Segal traces the roots of our beliefs back to the ancient Greek and Egyptian civilizations to find out the forces that shaped their ideas about the afterlife. Why did Egyptians, for instance, build monumental pyramids and mummify their dead? Why exactly did the ancient Greeks believe that only the soul lives on after death--a radical concept at the time--whereas the ancient Israelites believed in the literal resurrection of the body at the end of time? Why do some Islamic traditions believe that Allah will reward martyrs with a heavenly harem of 72 virgins?
Do these ideas about life after death have anything to do with historical events or the kinds of values we hold when we are still alive? Segal's answer is an unqualified "yes." Beliefs about the afterlife are directly affected by events in the here and now. In tracing the organic, historical relationships between sacred texts and communities of belief and comparing the visions of life after death that have emerged throughout history, Life After Death sheds a revealing light on the intimate connections between notions of the afterlife, the societies that produced them, and the individual's search for the ultimate meaning of life on earth.
"If you ask somebody about afterlife, you can find out as much about them as if you asked where they went to school or how much money they make -- the way in which we believe in afterlife, is a strong indicator of the American way of life," says Segal.
In the book, Segal concludes that the American view is that everybody deserves a life after death. "History always lies, but since our view of afterlife is fiction we can safely believe it," Segal said.
Alan F. Segal is professor of religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is the author of Paul the Convert , Rebecca's Children , and Two Powers in Heaven , as well as numerous scholarly articles.
For a review copy of the book, please contact Kate Harris at 212-782-9798 or kaharris@randomhouse.com . |
