Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:51:12.547Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Origin of Death in some Ancient Near Eastern Religions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

S. G. F. Brandon
Affiliation:
Professor of Comparative Religion in the University of Manchester

Extract

The Irish poet W. B. Yeats once wrote, with great sapience and perception:

Nor dread, nor hope attend

A dying animal;

A man awaits his end

Dreading and hoping all.

That death has ever been a problem to man is attested as far back as we can trace our species in the archaeological record—indeed, it seems to have been a problem even for that immediate precursor of homo sapiens, the so-called Neanderthal Man; for he buried his dead.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Page 217 note 2 Cf. Brandon, S. G. F., Man and his Destiny in the Great Religions (Manchester University Press, 1962), pp. 89.Google Scholar This work, often to be cited, contains full documentation.

Page 217 note 3 Cf. op. cit., pp. 8–13.

Page 218 note 1 Manchester University Press, 1965.

Page 218 note 2 Pyr. 366c, 367b.

Page 219 note 1 Cf. Sander-Hansen, C. E., Der Begriff des Todes bei den Aegyptern (Copenhagen, 1942), pp. 1820;Google ScholarBrandon, , Man and his Destiny, p. 35.Google Scholar

Page 219 note 2 Cf. Brandon, , Creation Legends of the Ancient Near East (London, 1963), p. 62.Google Scholar

Page 219 note 3 Cf. Creation Legends, chapter 11.

Page 219 note 4 Cf. Man and his Destiny, pp. 63, 66–7.

Page 220 note 1 Cf. Man and his Destiny, pp. 35 ff., where full documentation is given.

Page 220 note 2 Pyr. 1255.

Page 220 note 3 Cf. Bonnet, H., Reallexikon der ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin, 1952), pp. 707, 711b715;Google ScholarBrandon, , ‘The Personification of Death in some Ancient Religions’ (Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 43, 1961), p. 322;CrossRefGoogle ScholarZandee, J., Death as an Enemy (Leiden, 1960), pp. 85–7, 184–6.Google Scholar

Page 220 note 4 Cf. Brandon, in The Saviour God (Manchester University Press, 1963), pp. 1828.Google Scholar

Page 221 note 1 Kramer, S. N., Sumerian Mythology (Philadelphia, 1944), pp. 6872.Google Scholar

Page 221 note 2 Cf. Brandon, , Creation Legends, pp. 60–1.Google Scholar

Page 222 note 1 Cf. Creation Legends, pp. 77–8.

Page 222 note 2 Cf. Creation Legends, chapter 111.

Page 223 note 1 Tab. X, col. ii, 1–11; trans. Heidel, A., The Gilgamesh Epic (Chicago University Press, 1949), pp. 6970.Google Scholar Cf. Man and his Destiny, pp. 91–3.

Page 224 note 1 Tab. VII, col. iv, 31–41; trans. Heidel, p. 36.

Page 224 note 2 Cf. Ebeling, E., Tod und Leben nach den Vorstellungen des Babylonier (Berlin/Leipzig, 1931), vol. 1, (5) 3;Google Scholar Brandon in B.J.R.L., vol. 43 (1961), p. 324.

Page 224 note 3 Cf. Man and his Destiny, p. 93.

Page 225 note 1 Cf. Man and his Destiny, pp. 87–9.

Page 225 note 2 Cf. Brandon, , History, Time and Deity, pp. 126–9.Google Scholar

Page 226 note 1 Genesis ii. 7.

Page 226 note 2 Gen. ii. 19. Cf. Creation Legends, pp. 123–4.

Page 226 note 3 Gen. ii. 9.

Page 226 note 4 Cf. Creation Legends, pp. 126, 132–5.

Page 226 note 5 Cf. Creation Legends, pp. 127–32, where documentation is given.

Page 227 note 1 Gen. iii. 6–7.

Page 227 note 2 Cf. Creation Legends, pp. 136–9. See also Schwarzbaum, H., ‘The Overcrowded Earth’, in Numen, vol. iv (1957), pp. 5971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 228 note 1 In James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament, p. 11;Google Scholar see also Philo, , On the Creation, liii, 1152.Google Scholar

Page 228 note 2 Gen. iii. 19.

Page 228 note 3 Cf. Brandon, , in B.J.R.L. vol. 43, pp. 325–6.Google Scholar

Page 228 note 4 Cf. History, Time and Deity, pp. 61–3.

Page 228 note 5 Cf. de la Vallée, L. Poussin in E.R.E. vol. viii, pp. 406b407b.Google Scholar