Understanding Death: An Introduction to Ideas of Self and the Afterlife in World Religions

A comprehensive survey of how religions understand death, dying, and the afterlife, drawing on examples from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Shamanic perspectives.

• Considers shared and differing views of death across the world s major religions, including on the nature of death itself, the reasons for it, the identity of those who die, religious rituals, and on how the living should respond to death
• Places emphasis on the varying concepts of the self or soul
• Uses a thematic structure to facilitate a broader comparative understanding
• Written in an accessible style to appeal to an undergraduate audience, it fills major gap in current textbook literature