Death, Ritual and Belief: The Rhetoric of Funerary Rites
Describing a great variety of funeral ritual from major world religions and from local traditions, this book shows how cultures not only cope with corpses but also create an added value for living through the encouragement of afterlife beliefs. The explosion of interest in death in recent years reflects the key theme of this book - the rhetoric of death - the way cultures use the most potent weapon of words to bring new power to life. This new edition is one third longer than the original...
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Death has proved advantageous to humanity: this is the underlying argument of this book, enshrined in the expression 'words against death'. The human animal never lets death have the last word. Through religious ritual and secular rites, in words and in music, in architecture and in art, people express their trust in hope over fear. Grounded in anthropology, this unique collection of material on funeral rites includes theological, philosophical and psychological perspectives on death. It not only covers basic aspects of Middle Eastern, Eastern and Western religious traditions but also includes empirical research on such things as experiencing the presence of the dead and attitudes to the death of pets. This revised edition includes new material on theories of grief and presents Professor Davies's own theory on death in the birth of world religions and on 'offending deaths' in sacrifice and human catastrophes.
AcknowledgementsviPreface to Second EditionviiIntroductionviii1Interpreting Death Rites12Coping with Corpses: Impurity, Fertility and Fear243Theories of Grief434Violence, Sacrifice and Conquest625Eastern Destiny and Death816Ancestors, Cemeteries and Local Identity917Jewish and Islamic Destinies1188Christianity and the Death of Jesus1259Near-Death, Symbolic Death and Rebirth14510Somewhere to Die15511Souls and the Presence of the Dead16312Pet and Animal Death18213Book, Film and Building19614Offending Death, Grief and Religions21115Secular Death and Life224Bibliography240Index258
