Evolution of Concepts of Reincarnation & Afterlife

Evolution of Concepts of Reincarnation & Afterlife

The belief in an afterlife, life after our death, in physical or spiritual form, and also that of coming back in this world in another form definitely or many times, with or without soul, has been the core and bane of humanity throughout human history. How did these concepts develop?

Copyright © 2017 by Ben Caesar All rights reserved.

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A short history of the hereafter

What transpires when we pass on? Will we perceive ourselves? Will we be re-joined with the individuals who have gone some time recently? Since the season of the old Greeks and Hebrews, individuals have scanned for answers to these inquiries – and others – about the great beyond.

Where to start a dialog of the beginning of human development involves wrangle among scientistss. We could begin 2.4 million years prior when our Homo habilis precursors (if in reality they were our predecessors) made stone instruments. Or, then again perhaps we should begin 1.4 million years prior with a branch called Homo erectus who relocated from the backwoods of Africa to the African savannas. Chasing and assembling was their sole methods for survival and, as indicated by Pritchard et al. (1999), they scarcely overcame the bottleneck of survival having dwindled to maybe as few as 5,000 people eventually in our initial history. Abridging what is believed to be thought about this primate species, Sedikides and Skowronski (2008, p. 87) depict them as "appalling seekers". They did not have the size, spryness, visual keenness, and in-conceived particular capacities of the prey they looked for and the predators that looked for them.

A basic figure included their survival was their slant to shape tribes. (Straying without anyone else in the savanna grasses was not a smart thought). Nicholas Wade (2009) puts forth a solid defense that these early tribes were libertarian, implying that individuals who endeavored to be pioneers of the pack put their own lives in danger. Some different branches of creatures that developed from our regular predecessors like chimpanzees and primates worked (and keep on operating) inside inflexible, top-down structures with predominant guys and his cronies and a prevailing females and her flunkies responsible for the gathering. Be that as it may, in the beginning times of human development, control sharing seems to have been a key to survival and people who endeavored to force their will on the gathering were probably going to be exiled or executed.

Early tribes were involved moderately little groups of individuals and inside tribal union was basic for agreeable chasing, sustenance sharing, and achievement in intertribal fighting. Cutting edge road packs have something just the same as tribes that meandered the savannas. They don't care for each other and fights are normal. The same was the situation with wandering groups on the savannas. The tribes destined to survive were tribes whose individuals were so firmly associated and focused on each other that they were ready to battle and, if vital, kick the bucket for the gathering.

Ceremonies seem to have been basic for this kind of attaching to occur. Scarcely any insider facts of nature had been found, so "regular" reasons for the wealth or shortage of sustenance, one extreme or another, precipitation or dry spell, birth and passing were puzzles. Human brains are intended to look for purposes behind why things happen or don't occur and if reasons are not evident, we influence them to up. Reasons doubtlessly convey to illustrative forces with them and in this way fulfill pre-logical personalities included the exercises of otherworldly specialists like divine beings, spirits, apparitions, the sun, the moon, heavenly bodies of stars, snakes, ravens, panthers, and other seen and inconspicuous powers accepted to be responsible for natural issues. After these operators were recognized, procedures for affecting them were conceived. These procedures included moving, singing, phlebotomy, creature and human penances, and other ritualized hones expected to convey favorable luck to the tribe and to keep it from being the objective of powerful fury.

Predecessor venerate was a typical component of chasing and assembling tribes. Expired tribespersons still existed in the brains of their surviving kinfolk and now and then emerged in evening dreams. At the point when not going by the fantasies of the living, they were envisioned to exist as spirits dwelling in trees, high grass, in the sky, under the ground, on peaks, possessing the assortments of different creatures, or existing in altogether unique domains. In many regards, dead precursors were perfect possibility to be distinguished as specialists fit for both great and malice. An imperative element of progenitor venerating tribes was, and still is in a few locales, that the perished remain a piece of the living scene. The dead, regardless of what shape their spirits take, were thought to stay extremely intrigued and very compelling in tribal undertakings. By method for legitimate internments, yields and endowments, spirits of the dead could be impacted to cure diseases, increment or decline the supply of sustenance, and give the tribe the fearlessness and clever to vanquish their adversaries. In a few social orders, they could be called upon for counsel about how to treat tribespersons who abused the standards of libertarianism or who were not worrying about their offer of the concern. In this and different ways, predecessors were utilized to protect the current social request.

Ritualized singing and gathering moving (now and then to the point of depleted daze and stupor states) in respect and festivity of predecessors and different heavenly specialists were imperative events for aggregate holding. These exercises gave members a solid feeling of gathering enrollment and, through that participation, a feeling of gathering security and congruity.

I can't answer the topic of regardless of whether seeker and gatherers trusted in an individual soul with life following death potential. Nonetheless, I think not, in any event not until the point that evangelists endeavored to present the thought in late hundreds of years. What's more, there is no proof we are aware of recommending that tribesmen anticipated kicking the bucket so they could at last get some regard. Living people existed in bodies, and dead individuals moved toward becoming spirits. Furthermore, first on the motivation of both the living and the dead was the solidarity and attachment of the tribe.

Some seeker and social affair tribes still in presence that have been considered seriously are minimalists regarding existence in the wake of death convictions. For example, the Hadza of northern Tanzania take demise as an issue of proper way. Individuals are conceived, they live for however long they live, amazing, that is it. Internment ceremonies are basic, and convictions in an existence in the wake of death don't appear to exist. J. Woodburn (1982) considered the Hadza amid four years of hands on work and his perceptions are abridged by Bond (1992). They are depicted as working in a "quick return" framework; implying that anxiety is set on the present-day exercises of picking up nourishment for prompt utilization with insignificant consideration given to making arrangements for what's to come. Got sustenance? Eat it now.

The Pirahas constitute another case of a chasing and assembling tribe that lives in the "now" and gives next to zero contemplated life after today, let along post-existence. The Pirahas are involved little Indian tribes living on the banks of the Amazon River in Brazil. Daniel Everett (2009), a language specialist and ethnographer, examined the tribe through the span of three decades and lived among them for a sum of 7 years. Everett's essential intrigue was the tribe's unique dialect, in any case, after some time, he turned out to be similarly keen on the Piraha's perspectives as communicated in their words and activities. Here are a couple of the striking highlights of the general public

1. The Pirahas are savagely populist. There are no boss or named pioneers. Each part regards every single other part as equivalents. All things of significant worth like kayaks, bows and bolts, and sustenance are shared. No one is wealthier or poorer than some other individual. There is no enthusiasm for gathering material riches or conveying consideration regarding oneself by developing a "superior" cottage or weaving a remarkable crate. When somebody offers a sentiment, it is expressed as the supposition of the gathering.

2. Prompt experience is the only thing that is in any way important. There is a striking absence of worry about the future among the Piraha. For example, little consideration is given to protecting nourishment. At the point when angle are gotten at 3:00AM, individuals from the tribe are stirred and eat the fish. An amazing case of the tribe's absence of worry about what's to come is given when Everett depicts an occasion when the tribe exchanged nourishment for a scoop. The scoop was hurled into the waterway after it was utilized to burrow a grave.

3. History is of no intrigue. All reports of things that are said to have happened in the close or removed past are disregarded. No consideration is paid to prattle statements. Just onlooker reports are acknowledged as facts.

4. Kids are raised to act naturally adequate. A lot of accentuation is set on being solid, hard, and to knowing the earth. Kids are allowed to play with conceivably unsafe items like knifes and sharpened stones and lances. They are just rebuffed when they harm themselves. In case of death of a town part, the main worthy clarification of the demise is the individual was not sufficiently solid to survive.

5. "Excelling" or enhancing one's conditions is not a matter of concern. The Piraha's accentuation on embracing the here and now and knowing how to adapt to whatever their intense condition brings to the table is the manner by which they have made due for obscure hundreds of years.

From an advanced point of view, the Pirahas certainly need desire. "Getting ahead" is not a part of their perspectives. A critical tradeoff as indicated by Everett is they are upbeat and amazingly content with regards to their testing states of life. Fighting is obscure to them. They are guided by moral standards of reasonableness and correspondence and being made by God is unfamiliar to them. They tune in to the spirits with whom they are well-known and "see" each day. As expressed before, the part of these spirits is to offer direction for protecting the current social request.

We can't know with any level of sureness that the Hadza tribe in Africa and the Pirahas of Brazil are current cases of old chasing and assembling tribes. In any case, they may offer signs about existence in the wake of death convictions preceding the arrangement of farming groups. Extrapolating from what we have realized, chasing and assembling tribes did not trust that individuals are blessed with souls that are discharged from the body at the purpose of death and are compensated or rebuffed as per how they directed their lives. It is far fetched that tribes that were so totally situated to embracing the here and now, tribes that had no inclination for or need to get ready for the future, would be fit for envisioning themselves living… always… later on under better or more awful conditions. By "intuition" and preparing, their motivation was to stick to the without a moment's hesitation standards of gathering participation and gathering survival. Dead (as spirits) or alive, their unchallenged mission was to keep up all around honed customs of keeping the tribe together for individual and gathering survival

The Establishment of Agricultural Communities

States of day by day living started to change significantly around 15,000 years prior when rural groups began to come to fruition. Little settlements of ranchers and herders turned out to be extensive settlements and step by step libertarianism was supplanted by progressive, top-down representing structures. As already noted, numerous members in ritualized chasing and assembling tribal (moves that occasionally went on for quite a long time with intermittent breaks) entered stupor like expresses that place them into coordinate contact with the spirits. The utilization or inward breath of plants that actuated visualizations essentially guaranteed that result. These sorts of gathering exercises encouraged gathering holding. However, holding inside little gatherings in a substantial group committed to developing harvests, watching over domesticated animals, and exchanging merchandise with different groups turned out to be progressively broken and different routes must be found to keep up the social request. A layered social structure was a typical answer for administering extensive quantities of individuals. As parts ended up noticeably broadened, ministries rose with the outcome being that lone a couple of individuals, individuals from the ministry were qualified for be in correspondence with the divine beings. It is of more than passing significance to take note of that these profound pioneers regularly had advantaged access to the decision first class. Each had the ear of the other. The possibility that the "Congregation" and the "State" could (or should) be separate operations was unimaginable.

Another marvel that went with the move from libertarianism to a more divided social structure was a move in time viewpoint. Though chasing and assembling tribes were strongly centered around the present, by need, farming groups wound up plainly future arranged. One explanation behind that is self-evident. Cultivating requires arranging. Seeds and plants can't be sown any old fashioned. Recollections of what worked in the past guide forecasts of what is probably going to occur later on. Crowding is additionally a regular action. What is the extent of a sensible crowd? Where are the best fields, and what time of year is most suitable to visit or abandon them? The capacity and safeguarding of sustenance likewise requires complex thinking ahead.

In a current paper (Ogilvie, 2011) I contend that reasoning about the future frequently includes anticipating a picture of oneself into the future and "watching" the moves one makes in an envisioned arrangement of conditions. Positively seekers and gatherers occupied with mental time travel as they utilized the expertise to foresee the landing of fish or when creatures are probably going to move. In any case, they were probably not going to have been as honed in the long range, "imagine a scenario where", thinking as were individuals from settled groups who were worried about saving merchandise for future utilization and gathering an overabundance of benefits for motivations behind exchange.

The point here is the more one takes part in future considering, especially the sort of future suspecting that incorporates anticipating pictures of oneself into the future, the more probable one is to ponder about the destiny of that anticipated picture of the self after the body kicks the bucket.

Obviously, I could be mixed up. Seekers and gatherers may have been fixated on death. Maybe it was dependably at the forefront of their thoughts. In any case, I contend that such concerns ended up noticeably amplified in bigger, future-situated social orders and a few answers for the issue of death were parlayed into capable components for social administration. In like manner dialect, the arrangement was some variety of the accompanying: You will receive an unending length of time of benefits in the event that you play your cards appropriate in this life. The option is an unending length of time of discipline in the event that you play your cards mistakenly. At the end of the day, be a decent resident by following the directs from above and you (or your spirit) will receive the rewards of doing as such in the following life. Venture out of line and you are either a goner or you will languish over your wrongdoings forever. Obviously the "manages from above" were dictated by boss and their working together clerics. It is hard to envision a more viable system for social control. Nicholas Wade outlines these perceptions when he composes,

"In the genealogical religion individuals communed straightforwardly with the extraordinary world through dreams and dazes, not through the intervention of clerics. They approached their divine beings for viable help, for example, great chasing, kids, or wellbeing. In numerous advanced religions ministers coordinate individuals' consideration toward an existence in the wake of death, with guidelines to concentrate their present lives on deeds that will secure rewards past the grave. To put it plainly, followers of the genealogical religions looked to secure survival in this present reality; those of current religions are more centered around salvation in the following." (Wade, 2009, pp. 126-127, accentuation our own).

One of the soonest composed records of the development of a worry about the following life is the tale of Gilgamesh and the baffling news given him by the divine beings that destroyed his expectations for everlasting status.

Gilgamesh's Failed Quest

There is a decent arrangement of contradiction on basic issues like what constitutes the spirit, where it follows it is discharged from the body, what customs are required to guarantee its sheltered section to interminable life, what activities in this life result in the spirit being either rebuffed or compensated in the following life, and so forth. Underneath every one of the civil arguments and vulnerability, one thing appears to be sure; matters identified with the continuation of eternal life have involved the psyches of our precursors at any rate since the ascent of horticultural social orders. Exactly what number of thousands of years prior that was is not known because of the absence of composed records. In any case, if engravings on dirt tablets tally (they do), we realize that Gilgamesh, on one leg of his epic trip, looked for the mystery of everlasting life and was advised to surrender it on the grounds that the divine beings had appointed that human life is just impermanent. [See George (1999) for a current interpretation of the saga].

Gilgamesh was a Babylonian ruler (a genuine lord by most records) who led around 2700 BCE. By 2000 BCE he had turned into the saint of legends composed on tablets in the Sumerian dialect that were broadly scattered in Mesopotamia. Thus, we realize that the look for interminability has involved incredible enthusiasm for no less than 4000 years. We likewise realize that the legend of Gilgamesh is not the wellspring of the considerable religious myths of our opportunity, on the grounds that the answer for the issue of eternal life that Gilgamesh found (there is no post-existence) was not the sort of arrangement a great many people needed to hear. A more idealistic view on the possibilities of existence in the wake of death was genuinely entrenched in Ancient Egypt at about a similar time that Gilgamesh was lord of Urik, at the same time, as we will see, the section from death to unceasing life is not programmed.

Antiquated Egypt

Antiquated Egyptians trusted that the individual was involved three basic components: The primary component is the body. The body is the genuine physical body. It is one of a kind to every individual. The body changes as the individual gets more seasoned and demise is thought to be the last change. The second component is ba. Like the body, ba is one of a kind to every individual. In present day terms, ba can be thought of as one's identity or character, a composite of all the non-physical things that make the individual unique in relation to all other individuals. Your (the reader's) ba would incorporate your recollections, your inclinations, the way in which you express your feelings, the "stuff" you know, your insight, and so forth. The third component is ka. Ka is the life compel. Not at all like ba, ka does not speak to the person. It is an all inclusive power, something shared by all living individuals. Before all else the maker made ka and being under lock and key or not possessing ka is the distinction between being alive and being dead.

At the point when the body kicks the bucket, both ba and ka are discharged through the mouth and are in this way isolated from the body and leave for the Black market. Be that as it may, unless things go ineffectively, the partition is not changeless and in the long run ba, ka, and the body are brought together in the Black market and restored as Akh. Akhs, the individuals who effectively influence the progress, to enter the Black market of unceasing existence with the divine beings. The Black market, as the word recommends, is found underground where life is led similarly life is directed over the ground with the special case that there is no anguish, no infections, no neediness, and, imperatively, no passing. Life is changeless, interminable, endless, in this piece of the Black market. The individuals who neglect to influence the change to endure the destiny of getting to be "re-dead" with no expectation of restoration.

There are hindrances to revival. For example, an essential for safe arriving in the Black market of the divine beings is great lead in "this" world preceding passing. (As noticed a couple of pages back, this is the first of a few occasions we will experience that exhibit how religions take a shot at benefit of keeping up the social request. Scoundrels don't stand a shot).

Be that as it may, a great arrangement of the preliminary work for "akh-hood" was in the hands of the living. Initially the body must be appropriately preserved with the greater part of the organs aside from the heart expelled. At that point a detailed arrangement of ceremonies, chants, and formal offerings of sustenance and different things were made in the administration of safe section. The perished were given maps of the Black market and guidelines about deterrents and how to conquer them as the day of conclusive judgment moved close.

Despite the fact that records differ (all things considered, the practices we are portraying gone on for more than 2500 years), the essential structure of day of atonement is as per the following. (Remember that the most ideal result is when ba, ka, and the body are brought together and appear as akh). In the first place, ba is summoned to the Corridor of Truth, where a few divine beings have assembled. Osiris, the divine force of the Black market, would likely be among them. The core of the perished is then put toward one side of the scale and a plume on the flip side. In the organization of different divine beings, ba, who speaks to the "substance" of the previous individual, is required to recount the accompanying lines (just three of a few are recorded here):

· I have not done lie against man.

· I have done no insidious.

· I have not devastated my partners.

The scale stays in idealize adjust if ba's confirmation of the lines is honest, and a consummately adjusted scale is an essential for the divine beings to enable ba to guide ka to the body they once possessed and in this manner go into the condition of akh. Be that as it may, if lies are told, the heart turns out to be overwhelming, and scale ends up noticeably imbalanced and revival is denied.

One element of the Old Egyptian conviction framework is ba (the Egyptian comparable to the individual soul) was never thought about as totally autonomous from the body. It was not fit for getting by without anyone else. The radical partition of the spirit from the body needed to sit tight for the Early Greeks who took a few centuries to play out the reasonable surgery.

Old Greece

Despite the fact that hints of Old Egyptian religion are clear in some cutting edge convictions (e.g., the last judgment of the spirit), western thoughts were more affected by old Greek speculation than by the legend of antiquated Egyptians. My undertaking is to disentangle a long and complex story and I do as such by concentrating on a couple of focal figures.[4]

We start with the Greek artist, Homer, creator of The Iliad and The Odyssey in the eighth Century BCE. Some the hereafter convictions probably regular to that day and age in Greece can be extricated from these epic stories. The Greek word related with the spirit was mind, a word connected with the word psychein, which means to blow or relax. Mind is inhaled into the body during childbirth and is inhaled out at death. Be that as it may, take note of that the mind that is inhaled out at death is not to be mistaken for ba or ka that leave from the mouth and have a shot at revival in Egyptian folklore. The Greek mind of Homer's time goes straightforwardly to Hades where it exists as a shade. (The words shade and shadow are utilized reciprocally). Hades is a dull, boring, sad place where there is no desire for a superior day. Shadows have no identities, they don't talk, are to a great degree doltish, and once in a while appear as screaching bats. They stop to exist when they are overlooked by the living. This is each individual's destiny. Hades is the basic dumping ground for the honorable, the insidious, the kind-hearted, and the scalawag. All minds progress toward becoming shades and that is the finish of it.

Things lit up a bit with Hesiod's depiction of the Isles of Blest ("Favored" in a few interpretations) in his seventh Century BCE work titled Works and Days. For the lucky few, there is a the great beyond and it is led on the Isles of Blest basically as it was led on territory Greece with some critical exemptions. Great yields are ensured in the lavish and fruitful fields that are reaped three times each year. Significantly more tempting than solid yields is the way that there is no torment, no distress, and no passing on the Isles of Blest. Be that as it may, there is a catch: just individuals with the correct certifications are admitted to this place where there is heaven. As Hesiod envisioned it, the great life was just accessible to saints who were "executed" in battle in the wars at Thebes and Troy. In any case, rather than really kicking the bucket in the fields of fight and winding up as shadows in Hades, these legends earned interminability by being transported body and soul (in spite of the fact that a refinement between the two had not yet been made) to the Isle of Blest. Not an awful enrolling instrument for old furnished services.[5]

Despite the fact that there was very little unequivocal soul-talk by Greek artists and savants until the point when Plato managed the theme in the fifth Century BCE, Pythagorus had set the phase for Plato the prior century (sixth Century BCE) by starting the way toward relaxing the spirit from the grasps of the body. Ever the mathematician, he made a qualification between physical articles, the material "stuff" on the planet (counting one's body) and non-physical substances. Every single material thing have scientific properties and comply with specific laws, one of which is no material protest can proceed onward its own agreement. For example, a seat can't turn itself around. On the off chance that you need a seat to confront in an alternate course, you, as an outer power, must take every necessary step. Another law administering the material world is two articles can't possess the same physical space in the meantime. (Attempt to put two seats in the very same physical area and you will quickly encounter the issue). Yet, neither one of the laws applies to minds. Minds are self-moving. They don't require outer help to move about. You need to look in an alternate course? Do it. Your spirit will give you a hand. What's more, from a specific point of view, two minds can be thought of as having the capacity to involve a similar space in the meantime. For example, when you "read somebody's psyche", it may be said that two personalities incidentally share a similar space. Whatever the real case may be, it was evident to Pythagorus that the laws that oversee the material world don't reach out into the non-material universe of minds.

No one comprehends what Pythagorus really thought, and regardless of whether he even existed involves some civil argument, yet an awesome arrangement has been ascribed to him including the possibility that he was affected by fifth Century Orphic and Dionysian revival myths and was inspired by shamans whose minds could be withdrawn and re-connected with from their bodies when they came back from noteworthy voyages. The possibility that minds could "transmigrate" starting with one body then onto the next body (counting to the groups of creatures) is likewise credited to Pythagorus. Whatever the real case may have been, in truth or in heritage, a great deal was left on the plate for Plato to work with, and, contingent upon one's point of view, we either have profited from or been reviled by his sensational decisions.

In my view, Plato's most sweeping perceptions as far as their religious ramifications are the accompanying announcements.

· The spirit is a celestial creation.

· The spirit is interminable.

· The body and the spirit are separate substances.

· All souls pre-existed in different bodies.

· The spirit is immaculate however that flawlessness is defiled by being encased in the body.

Put gruffly, Plato, more than some other recorded figure preceding his chance, acquainted the world with undeniable, personality/body dualism. Two elements: the body and the spirit. Bodies go back and forth. They are conceived and after that they bite the dust. In any case, souls are undying. Souls fall into bodies during childbirth and move into different bodies when the body encasement passes on. As indicated by some of Plato's thoughts (e.g. Phaedo), the connection between a spirit and the body it involves is much of the time stressed. When all is said in done, souls don't care for being in bodies, to some degree since they are defiled by them, and to a limited extent since they would much rather be free.

Plato adjusted this one-against-one battle 20 years after the fact in The Republic when he isolated the spirit into two components: a normal component (administered by higher reason) and a nonsensical component (represented by our lower bestial cravings). He likewise proposed a third component: the soul or will. The soul gives the individual a decision by either favoring reason or with unreasonable hungers. The main way a spirit can end the cycle of resurrections is to work in the levelheaded circle of Unadulterated Reason since Truth and Magnificence must be gotten through unadulterated reason. In any case, oh dear, unadulterated reason is a troublesome condition to keep up on the grounds that it is continually under the danger of being dragged around bestial interests of the body (e.g., desire, begrudge, delight, torment, fear, trust, and so on). As per Plato, souls destined to go into and stay in the circle of truth and magnificence are the souls of savants. Souls that ascent to that level have achieved flawlessness and are not reused. In this way, on the off chance that you need be the holder of such a spirit, consider majoring in rationality.

Plato underscored the battle between the material body and the ethereal soul. The body couldn't work without soul and it was almost unthinkable for the spirit not to be defiled by the body. As we will see, the strain between real wants and keeping up the immaculateness of the spirit along these lines turned into a focal element of Christian and Islamic religions. In any case, before we manage this and related issues, I will utilize Plato's thoughts regarding different incarnations of the spirit as a springboard to present a few highlights of Hinduism; a religion that advances convictions that are perfect with Plato's idea that souls discharged from dead bodies are resurrected into new bodies. The cycle is ended simply after much-voyaged souls accomplish flawlessness. This thought pre-dated Plato by a few centuries in the northern districts of India and is one of many examples of the scattering of thoughts over long separations and drawn out stretches of time. A focal element of Hinduism is resurrection of the spirit with a definitive objective of closure the cycle of resurrection.

Hinduism

Dissimilar to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, Hinduism is not a solitary religion. It is an amalgam or union of three religious customs. There is no particular author or clear time of birthplace. It is a long haul aggregation of various religious perspectives into a usually acknowledged arrangement of salvation. A definitive objective in Hinduism is to look for discharge from the cycle of resurrections and achieve union with A definitive Reality. This union outcomes in the last arrival of the spirit from the ceaseless reusing into different physical structures. Stop! I prescribe that perusers not familiar with Hinduism backpedal and read the last six sentences. Notice that no single god is said; just something many refer to as Extreme Reality. Likewise see that salvation is a long haul process that includes rehashed re-births. As we will find To some extent II, the "Western" monotheistic point of view proposes one god, one way to salvation, and just a single lifetime to arrive. Hinduism proposes many lives and three option ways to getting to be noticeably joined with Extreme Reality. The three ways are: Way of Custom Salvation, The Upanisadic Objective of Discharge from Resurrection (otherwise called Way of Information), and Way of Dedication. Since individuals are in various states in their advance toward salvation, everybody is allowed to choose the way most suited to their religious needs.

Before portraying these ways, the peruser should realize that it is hard to depict these ways to salvation utilizing words and ideas commonplace to most Westerner ears. That, obviously, is one of the issues with endeavoring to cover such a great amount of an area in a solitary paper. As well as can be expected be done in such a restricted space is to give you a "sense" of the distinctive ways and to convey your thoughtfulness regarding the way that the initial two ways will probably be trailed by individuals from the higher "standings" of social elites in Hindu people group. The principal way requires a lot of family assets (children being an essential asset) and the second way, the most thorough of the three, expects children to experience their lives as chaste Vedic understudies from ages 12 to 20. The third way is basically trailed by individuals in the vigorously populated most minimal station of Hindu social orders.

The Way of Custom Salvation underlines conciliatory flames that are joined by droned psalms to divinities to whom penances are being made. These accumulations of songs shaped customs of the Veda, a gathering of antiquated psalms and serenades that in the long run went under the control of clerics known as Brahmans. The Brahmans had 2 standards: custom information (Veda) and custom activity (karma). Brahmans were in charge of transmitting learning (veda) through custom activity (performing ceremonies). It was trusted that any custom activity, performed by any individual, had outcomes at the enormous level. For instance, the conciliatory flames are viable on the grounds that they join custom learning and activity, creating comes about at the inestimable level straightforwardly. The impacts of these custom activities remain with a person, past the incineration of a physical body and keep on determining a person's life following death.

The hereafter of an individual relies upon the custom exhibitions of one's relatives AND the expired's own behavior (karma), as specified previously. Eternity is a family concern in light of the fact that as per the religion, just a wedded male householder can perform demise ceremonies for relatives and predecessors. What's more, just a proceeding with family line can secure the welfare of the left. In this way, it is basic that children be accessible to keep up progression of custom obligations with the goal that the perished can enter The Universe of Fathers (or paradise). Passage into The Universe of Fathers (through karma, learning and customs) keeps the requirement for the spirit to be reused.

The second pathway in Hinduism is The Upanisadic Objective of Discharge from Resurrection way (or the Way of Learning). This way recognizes what is perpetual and what is definitely not. At the enormous (or general) level, the lasting the truth is the Brahman. At the individual level, the "self" or "atman" is the changeless reality that underlies every individual and is the cognizant Being. Conversely, the whole world is transient at each level since it is directed by thought and want. Envious activity, or karma, is the thing that brings the transient world into reality and sustains it. The objective of the Upanisads, as in the past way, is to escape from the cycle of birth and resurrection. This is conceivable by surrendering all wants through understanding that one's atman is not some portion of the transient world but rather indeed, is indistinguishable to the perpetual reality of Brahman. As specified over, this way is the most strenuous. For openers, a child must leave his families to think about with Vedic educators. More attempting than that is he turns into a woods occupant in later life lastly denunciates all associations with society and separates all family ties.

The third way is the Way of Commitment. The past 2 ways depend on instruction, information, and in any event some level of riches, however not on divine help. The Way of Commitment requires a devotee to choose and venerate a divinity. Finish dedication to the chose divinity alongside fitting penances and renunciations empowers the devotee to draw nearer to objective of being discharged from re-birth. This is a polytheistic way in light of the fact that there are different divine beings and goddesses accessible for choice. For example, there is Vishnu the defender; Shiva the destroyer; Yoga the vast Master of the move; and Devi, a goddess that shows up in an assortment of names and structures. Legitimate dedication to these divinities brings about their offering beauty on the supporter and that enhances the possibilities of a more great incarnation whenever around.

From Polytheism to Monotheism

Present day Judaic, Christian, and Islamic religions include one God. Since the Christian and Islamic religions were gotten from Judaism, this one god is a similar god for every one of the three beliefs. The love of one and just a single god is called monotheism, and, as per Robert Wright (2009), there was in no way like the kind of monotheistic suspecting that saturates western religions until the third century BCE. Before at that point, polytheism ruled with various divinities running the show. Their names and particular duties relied upon one's way of life. There were wind divine beings, rain divine beings, sea gods that controlled the tides, lords of bliss and lords of fate, demise, and devastation. There were divine beings and goddesses of affection, lords of war, gods of good circumstances and awful. There were family goddesses, ripeness divine beings, lords of wellbeing, and separate divine beings that ruled over practically every possible piece of nature. There were huge divine beings, similar to sun divine beings, and littler gods like the eight Egyptian gods that directed lungs, liver, stomach, and digestion tracts (two divine beings for each organ). Review that Gilgamesh was educated that the "divine beings" (not God) had appointed that human life is just impermanent. Whenever ba and ka were brought together with the body in Egyptian folklore, the reestablished individual joined the "divine beings", not God, in the Underground of everlasting life. These divine beings, goddesses, spirits, blessed messengers, and gods, including individuals from the genealogical universe of seekers and gatherers were fundamental parts of nature. Some were unconventional, irritable and hard to control. Others were interested in transactions, especially when endowments and conciliatory offerings were a piece of the arrangement. In any case, all that changed upon the entry of a solitary Israelite god named Yahweh. Kaufmann, an expert of on the historical backdrop of Judaism religion, states: "Yahweh does not live in the procedures of nature, he controls them." (Kaufman, 1972, p. 70).

Yahweh did not all of a sudden touch base on a particular date in the third century BCE. It took a very long time for the possibility of a solitary god, an unparalleled genuine god, to grab hold. In any case, when it did, it was the wellspring of a stupendous move in the scene of convictions and turned into the establishment of cutting edge Judaic, Islamic, and Christian religions.

Before old Israelites lifted Yahweh to his position of total amazingness, he worked at an indistinguishable level from different divine forces of contending countries. Like Assur, the Assyrian god, and Marduk, the head lord of the Babylonians, Israelites depended on Yahweh to see them through intense circumstances, to approve war, to manage them to triumph, or to suggest restriction. Battles between countries were seen as battles between divine beings. A noteworthy triumph suggested "Our god is more astute, or more smart, or more effective than your god", and washouts were left to ask why their god let them down. Yet, that story is excessively oversimplified. A more muddled story is told by Robert Wright.

Wright underlines the "on the ground" political and monetary substances associated with the slow development of a solitary god (Wright, 2009). He recounts a multilayered story of the part of early trade in the development from polytheism to monotheism. One of his premises is that it regarded have however many exchanging accomplices as could be allowed for the financial wellbeing and prosperity of the countries included. In any case, that standard stayed genuine just insofar as exchanging countries commonly profited by the course of action. At the point when all sides advantage, it is barely noticeable contrasts in conviction frameworks. "They love Baal, the divine force of fruitfulness. We adore Yahweh. Be that as it may, who minds as long as our exchanging game plan is going admirably." Yet what happens when things don't go easily? What happens when one country attacks and figures out how to possess another country? The pioneers of an overcoming country have a decision. One alternative is to allow the vanquished individuals to keep on worshiping their god(s) and in this manner recognize that divine beings other than one's own particular exist: a condition called monolatry. Another alternative is to boycott the love of all divine beings other than one's own. Wright demonstrates how these choices are played out in the Old Confirmation. Albeit religious resilience is clear in a few parts of the Old Confirmation, a furious god, a divine being who demands being the main god, a divine being determined to blood and retribution conveys the day.

Yahweh's ascent to extreme power in the psyches of Jewish scholars did not come to fruition since antiquated Jews had dependably been effective in ensuring their properties or assuming control over the region of their adversaries. Rather, Wright suggests that his height was the consequence of significant thrashings. The Babylonians had vanquished Israelite lands and had disparaged their god by annihilating his sanctuary in Jerusalem. Preceding that, the Assyrians had stripped the sanctuary of its fortunes. At the end of the day, Yahweh ascended through the positions after he had endured it. The main purpose of Wright's hypothesis about how that came to fruition is as per the following.

Jewish scholars and erudite people spent numerous years in willful or adversary forced outcast and had a lot of time to contemplate why Yahweh had all the earmarks of being such a weakling. Their answer changed the world. Rather than Yahweh being one among numerous divine beings, he was responsible for the whole show. Marduk, the lord of the Babylonians, and the various "divine beings" of different countries were Yahweh's manikins. Another comprehension of history rose up out of the considerations of these outcasts when they inferred that Yahweh and Yahweh alone had coordinated the misfortunes, the thrashings, and the changing fortunes of antiquated Israelite tribes. Yahweh masterminded their sanctuary to be ravaged and their kin butchered in light of the fact that they irritated him by proceeding to love different divine beings. He orchestrated their astounding triumphs to demonstrate them and every other country who is manager.

Wright urges us to consider it along these lines. Occasions in the old, country against country, world may have given individuals the feeling that triumphs and annihilations relied upon which gods had been most shrewd or intense at the season of a given fight. In any case, every one of that progressions when a divine, all-effective god is infused into the photo. The acknowledgment of this transformative thought that an inconspicuous puppeteer had been controlling the developments of the dramatic divinities brought about the most persisting myth ever: a myth that came to fruition more than several years and filled the pages of The Old Confirmation. This lord of the Book of scriptures makes every other god insignificant; fantasies of creative impulses that maybe reverberated the creative impulses of seeker and get-together tribes. This god, this unrivaled genuine god, is a requesting god who works with a long-extend design. However, before we get to that and how that arrangement differs in the hands of the three noteworthy monotheistic religion, we have to confront the way that Plato's one-soul/different bodies is a poor establishment for the kind of monotheistic believing that started to convey the day.

Farewell Plato, Welcome Aristotle

The moving of national and religious loyalties were customary events amid and before Plato's announcement that the spirit is eternal and moves starting with one body then onto the next until the point when it achieves the last condition of truth and magnificence. That rational position, especially the part about souls ricocheting starting with one body then onto the next, was a poor fit for the rising one god just point of view. A superior fit was found in Aristotle (around 384-332 BCE), Plato's acclaimed understudy. Review Plato's thought that the spirit needs to be free from the imprisonment of the body As opposed to following Plato's lead and underscoring the spirit's antagonistic association with the body, Aristotle focused on the possibility that the spirit is the thing that makes a body a body. Osmond (2003) abridges the essential contrasts amongst Plato and Aristotle when she expresses, "Where Plato saw the body as an impediment to the spirit, a vital however deplorable encumbrance in this life, Aristotle stated that their association was an important decent" (p. 29).

For Aristotle, the spirit was not something that dropped into a body on its way to another body in its scan for Truth and Magnificence, or on account of Hinduism, Extreme Reality. For him the spirit gives each living life form the floor design of what it is to turn into. Aristotle alluded to the spirit as the developmental rule of each living thing. Souls can't exist without bodies and bodies can't progress toward becoming bodies without souls. The spirit of a rose makes it a rose. The spirit of a lion makes that animal a lion. Consider a chicken egg. It contains the capability of a chicken yet that potential can't be acknowledged until the point that the spirit inside it organizes progressive phases of embryonic advancement and makes a chicken. For all intents and purposes everything is ensouled in Aristotle's mindset. He even ascribed souls to stories when he made reference to the "spirit of a disaster".

All souls, both human and non-human, empower the living being to react to the highlights of their surroundings that may encroach on their survival. That is the thing that souls do and they do it naturally. No musing is included. What makes human souls interesting, what isolates us from every other animal, is the spirit of a human contains an objective component that empowers us to reason and think uniquely. Nous is the term Aristotle provided for the most elevated piece of the sound soul. Aristotle focused on that nous thinks in pictures and when it is without set, it is ageless, awesome, and interminable. It's difficult to wrap one's psyche around that idea and hundreds of years of civil argument about what Aristotle implied by it has not settled the issue. In any case, the "bring home" message of this exchange is this: More so than Plato's "souls progressing from body to body" point of view, Aristotle's establishing of the spirit in the material body was thoughtfully more perfect with the one-god-just/one-soul-just viewpoint of the Old Confirmation and considerably more good with later Christian and Islamic convictions that rose in later hundreds of years. The joining of the spirit with the body to make an entire individual is a more grounded establishment for a conviction framework that infers or expressly expresses that the destiny of one is entwined with the destiny of the other. Take a gander at it along these lines: If the body is seen as a transitory compartment for a meandering soul, the body is never again important to any life following death worries after the spirit has said goodbye to its. Be that as it may, if there is any indication that existence in the wake of death includes a body/soul gathering, or that the destiny of the spirit is dependent upon the part it played in the life of the body, one best give careful consideration to the connection between the body and the spirit, all things considered, in light of the fact that what is done in this life (the unrivaled life we have) decides the personal satisfaction in the following one and the following life will keep going forever. The most ideal approach to guarantee a glad body/soul existence in the wake of death get-together or to guarantee that whatever speaks to you in the great beyond touches base in heaven is to take headings from the one genuine god as they have been conveyed by his different prophets.

Before we swing to how this gets played out in the three noteworthy religions in the Western half of the globe (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), I need it to be certain that I am not saying that without Aristotle one-god/one-soul religions couldn't have developed. All I am stating is it appears to me that Aristotle's thoughts regarding soul/body solidarity and the everlasting status of nous gave a more strong philosophical establishment for monotheism than did Plato's thoughts regarding body-to-body movement of souls.

Judaism

Expounding on ahead of schedule and contemporary Judaic convictions about death and eternity is a test in light of the fact that there is no all around settled upon "Jewish" position on the point. One just can't express, "This is the thing that Jews accept about life following death" and anticipate that the announcement will go unchallenged. Not at all like existence in the wake of death convictions of Muslims and Christian, generally shared convictions about the hereafter are not engraved on Jewish personalities. In any case, as we will see, they planted a few seeds that progressed toward becoming authoritative opinion for both Christian and Islamic religions.

One purpose behind the dubiousness of Jewish positions on everlasting status and its accomplice eternal life is these issues are not managed in the Jewish Book of scriptures. The point does not come up in the initial five parts of the Old Confirmation where we are educated that first and foremost God made the earth, shaped man from mud, and enlivened him with the breath of life. At death, the individual turns into "a dead breath", the body comes back to tidy, and the soul comes back to God. Notwithstanding getting to be clean, the dead (more probable the shadows of the dead) plummet to Sheol, a place where the "dead will be dead" (See Mendenhall, 1992). Sheol, similar to Homer's Hades, is a dull, inauspicious, shadowy pit where a great many people are "accumulated to their kin". The exemptions to that administer are underhanded individuals whose tidy is kept from resting in the region of their family. Other than that, nothing happens. All that is left is the intermixing of the deposits of previous people. In any case, the conviction that dead individuals are dead and that is the finish of the story did not persevere through the trial of time as different positions about existence past the limits of Sheol were explained.

Before checking on these option points of view, one topic had been reliable all through the times of Jewish idea: What makes a difference most is this life, the life right now being lived. A more exact approach to express that is: "by and large what makes a difference most is this life, the life as of now being lived" in light of the fact that there are a lot of Jews who think profoundly about the great beyond. Be that as it may, when in doubt most Jews dedicated to their customs, Jews who commend their occasions in courses indicated by their laws, Jews who structure their lives around their religious charges, Jews who serve their kin, Jews who satisfy their obligations to G-d do as such not to guarantee themselves of an agreeable life following death, but rather to safeguard a convention that they consider to be more essential than their own destiny in an existence in the wake of death. People travel every which way, however the Jewish tribe and its customs are to be kept up no matter what. The outcomes of maintaining Jewish laws put forward hundreds of years prior have a greater amount of an effect on this life than on what occurs in the following life. In whole, the tribe and its traditions must be preserved. Keep this "bring home" message as a main priority as we portray a few varieties of the stuck perpetually in Sheol that rose after some time.

The Book of Daniel turned out to be a piece of the Jewish Book of scriptures generally late in its advancement. As per most Scriptural researchers it contains the unparalleled section in the Old Confirmation that alludes to life following death, to mind: "And a significant number of them that rest in the tidy of the earth might alert, some to everlasting life and some to censures and everlasting extreme aversion." (Daniel 12:2).

This entry was in this manner used to work out an answer for a noteworthy quandary. How could it happen that some polytheistic Jews who repudiated Yahweh and stayed consistent with their agnostic divine beings flourished, while numerous loyal Yewists lived in crushing neediness? Where is this

G-D of equity? Similarly perplexing was the way that when Jews were butchered in fights with the Babylonians or some other tribe, both Yehwists and Jewish agnostics endured a similar destiny. Surviving Yehwists saw that. Why cling to a one god just conviction framework when, by the day's end, just pieces of sustenance on the plates of starving Yewists youngsters and extravagant blowouts were tossed by agnostic adoring Jewish dealers? The arrangement was that just rewards and just disciplines will be dispersed in the following life.

Diverse schools of thought rose that depicted how that would function. For example, the School of Shammai embraces there will be a Day of Judgment when honest individuals are isolated from the scalawags. The exemplary will be sent to Gan Eden (Garden of Eden, a.k.a. as Paradise). Fiendish individuals go straight to Gehinnom (hellfire) and an in the middle of gathering contained individuals who were neither absolutely great nor simply abhorrent are likewise sent to Gehinnom where they will be rebuffed for a year. Completely washed down, they will be admitted to Gan Eden. Be that as it may, discipline for the really terrible ones in Gehinnon is persistent and just arrives at an end when they are demolished.

Note that School of Sahmmai's position on life following death speaks to yet one branch of a multi-expanded religion. Most over a wide span of time rabbinical researchers deliberately maintain a strategic distance from authoritative opinion. They rush to call attention to that theories about the hereafter are quite recently that – hypotheses. No one talks as a matter of fact. A Jewish associate of mine whose learning of Judaism runs profound broadcasts, "We don't speak much about Paradise and Hellfire. It isn't so much that vital to generally Jews." Making an undeniable reference to Christians, he went ahead to state, "However we've needed to live with you folks for such a significant number of hundreds of years that we know the dialect."

Christianity

The possibility that exclusive a chosen few Christians will spend everlastingly in a serene, glad place called paradise while whatever remains of humankind spends always in torment and discipline in damnation with no way to anything better is esteemed "misinformed and lethal" by Ringer. Traditionalists blamed Chime for apostasy. One representative for the customary view, Justin Taylor, thought of, "It is unspeakably dismal when those called to be pastors of the Word misshape the gospel and betray the general population of God with false tenet" and blamed Chime for "moving more remote and more distant far from anything taking after scriptural Christianity." Similarly shocking according to other outreaching priests was Ringer's proposal that everyone, regardless of their religious convictions, inevitably winds up in paradise. Different commentators concentrated on what they saw to be Chime's foreswearing of hellfire as a domain of unabated torment for miscreants and nonbelievers. They expect that precluding the part from securing damnation in existence in the wake of death plays ruin with a principal element of the congregation.

The fundamental highlights of Christian the great beyond convictions can't be found in the New Confirmation. As Keck (1992) watches, "… the New Confirmation contains not a solitary section that compresses the Christian view" (p. 83). Truth be told, since sections in the New Confirmation were composed by many individuals over a time of several years, the book contains numerous inconsistencies that have taken scholars hundreds of years to resolve. Catholicism overwhelmed Christianity all through the Medieval times. Protestantism developed toward the finish of the Medieval times, to a great extent because of dissents against specific practices of the Mother Church. For example, Martin Luther (1483-1540 CE), a main figure in the Protestant Upheaval, questioned the act of the congregation getting installments from parishioners to lessen the measure of time it is possible that they or their friends and family would spend in limbo being washed down of their transgressions. The Protestant Transformation brought about the ascent and expansion of a large group of protestant sections. Notwithstanding the split with the Catholic Church and the expansion of various variants of the Christian confidence, all individuals from Christendom appear to concede to the accompanying premises:

· Individuals are naturally introduced to a universe of transgression. A few of St. Paul's commitments to the Book of scriptures

manage this theme. In his view, God initially made people to be unadulterated, honest, and undying. He didn't make us to sin. In any case, his first creation, Adam, with the help of Eve, did precisely that. They ignored God's express guidelines to abstain from eating the natural product from the Tree of Information. Adam's transgression dirtied the world everlastingly and demise turned into our regular destiny. We are not destined to sin (in spite of the fact that we unavoidably will sin). The basic point is everybody is as of now a delinquent during childbirth since all are casualties of Adam's Unique Sin. The custom of absolution is intended to scrub the spirit from acquired sin. Be that as it may, absolution alone does not ensure salvation.

· The best way to salvation is through Jesus Christ. In spite of the fact that the "wages" of wrongdoing is

passing, John the Baptist pronounced there was an approach to evade that destiny when he wrote:"For God so cherished the world that he gave his exclusive child, that whoever has faith in him ought not die but rather have endless life" (John 3:18). Individuals who acknowledge Jesus as their own hero are renewed into another life in this life and into an endless existence of ecstasy in the following life. Keck (1992) stresses re-birth in this life includes changing the "old self" into "another self' that is focused on the lessons of and restoration of Christ.

· There will be a Day of Definite Judgment. There are diverse renditions of the last day (or

days) of judgment. For example in the End of the world as per John, Christ will return for a last fight with Satan. The fight will keep going for 1000 days and will end with Satan's annihilation. After Satan is discarded, all the living and dead are assembled and last, Paradise or Heck, judgments are made. Independent of the points of interest, a basic component of Christianity is confidence in a last moment of retribution.

· The outcome of not being reclaimed is endless condemnation. There are two passings.

One, the passing of the body, is unavoidable. The second passing can be turned away by putting stock in Jesus and following his way to restoration. Scriptural mediators fluctuate in their dreams of the second demise. The mellow shape is being avoided from being within the sight of God. The brutal shape is endless perdition in the red hot pit of damnation.

· The result of salvation is everlasting life in paradise. Paradise is the last

goal for all individuals who acknowledge Christ as their own deliverer. Most Christian temples lecture that the spirit rejoins the body at restoration time. Interminability is by all accounts in store for the entire self. In spite of the fact that conclusions shift and some take the position that the last type of a godlike being will be an "otherworldly self", the most broadly acknowledged model is Christ whose body and soul were in place when he rose to paradise.

Islam

Given the regular "Abrahamic" roots of every one of the three noteworthy Western religions, one ought not be shocked by covering convictions. Surely Islamic and Christian existence in the wake of death convictions are comparable in a few regards. The presence of paradise and hellfire are key convictions in the two religions and both are certain that a Moment of retribution will happen when everybody will go under the steady gaze of God and be judged by how they had experienced their lives. The upright will go to paradise and the non-honorable will be sent to hellfire.

Like Christians, Muslims accept:

· There is no God however God.

· Everything in the universe was brought into reality by God.

· Everything that have originated from God will come back to God.

· The main individuals will's identity revived will be the individuals who put stock in Him and direct their lives as indicated by His Words as recorded by Muhammad in the Koran

Note that a pivotal and weighty contrast amongst Christian and Islamic points of view is Christians trust that Paradise is open just to individuals who acknowledge Jesus Christ as their friend in need. Muslims trust that Jesus was one of numerous prophets, 120,000 on the whole, yet was not the genuine saint of the Second Coming. Muhammad is the last prophet sent by God to remind individuals why he made them and what he expects consequently. God's message was recorded in the Koran (every now and again spelled Qu'ran). Another contrast between the two religions is Muslims don't share the Christian conviction that all are conceived wicked. Rather, everybody is conceived unadulterated. God made individuals since he needed to impart to us the bounties and advantages of presence. To this end, he supplied every person with boundless possibilities to be acknowledged over the span of a lifetime. At the point when the spirit that has understood its actual nature is restored, it confronts an Adoring and Humane God. In any case, individuals who have overlooked why God made them and have disregarded their obligations will come into the nearness of an Extreme and Fierce God.

No two individuals are indistinguishable in their properties and everybody needs God's (Allah's) direction in finding their ways. Finding and staying on one's way requires train, adherence to the laws of individual and otherworldly lead put forward in the Koran and the Hadith, and steady sustaining of one's association with the Maker. Despite the fact that God is mysterious, his will is influenced known to Muslims who to look for it and comprehend that everything is at last associated with Him.

As per one record of Islamic the hereafter convictions (Chittick,1992), the spirit drives a free presence after the demise of the body and does as such until the point that the Day of Revival when the body and soul are reassembled. Here are a portion of the points of interest of the spirit's voyage.

On the main night in the grave, the dead are gone by two blessed messengers who question them about their convictions. Their souls will be put into "great or terrible circumstances" as indicated by their answers. The "cloak" (which means the body) that has concealed the spirit from see is evacuated and the spirit shows its actual frame. It is anything but difficult to conceal musings and emotions behind a body made of mud. In any case, all is uncovered when the spirit is uncovered. This happens in an imaginal domain of presence in which the spirit comes into sharp core interest. Sacrosanct writings allude to this imaginal world as the interworld in which souls go up against shapes that symbolize their past deeds and wrongdoings. The interworld resembles a fantasy world and dreams are taken as well-suited portrayals of what was and prognosticators of what will be. Inadequate souls can go up against creature frames that are commanded by negative qualities. For example, the renowned Islamic scholar, al-Ghazali, composed:

Upon the arrival of Revival, implications are uncovered. At that point frame goes up against the shade of importance. On the off chance that the individual had been commanded by enthusiasm and ravenousness, he will be seen on that day as a pig. On the off chance that he was overwhelmed by outrage and hostilities, he will be found as a wolf.

The interworld reaches out from the time of death up to the Day of Restoration when the individual enters either paradise or damnation. Meanwhile, the spirit gets a preview of what's to come. A few specialists look at the time spent in the grave to the time a baby spends in the womb. Like an embryo that experiences development and change in the womb, the spirit experiences development and change in the interworld. These progressions depend on its past exhibitions in the "genuine" world. The frame soul go up against the Day of Restoration decides whether they are bound for heaven or are set out toward terrifying hardships.

The Evolution of the Afterlife and Satan in the Bible

When it comes right down to it, the afterlife is pretty darned important in Christianity, if not THE most important thing!  After all, that's what salvation is all about, isn't it?. If you go to the first place, you are supposed to have eternal bliss in some kind of paradise, with God, Jesus, and the angels.  But! If you go to the other place, you will have eternal torture and torment in some kind of terrible, fiery place along with the devil and his demons, where you will be wailing and gnashing your teeth forever and ever!

And while the afterlife indeed is a very important concept in Christianity, Satan is a pretty important figure as well.  He seems to be almost a fourth deity, albeit an evil one, possessing supernatural powers and the ability to roam the earth at will, tricking people and getting them to turn away from God and Jesus, that is when he's not down in hell, where he's sort of like the head prison warden, in charge of running the place along with his demon assistants.  Or at least that's the view from popular culture, even if its not very biblical.  But according to Christian beliefs that are at least somewhat biblical, Satan is Lucifer, the fallen angel who rebelled against God before the earth was even created. Fully 1/3 of the angels, the hosts of heaven, were supposed to have taken Satan's side and joined in his rebellion against God, causing them to be cast down from heaven.  According to Jesus, Satan is "the prince of this world".

Yet amazingly, with the afterlife and Satan being such important concepts in Christianity, the Hebrew scriptures/Old Testament seem to be remarkably vague about it. Its not until Jesus and the New Testament that the concepts are all that well developed.  In fact, in the oldest part of the Bible, the first five books variously called the Torah, the Pentateuch, or the "books of Moses", there is ZERO mention of an afterlife at all.  Just like the fossil record has preserved the evolution of animal species, so have the pages of the Bible preserved the evolution of the development of the concept of the afterlife and the figure of Satan in Judaism, and especially in Christianity.

And even the Judaism of today is somewhat ambivalent about the afterlife.  While it does generally accept the idea, to its credit Judaism is not all that concerned about it.  Judaism is more concerned about this life, making the world a better place, justice and mercy, etc.  And what will come as a surprise I think to most Christians is that Judaism also does not believe in the concept of hell, nor does it believe in the Christian concept of Satan as an evil, rebellious, fallen angel working in opposition to God.  But it really shouldn't be that much of a surprise when you consider the Jewish scriptures only, without the New Testament.  There just isn't much of a mention of the afterlife in the Old.  

Evolution of the Afterlife

So how is it that if there were an afterlife all along, God didn't seem to ever mention it until closer to New Testament times? Or did he?  There is a tem called "sheol" in the original Hebrew.  It is translated as "hell" in various places in the King James Bible:

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Deuteronomy 32:22 KJV

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Psalm 9:17 KJV

Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.  Psalm 55:15 KJV

By golly that DOES sound like hell is in the Old Testament after all, doesn't it?  But not quite.  The concept of sheol is not hell.  The KJV is selective where it translates sheol as hell, and where it doesn't.  For most modern translations "sheol" is generally used in a way that is synonymous with "the grave", or "the pit".   :

For a fire hath been kindled in Mine anger, And it burneth unto Sheol -- the lowest, And consumeth earth and its increase, And setteth on fire foundations of mountains.  Deuteronomy 32:22 YLT see also here for other translations

The wicked return to the grave*, all the nations that forget God.  Psalm 9:17 NIV see also here for other translations

Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the grave*,  for evil finds lodging among them. Psalm 55:15 NIV see also here for other translations

*NIV footnote: Hebrew Sheol

"Sheol" cannot mean hell, as even the righteous Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, is described as going there:

But Jacob said, "My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone is left If harm should befall him on the journey you are taking, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow."  Genesis 42:38 NASB see also here for other translations Notice that the King James Version, which translates sheol as "hell" in practically every other place, here translates it as "grave".

King David wants the wicked Joab killed so that he cannot "go down to sheol in peace".  If sheol is hell and a place of eternal damnation, punishment, and torment, then how can someone go there in peace? 1 Kings 2:5-7

See here for NASB mentions of "sheol", where you can see that it is indeed synonymous with death.  In later Judaic thought, sheol becomes some type of murky and shadowy existence in a subterranean world, a place where all the dead went. This is reflected in the view of Isaiah 9:14-11, Isaiah 38:18-19, and Ezekiel 32:17-28.  But still sheol is not hell.  It is stated in Psalm 139:8 that God exists in sheol, which is quite contrary to the Christian notion of hell being a terrible place devoid of God's presence.

The Hebrew religion of the Old Testament was strictly concerned with this life, that is the concern of the prophets and biblical writers was in getting the people to turn from other gods and follow Yahweh only, obeying the law and commandments.  In their view, when people do evil, when punishments are warranted, they are punished in THIS life.  They are killed directly, sometimes along with their family. Sometimes the death comes directly from Yahweh, other times they are killed by Yahweh's people.  Often the nation of Israel is punished collectively.  Yahweh sends famines, or turns the people over to their enemies, or of course allows the entire nation to be exiled to Babylon for continually following other gods.  The concept is one of retribution theology, where generally the wicked are punished in this life (and the righteous rewarded).  But generally it is not stated that the people will be punished in a next life by being sent to hell after they die.

There are lots and lots of examples of people being punished by God in this life.  Here is but a smattering:

Of course there is the famous destruction of Sodom and Gomorah from Genesis 19:15-29.  The cities are destroyed for wickedness, and Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back. In Leviticus 10:1-2, Nadab and Abihu are killed directly by God for "offering strange fire". In Judges 3:5-8, when the sons of Israel do evil and God becomes angry with them, he has them sold into slavery. God later sells them to the Philistines in Judges 10:6-8.  In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,070 men because some had looked into the ark.  In 2 Samuel 12:9-19, for his sin of having Uriah killed, David is punished by having his child die and having his wives taken from him and given to a neighbor who will have sex with them in broad daylight! In 2 Samuel 21, God sends a 3-year famine on Israel because the former king Saul had done evil.  In 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, because of David's sin of taking a census, God sends a famine that kills 70,000 people.  In 1 Kings 13:11-26, God sends a lion to kill one of his prophets for listening to one of his OTHER prophets who was lying.  In 1 Kings 15:29-30, because of Jeroboam's sins, his entire family is killed "according to the word of the Lord".  In 2 Kings 2:23-25, God sends bears to kill 42 children/youths for making fun of prophet Elisha's bald head. In 2 Kings 10, Ahab's entire family, chief men, his close friends and his priests are killed "according to the word of the Lord" for the evil that Ahab had committed, and with God giving his approval in verse 30.  In 2 Kings 17, it is explained that because Israel had sinned against God and worshipped other gods, God sent them into exile in Assyria, giving them into the hands of plunderers.  He also sent lions to kill the people newly resettled into Samaria for not worshipping him.  And of course as explained in 2 Chronicles 36:15-21, for failing to follow his commands God handed the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon who "killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged".    

In Deuteronomy 28, God gives a long list of blessings to be bestowed upon the people of Israel for obedience.  People's wombs, crops, and livestock will be fruitful, they will defeat their enemies, they will have prosperity, abundant rains, all they do will be blessed.  The will lend to many nations but borrow from none, they would always be at the top and never at the bottom.   In the same chapter there is also a long list, an even longer one, of curses to befall the people for disobedience.  Everything they do will be cursed and come to ruin, they will be plagued with diseases, heat and drought, blight and mildew.  The rain will turn to dust and powder, they will be defeated by their enemies, their carcasses eaten by birds and beasts.  They will be afflicted by tumors and festering sores, the itch, madness, blindness, and confusion.  Their betrothed brides will be taken by others and ravished, their donkeys and sheep taken and given to enemies, their sons and daughters given to another nation and into captivity.  And the list of curses goes on and on.  They will plant fields but the locusts will devour them, plant vineyards but worms will eat the grapes, olives will drop off the trees. They will be in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness, serving their enemies, and the people will even eat their own sons and daughters!  They will be sent back to Egypt and offer themselves for sale as slaves, but no one will buy them.  But in all the blessings for obedience given in this chapter, nowhere are the people told that they will be rewarded by going to heaven after they die.  And in all the curses for disobedience given in this chapter, nowhere are the people told that they will be punished by going to hell after they die.   Elsewhere in the Bible, we see lots of similar threats and promises by God to punish the people in various ways for committing evil and for following other gods.  In Isaiah 3, God pronounces judgment on Jerusalem and Judah, threatening that they will be ruled by women and children, he will snatch away the women's finery, necklaces, earrings, bracelets and veils, turn their perfume into stench, turn their hair into baldness, and the men will fall be the sword in battle.  In Isaiah 5:20-30, God pays people for evil by striking them down so that the bodies are like refuse in the streets, and he sends distant nations against his people. In Isaiah 9:8-21, God says that he will scorch the land and the people will be fuel for the fire, and the people will eat their own offspring.  In Isaiah 13, God will punish Babylon by destroying the whole country, never to be inhabited again, whoever is captured will be thrust through, all who are caught will fall by the sword, with their infants dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses looted and their wives ravished. Much of the entire book of Jeremiah is pretty much a long tirade against the people of Judah, laced with threats of various punishments and disasters to befall them for continually committing evil and following other gods.  In Jeremiah 5 and 6, God punishes the people of Jerusalem by bringing a distant nation against them to devour their harvests and food, devour their sons and daughters,  flocks and herds, vines and fig trees, and to destroy their fortified cities.  In Jeremiah 7:27-34,  God promises to kill so many people there will not be enough room to bury the dead, with the carcasses to be eaten by birds and beasts; God will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, and make the land desolate.  In Jeremiah 8:1-3, God will even punish the dead kings, officials, priests, and prophets of Judah, not by torturing their souls in hell, but by removing their bones from their graves and scattering them about "like refuse".  In Jeremiah 9, God will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, and lay waste the towns of Judah.  He will make the people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water, will scatter them among strange nations, and  will pursue them with the sword until they are destroyed.  And so the Bible goes on, and on, and on, with such threats of punishments.  Especially the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel give a really heavy dose.  But always, the punishments are in this life, not the next.

Now there are a few mentions of God punishing people by fire and burning, such as in Deuteronomy 32:22, Psalm 11:6, Psalm 21:9, and Psalm 140:10.  But generally this burning seems to be merely one of the myriad of ways in which God kills people for disobedience and wickedness, and doesn't carry any special significance over the other ways.  Now there are a couple of mentions of God burning people in Isaiah that DO start to sound something like the doctrine of hell, such as in Isaiah 33:10-14  where everlasting burning is mentioned, and in Isaiah 66:15-24 where it is mentioned that the for the people who are judged "their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched".  However it is still somewhat ambiguous as to whether this could be a reference to of a hell-belief or more of a case of the fire just being part of the punishments doled out out by God.  Even if these verses are referring to hell, it is significant that the writing of Isaiah comes relatively late in the Jewish scriptures, and particularly Isaiah 66 is regarded by most scholars as post-exilic, part of second or third Isaiah.

It is no secret that belief in an afterlife gradually developed in Judaism.  The belief was not universally accepted even by the time of Jesus, and we have direct evidence for this from the New Testament itself in Matthew 22:23-33 and Acts 23:8, where it is stated that the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. (Side note: The 3 major Jewish sects  in Jesus' day were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes.  The Pharisees  accepted belief in an afterlife because they were more liberal and open to newer ideas and interpretations.  However the sect of the Sadducees, which was connected to the temple and included the priesthood, held to more of a conservative, old-line school of thought including a strict, literal interpretation of the Torah, and so rejected belief in an afterlife, see here, here, or here .)  

Other parts of the Old Testament are more confused on the matter.  Some verses seem to outright contradict the notion of an afterlife with punishments and reward after death.  Ezekiel 18 makes a pretty strong statement that the rewards and punishments for righteousness and wickedness are life and death, not heaven and hell.  Psalm 6:5 states: "No one remembers you when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave?"  The book of Ecclesiastes makes some strong statements refuting an afterlife. Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 states: "For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?"  Ecclesiastes 9:1-10 says "All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not... For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten...in the grave, (sheol) where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."  Yet Ecclesiastes 12:7 could be considered supportive of an afterlife, but it doesn't seem to be any thoughts of resurrection of the dead with an afterlife of rewards, but merely the spirit of life (that God breathed into man's nostrils from Genesis 2:7) returning: and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.  Job 14:14 asks "If a man dies, will he live again?" with Job 19:25-27 saying  that the answer is yes, probably the most direct Old Testament statement supporting an afterlife.

Evolution of Satan

Not only can you see the concept of the afterlife evolve and develop within the pages of the Bible, you can also see the character of Satan evolving and developing as well.  The word "satan" is indeed a Hebrew word, listed as #7853 and 7854 in concordances, and the meaning is given as "an adversary or accuser" (see here), and basically means someone who opposes or resists.  Yet very interestingly, in the older parts of the Bible there is no specific character of "Satan".  That is, where the word "satan" is used, it is not used as a proper noun or title for a specific character, but is used merely as a common noun.  That is, it literally means "a satan", meaning "an accuser' or "an opposer", and does not mean "THE Satan" as a specific character.  

Here are the occurrences in the Old Testament where the word "satan" was used in the original Hebrew, according to the concordance.

They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is. Psalm 38:20

Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonour that seek my hurt.  Psalm 71:13

For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.  Psalm 109:4

Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul.  Psalm 109:20

Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.  Psalm 109:29

And the princes of the Philistines were wroth with him; and the princes of the Philistines said unto him, Make this fellow return, that he may go again to his place which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us: for wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master? should it not be with the heads of these men?  1 Samuel 29:4

But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered and said, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the LORD's anointed? And David said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me? shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel? for do not I know that I am this day king over Israel?  2 Samuel 19:21-22

But now the LORD my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent  1 Kings 5:4

And the LORD stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite: he was of the king's seed in Edom... And God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliadah, which fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah... And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did: and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria. 1 Kings 11:14,23, 25

And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.. And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me.

Numbers 22:22,32

It is significant to note that in Numbers 22 the angel of the Lord is referred to as "a satan".  And in 1 Kings 11 it is God himself that is stirring up "satans".

Bit gradually in the later parts of the Bible we do see a more specific character of Satan emerge:

And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?  Zechariah 3:1-2 KJV

And he sheweth me Joshua the high priest standing before the messenger of Jehovah, and the Adversary standing at his right hand, to be an adversary to him. And Jehovah saith unto the Adversary: `Jehovah doth push against thee, O Adversary, Yea, push against thee doth Jehovah, Who is fixing on Jerusalem, Is not this a brand delivered from fire?' Zechariah 3:1-2 YLT

Zechariah 3 in multiple versions

So you can see how the Christian theological views of some of the translations has influenced how they have translated the word "satan". When it fits they simply transcribe the word, but when it doesn't they translate it as "adversary". But even when it fits and they translate it as "Satan", he is not the Satan of Christianity, he is not this enemy of God, working in opposition to God.  Instead, he is obedient to God, serving him by tempting men and playing the role of accuser/tempter, sort of playing the "devil's advocate".  And he is still only a very minor and insignificant figure.  The only place he plays any kind of a prominent role is in the book of Job, where he is one of the celestial beings, "among" the sons of God.  He carries on a causal conversation with God, and they end up having a friendly little wager, where God allows Satan to afflict Job with all sorts of calamity, including killing his sons, daughters and servants, to see if Job will denounce God.  But still Satan here is obedient, and does only what God allows him to:

One day the angels* came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger." Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Job 1:6-12

*NIV footnote: "Sons of God"

One of the more notable contradictions listed by skeptics is whether God or Satan incited David to sin by taking a census.  In the book of Samuel 24:1, it is God that incites David:

Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah." 2 Samuel 24:1

While in Chronicles it is Satan:

Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.  1 Chronicles 21:1

And there standeth up an adversary against Israel, and persuadeth David to number Israel,  1 Chronicles 21:1 YLT

1 Chronicles 21:1 in multiple versions

The interesting thing to note here, is not that there is just a simple contradiction in the accounts, but the theological implications of the differences.  Did the chronicler, writing much later than the writer of Samuel, find it theologically unacceptable for God to incite David to sin, so he reinterpreted the events to have Satan being the one that incited him?

So in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament the above verses cited are the only outright references to Satan.  He doesn't even exist as a specific character in the beginning, and then as he does emerge he is only a minor, insignificant figure.  Now there are some other places in the Bible which, in Christian interpretation, are taken as being about Satan:

...'In the pride of your heart you say, "I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas."... your heart has grown proud... They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die a violent death...'You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God... You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you... So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth... So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you... you have come to a horrible end and will be no more.'  Ezekiel 28:12-18

Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations... Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Isaiah 14:9-15 KJV

Isaiah 14 in other translations

So those verses certainly do sound like they are about Satan!  However, if you look at the verses in context, you see that Ezekiel 28 is actually a taunt against the King of Tyre, and Isaiah 14 is a taunt against the King of Babylon.  It is specifically stated so:

"Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: " 'In the pride of your heart you say, "I am a god... The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: " 'You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Ezekiel 28:2,11-12

you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!  Isaiah 14:4

So as it is plainly stated these verses are about the Kings of Tyre and Babylon.  However, the Christian view is that they actually have a double meaning.  They are about the kings AND they are about Satan, drawing parallels between the kings and Satan, or showing the true source of the king's powers.  Yet there is much in the text that clearly shows that the subjects are the kings, and not Satan.  In Ezekiel 28, we have the following:

you are a man and not a god... you have gained wealth for yourself and amassed gold and silver in your treasuries... By your great skill in trading you have increased your wealth... I am going to bring foreigners against you, the most ruthless of nations; they will draw their swords against your beauty and wisdom and pierce your shining splendor. They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die a violent death...You will be but a man, not a god, in the hands of those who slay you... You will die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of foreigners...Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence... By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries Ezekiel 28 (various verses)

Tyre was a city of great wealth amassed through trade and commerce, and apparently was seen as evil by the Hebrew prophets.  So the above verses fit perfectly with the king of Tyre, but not at all with Satan, its not even close. Satan certainly is not a man.  However the stuff about being in Eden, the garden of God, anointed as a guardian cherub, on the holy mount of God, and being expelled from the holy mount of God and thrown to earth, that stuff WOULD seem to apply to Satan and not the king of Tyre, at least not literally.  But if you take it as using poetic imagery to describe someone who has fallen from grace, someone who, according to the writer, has turned from wisdom and righteousness to evil, someone who once had it all but got too proud and threw it all away, someone who, as a result was put down in their place, then it makes sense.  But the references to wealth through trade, and being a man, not a god (or angel) are awfully hard to apply to Satan, either literally or figuratively.  Plus, the context suggests that it is indeed the prophet's rant against Tyre, since it is immediately followed by a rant against another kingdom, this one being against Sidon, with nothing in that rant to suggest it could be a parallel against Satan.

Now for the part from Isaiah 14, is this really about Satan, or the King of Babylon?

... How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended! The LORD has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued nations with relentless aggression...  you who once laid low the nations!... "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?"... you have destroyed your land and killed your people. The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.... "I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors, her offspring and descendants," declares the LORD. "I will turn her into a place for owls and into swampland; I will sweep her with the broom of destruction," declares the LORD Almighty. Isaiah 14: (various verses)

That very well seems to be about Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, especially where it is mentioned "would not let his captives go home", which is a direct reference to the Jew's captivity in Babylon, or so it would seem.  It does not fit at all with Satan.  But now what about the parts that DO sound like they're about Satan, particularly this part:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Isaiah 14:12-15  KJV

So this must be a direct reference to Satan, even calling him by his well-known name of "Lucifer", right?  Well maybe not.  How did Satan become Lucifer?  Its very interesting.

Satan becomes Lucifer...............

The very reason the name "Lucifer" is considered to be another name for Satan is because of this very passage in Isaiah 14.  The word "Lucifer" is Latin, literally meaning "light bearer" or "light bringer", and was used in Saint Jerome's Latin Vulgate (circa 405 AD), as a translation for the original Hebrew word "Heylel" used here.  In the middle ages, people began to associate the word "Lucifer" with Satan because of this passage, and the King James Version retained this translation.  However this word is actually referring to the planet Venus, which is why it is translated as "morning star", or "day star" in other various other Bible versions (see here for other translations of Isaiah 14:12).  (Being an interior planet and close to the sun, Venus always appears either near sunrise in the morning, or near sunset in the evening, depending on where it is in its rotation around the sun. But the ancients did not realize that the morning and evening appearances were the same object, so they gave each different names.  So the word here is referring to the morning appearance of Venus, hence "light bringer", since it appears just before sunrise.)  So why should this refer to the planet Venus?  Here the writer is poetically comparing Nebuchadnezzar with Venus. Venus is by far the brightest "star" in the morning sky, appearing just before sunrise.  But once the sun rises, Venus rapidly fades and then disappears from view.  So the writer here was basically saying that though Nebuchadnezzar was the biggest thing around at that time, soon his star would fade and disappear, overwhelmed and laid low by the power of God, just as Venus fades and disappears, overwhelmed by the light of the sun.So it would be quite odd that Satan, the "prince of darkness", would be called "light bringer" by the Bible.  Plus, there is a BIG problem for anyone that insists Isaiah 14:12 is referring to Satan.  The very term "morning star" used in Isaiah is also used to refer to Jesus himself in 2 Peter 1:19 and Revelation 22:16!  Why would the New Testament writers use the same term to describe Jesus as Satan?  Because it was only later, in the middle ages, that the passage from Isaiah 14 began to be interpreted as a reference to Satan.  And this is because of the terminology describing the subject as having "fallen from heaven", and being "cast down to the earth".  This fits in with the theology that developed during the inter-testament period where Satan became a fallen angel, who rebelled against God along with 1/3 of the other angels and so was cast out of heaven.  These angels were the "sons of God" mentioned in Genesis 6:1-7, who corrupted the human race by having sex with the "daughters of men", giving rise to a race of giants, the "Nephilim" (see also Numbers 13:33).  This theology/mythology is much better developed and expanded upon in the pseudepigraphal book of First Enoch.

So that is pretty much it, as far as the instances of Satan in the Old Testament.  He is really only overtly in the Book of Job, and has a bare mention in Zechariah.   But hey, what about his appearance in Genesis, as the serpent in the garden of Eden?  Surely THAT is an overt appearance of Satan, right?  Well maybe not.  

Satan in the garden of Eden?.........

If you read Genesis 3, and try NOT to have any preconceptions that the serpent is Satan, then it doesn't seem so.  Once again, this was only a later Christian interpretation: The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Revelation 12:9.  Yet there really is nothing in the story that indicates the serpent is really Satan in disguise:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"...  "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."...  Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."  Genesis 3:1-15

In this story, the serpent is nothing more than one of the wild animals, though apparently with the ability to talk, owing to his being "more crafty" than the other animals, and apparently he originally possessed legs.  So the serpent aspects of this story seem to be nothing more than the ancient Hebrews' crude attempts to explain why snakes crawl on the ground, why they eat dust (or so they thought from observing snake's behavior of smelling with their tongues), and why there is enmity/animosity between people and snakes, with people tending to fear/strike/kill snakes and snakes tending to strike/bite at people. (Side note: some Christians actually claim that the part from verse 15 "he will crush your head and you will strike his heel" is actually a prophecy of Jesus, predicting that Jesus, as Eve's offspring, will crush Satan at the end of the world. See here for a much more in-depth look at the claimed Jesus prophesies.)  So if the serpent in Genesis chapter 3 is really Satan, then according to this Satan still exists today in the form of a snake crawling around the earth somewhere, since God has cursed him "all the days of his life" to crawl around on his belly.  If that's really the case, then (as others have pointed out) why doesn't someone just chop off Satan's head with a shovel?

The influence of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism:

So then if it is readily apparent that both the afterlife and the character of Satan have evolved as concepts in Judaism and Christianity, then it begs the questions as to what influences may have guided this evolution. Many say that it was primarily the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.  When the Jews were sent into exile and captivity in Babylon, and then later when the Persians defeated Babylon and granted the Jews their freedom, they were exposed to the Zoroastrian religion.  Zoroastrianism  is a dualistic religion, with belief in two gods.  One is an all-good and supreme creator-god called Ahura Mazda. The other is an evil spirit of violence and death called Angra Mainyu, who opposes Ahura Mazda.  From Zoroastrianism comes the ideas of a final apocalyptic battle, when the evil spirit will be defeated and destroyed, and there will be a final judgment with the good going to a reward of heaven and the evil going to punishment and damnation.  Of course other religions have also included beliefs in an afterlife and rewards and punishments.  The ancient Egyptians are well known for the afterlife beliefs, and the Greeks had  concepts of afterlife rewards and punishments as well with Elysian Fields,  Hades and Tartarus.  But it was the influence of Zoroastrianism that had the biggest impact on Judaism evolving from a firmly monotheistic religion with God being responsible for everything, both good and evil, into a more dualistic one where evil can be blamed on an evil supernatural being.

Conclusions: My Take on it

It would seem that Satan and Hell are amalgamations of several different concepts and characters from different religions.  Satan developed from the Hebrew adversary and the Zoroastrian evil being Angra Mainyu.  Hell developed from the Jewish pit of Sheol, the realm of Hel from Norse Mythology, and Hades from the Greeks.  Even the popular notion of Satan has having horns and goat legs draws from the Greek god Pan and satyrs.

So in conclusion, if the afterlife and Satan were concepts that were absorbed into Judaism from false pagan religions, then how can they be true?  Some apologists will deny that Judaism was influenced by Zoroastrianism and say that instead the influence was the other way around.  But if that is the case, then why are the early parts of the Old Testament so utterly silent on it?  Why can you see the concepts as they evolve and develop, right there in the pages of the Bible?  There are even significant groups of Christians who profess to believe the Bible, that argue against the existence of a literal hell, or Satan, based on the Bible. To me, its just one more indication that Judaism and Christianity were created by man and not divinely revealed, since they are no different from other religions that have evolved over time and become influenced by competing religions.  

It seems to me that the fate of man and animals IS the same, we are all destined to die, and after that, simple non-existence.  But there is one important difference.  Man has a bigger brain, giving him a higher level of intelligence and self-awareness so that he is able to contemplate his own mortality, while the animals are blissfully ignorant of their impending demise and so have only a basic and instinctual fear of death.  And since man is unable to accept his own mortality, he has  invented concepts where he will live on beyond death, and where unlike on this earth, justice will eventually prevail .  Not to mention that the carrot-and-stick approach of a promised/threatened heaven/hell is a pretty darned good way to sell a religion. But hey, that's just MY take on it, what do I know?

In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Venerable Bede lets us know of King Edwin of Northumbria, in the year AD 627, thinking about acknowledgment of the Christian confidence and examining it with his companions and advocates. One of his central men articulately communicated our obliviousness of our last predetermination: he compared it to a sparrow flying into a lit lobby toward one side and out at the other. While inside the corridor, it is protected from the frigid whirlwind outside. Yet, before long it vanishes, "going from winter into winter once more. So this life of man shows up for a little time," he announced, "yet of what is to take after or what went before we don't know anything by any stretch of the imagination".

That we as a whole bite the dust, we know. In any case, of what may lie past our passings we stay, similar to Edwin's guide, totally unmindful. But then, since the season of the old Greeks and Hebrews, there has been a long and complex history of our imaginings about existence in the wake of death, both after our individual passings and after the finish of history; a background marked by endeavors to answer a progression of perpetual inquiries with which we have dependably caught: Do we "survive" demise? Will we perceive ourselves? Will we be re-joined with those we have abandoned or the individuals who have gone some time recently? Will our activities in this life be rebuffed or remunerated? Will we have an open door after death to offer some kind of reparation or alter our way of living? Will our lives proceed promptly after death or do we need to sit tight for a last end to history? What sort of body may we have? Where will we be?

For all we know, one, a few, or none of these imaginings might be valid. In any case, whatever, the historical backdrop of the hereafter is the historical backdrop of our expectations that there will be something after death and of our feelings of dread that there will be nothing. What's more, conceded that there is an option that is as opposed to nothing, the historical backdrop of the hereafter addresses our fantasies of everlasting bliss, of our bad dreams of endless discipline, and of the heap routes in which these have been dispensed throughout the hundreds of years.

Regardless of whether in Greece of the seventh century BC or in the antiquated Israel of a similar period, the destiny of the dead was the same whether they were great or abhorrence – a shadowy half-life in Hades underneath the Earth or its Hebrew identical Sheol. Be that as it may, when of the Christian period, there were two foundational stories about existence in the wake of death in western idea as of now weaving all through each other. In the two cases, the bad habit or goodness of the expired decided their destiny. From one viewpoint, there was an account worked around the expectation that life will proceed promptly after the passing of each of us. At the purpose of death, it was figured, the spirit will be said something the adjust, be judged by its ethicalness or bad habit and be sent to the happiness of Abraham's Bosom (heaven) or be thrown into the pit of Hades.

Then again, there was another account, one that was driven by the desire that our interminable predeterminations would be at long last decided, not at the season of death, but rather around then when history closes – when this world will be no more and when Christ comes back to judge both the living and the dead on the Day of Judgment. Early Christians were less inspired by life quickly after death and more centered around the fast approaching desire of the arrival of Jesus in judgment. And after that, there will be just two conceivable goals for us. For Christ will offer the favored among us to enter an unending length of time of happiness in paradise and will toss the accursed among us into the everlasting flames of damnation. Furthermore, of the last there will be numerous more than the previous.

With these two stories set up, the historical backdrop of existence in the wake of death inside the west turned into the historical backdrop of an always liquid arrangement of transactions, contestations and bargains between these two forms of our prospects after death. The dominant part held to the need of both. As the Christian convention picked up in social renown and political power, the desire of the fast approaching return of Christ blurred out of spotlight and the accentuation fell on life promptly after death. For those socially, politically or monetarily disappointed, the desire of the fast approaching return of Christ stayed at the front line. At the point when Christ restored, the abused would then get their reward and the mischievous their interminable comeuppance.

Be that as it may, what of revived bodies? To the non-Christian Greek scholarly tip top of the initial four centuries AD, the idea of the restoration of the body on the Day of Judgment was crazy. Along these lines, St Augustine of Hippo (AD 354– 430) needed to bargain truly with an arrangement of inquiries that he accepted properly were planned by Christianity's developed despisers to criticize his confidence. Would prematurely ended babies become alive once again? What might be the extent of restored babies and youngsters? Would the assemblages of the massive, the distorted and the twisted be made great? What was the destiny of those eaten up by mammoths, devoured by flame, suffocated, or eaten by savages? What sexual orientation would the revived be?

The amount of any individual was expected to reconstitute "him" on the Last Day was an inquiry with which Thomas Aquinas was catching in the thirteenth century and Robert Boyle, the father of present day science, was all the while wrestling in the seventeenth. Drawing on the scriptural vision of the restoration of the valley of bones (Ezekiel 37.1-14) and his own synthetic tests on the steady and enduring surface of bones, Boyle induced that skeletal remains would guarantee the personality of the post-and pre-revival bodies, God including such different parts as he wanted to reestablish the bodies.

From the earliest starting point of the third century, the Christian custom embraced the Greek convention that people were made out of a mortal body and an everlasting soul. This empowered sense to be made of the strain between the destiny of the person after death and after the Day of Judgment. It was the spirit, it was contended, that made due amongst death and the Last Day, and it was the body that was revived on the Last Day and re-joined with the spirit. Along these lines, the historical backdrop of the hereafter was additionally the historical backdrop of the contention between the body and the spirit as the substance of what it is to be human; in some cases of the need of both, every so often of the affirmation of the one to the avoidance of the other.

This restriction amongst body and soul was mentally hard to support. The refinement amongst body and soul was adequately delicate for the one to probably fall into the other and the contrast between the two made usefully repetitive. The spirit was given a "real" status and the body an "otherworldly" one. From one perspective, it ended up plainly important to accord to the spirit the kind of "bodiliness" that permitted it a geological area after death either above or beneath the earth. Subsequently, it went up against physical viewpoints – the spirit was gendered, had rank and status.

Then again, it was essential to "spiritualise" the body – to revive it not as it was at the purpose of death however in a "perfect" shape most suited to its pleasure in the joys of paradise or to its torment of the agonies of hellfire. A "profound" body at any rate had the righteousness of maintaining a strategic distance from challenges innate in the thought of a restored physical body. From the center of the nineteenth century, a "profound" body surpassed the physical body as the favored type of existence in the wake of death vehicle.

What's more, superb necessities, alongside wonderful bodies, additionally changed after some time. From the early present day time frame onwards, there was a strain between the possibility of interminable life as one fixated on the affection and love of God to the rejection of human connections to one concentrated on human connections to the virtual avoidance of God. Subsequently, from the center of the seventeenth century, there was a progressive change from a paradise concentrated on the vision of God with much playing of harps and giving occasion to feel qualms about of crowns polished oceans, to paradise as a position of continuous exercises, moral change, travel and gathering with family, companions and pets – a sort of ethereal Club Med. In the meantime, by the center of the nineteenth century, heck, with its dim flames and biting worms, its tormenting and tormented evil spirits, was getting to be underestimated in the European personality, to a limited extent no uncertainty the consequence of the lessening of people in general scene of disciplines, torment and torment in the common circle.

The narrative of post-existence is likewise part of the historical backdrop of the human interest for equity. It mirrors the conviction that there is a requirement for equity on the opposite side of the grave, since there is valuable little of it on this side. So it addresses the acknowledgment that, since excellence is not clearly its own particular reward, the best answer for the shameful acts on this side of death was to 'even them up' on the opposite side. Along these lines, an ethical economy requested the making of spots after death where the exemplary would get their simply reward and the fiendish their appropriate recompense, and of disciplines and rewards proportionate to indecencies and excellencies.

Be that as it may, by the start of the fifth century AD, unmistakably, while the truly fiendish merited moment and interminable heck, and the okay moment and everlasting paradise, a large portion of us, at times great yet not great at being truly terrible, merited a place between the two. Along these lines we find that between the fifth and eleventh hundreds of years, the improvement of the possibility of Purgatory, a place amongst paradise and damnation where the not very underhanded could be cleansed and decontaminated in readiness for Heaven after the Day of Judgment. The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century was to toss Purgatory out, leaving our alternatives after death either just paradise or damnation.

That all stated, a definitive predetermination of the dead lay in the hands of God. It was he who might remunerate the great and rebuff the underhanded, who might weigh up souls right now of their passing and who might decide their unceasing predetermination. God remunerated the great and rebuffed the devilish in various routes at various circumstances ever, as indicated by different measures of his integrity, his equity and his honest outrage.

So, it was acknowledged generally that God would spare or damn as per the ideals or indecencies of the dead. In any case, it was likewise contended (by Augustine in the fifth century, for instance, and later by John Calvin in the sixteenth), that God allotted unceasing joy or everlasting torments simply as the subjective demonstration of his own sovereign will, paying little respect to any individual's temperances or indecencies. This was to end up noticeably a focal component of transformed considered life following death from the season of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.

To put it plainly, God could do whatever he loved and, it was contended, he did quite recently that. For those of a libertine turn, this was a view helpful for eating, drinking and joyful making in the without a moment's hesitation; for those all the more rigidly slanted, it was an impetus to devotion, temperance and amassing of riches as proof of decision to salvation. God's energy was underscored – despite the fact that, for some, it was at the cost of his decency and equity.

Our imaginings about the hereafter, both after death and after the finish of history, are a declaration to the expectation that many have had, and still do, for an augmentation of life past the grave. They address the want for light past the haziness of death; for extreme goodness past present wrongs; and for conclusive equity over natural imbalances. They offer voice to the confidence that the dramatization of history, and the minor part that each of us has played in it, has an extreme significance and reason, one that is perceivable from the vistas of time everlasting if not from our present point of view.

For good and sick, these imaginings have hugely impacted how we have seen how we should consider life in the without a moment's hesitation and how we should act until the point when life is no more. By the day's end (or the world), they result from our being individuals from an animal groups, every individual from which realizes that he or she will kick the bucket. This is both our triumph and our disaster.

   

The Evolution of Jewish Beliefs about the Afterlife

                                                    Discussion of the afterlife is largely absent from Jewish religious discussion today, but for a long time the concept of postmortem reward and punishment was an important part of Judaism. Elon Gilad traces these ideas from their biblical origins and explains how they changed and developed. It seems that they key moment for cementing belief in the afterlife came around the first century CE, as Gilad writes (free registration required):

According to Josephus, a Jewish historian writing at the end of the first century CE, the question of afterlife was a major point of contention for Jewish theologians of the period. The Sadducees, the prominent priestly class who ran the Temple, did not believe in an afterlife, or in the resurrection of the dead, Josephus writes. Meanwhile, their counterparts and adversaries, the Pharisees, an elite of experts in Jewish law, believed in both.

 

Once the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, the Sadducees and their theology were lost, and the Pharisees and their conception of the afterlife became mainstream rabbinical Judaism.

 

Thus, from the time of early rabbinic Judaism, belief in the afterlife and the resurrection of the dead became core to the faith. “All Israel have a portion in the world to come,” the Mishnah (200 CE) states, only to qualify this statement with a list of individuals who are excluded: “One who maintains that resurrection is not a biblical doctrine, the Torah was not divinely revealed, and a heretic.”

 

Resurrection

 

Resurrection is the philosophical or religious idea that a part of a living being begins another life in an alternate physical body or frame after each natural demise. It is likewise called resurrection or transmigration, and is a piece of the Saṃsāra principle of cyclic existence. It is a focal fundamental of all real Indian religions, to be specific Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The possibility of resurrection is found in numerous antiquated cultures, and a confidence in resurrection/metempsychosis was held by Greek memorable figures, for example, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. It is additionally a typical conviction of different old and present day religions, for example, Spiritism, Theosophy, and Eckankar and is found also in numerous tribal social orders the world over, in spots, for example, Australia, East Asia, Siberia, and South America.

 

In spite of the fact that the larger part of categories inside the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam don't trust that people resurrect, specific gatherings inside these religions do allude to rebirth; these gatherings incorporate the standard authentic and contemporary devotees of Kabbalah, the Cathars, Alawites, the Druze, and the Rosicrucians. The chronicled relations between these organizations and the convictions about resurrection that were normal for Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman period and additionally the Indian religions have been the subject of late academic research. Solidarity Church and its organizer Charles Fillmore educate resurrection.

 

Rosicrucians talk about an existence audit period happening quickly after death and before entering eternity's planes of presence (before the silver string is broken), trailed by a judgment, more much the same as a last survey or end report over one's life.

 

Paradise and Damnation

 

Paradise, the sky, seven sky, unadulterated terrains, Tian, Jannah, Valhalla, or the Summerland, is a typical religious, cosmological, or extraordinary place where creatures, for example, divine beings, heavenly attendants, jinn, holy people, or loved precursors are said to start, be enthroned, or live. As indicated by the convictions of a few religions, superb creatures can drop to earth or incarnate, and natural creatures can climb to Paradise in life following death, or in excellent cases enter Paradise alive.

 

Paradise is regularly portrayed as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Heaven, as opposed to Damnation or the Black market or the "low places", and all around or restrictively available by natural creatures as indicated by different benchmarks of godlikeness, goodness, devotion, confidence or different temperances or right convictions or basically the will of God. Some trust in the likelihood of a Paradise on Earth in a World to Come.

 

In Indian religions, Paradise is considered as Svarga loka, and the spirit is again subjected to resurrection in various living structures as indicated by its karma. This cycle can be broken after a spirit accomplishes Moksha or Nirvana. Wherever of presence, both of people, souls or gods, outside the unmistakable world (Paradise, Heck, or other) is alluded to as otherworld.

 

For hell's sake, in numerous religious and folkloric customs, is a place or condition of torment and discipline in an eternity. Religions with a straight heavenly history regularly portray hells as endless goals while Religions with a cyclic history frequently delineate a damnation as a middle person period between incarnations. Normally these customs find damnation in another measurement or under the World's surface and regularly incorporate doors to Hellfire from the place where there is the living. Other existence in the wake of death goals incorporate Paradise, Limbo, Heaven, and Limbo.

 

Different customs, which don't imagine existence in the wake of death as a position of discipline or reward, just portray hellfire as a house the dead, the grave, an unbiased place situated under the surface of Earth (for instance, see sheol and Hades).

To put it in concise and crude terms: Our fear of death and what comes afterwards perpetuates these factually unprovable precepts, and deaths of our relatives & loved ones makes us hope that they still exist somewhere, and we will join them one day.