There was a recent discussion about the Resurrection of Jesus and the apparent similarities between Jesus and other so-called “Mediterranean Rising and Dying Gods”. (The Jesus Mythicists rely a great deal on the concept.) In my response I pointed out the modern critique of this idea by scholars showing that many of our ideas about these other religious systems are based on certain unquestioned assumptions derived from scholars of the late 19th and early 20th century “History of Religions School”, an influential effort at comparative religion. While a noble effort, it suffered because it wound up viewing these other religious systems through a Christian lens, detecting equivalences that tend to disappear under careful scrutiny of primary sources.

In this light, here is a video lecture from Egyptologist Rune Nyord, examining how the view in the West of Ancient Egypt conceptions of the afterlife developed and were shaped by some of the same unquestioned assumptions. Can we determine Ancient Egypt’s actual views?

There is a book of course.

** you do not have permission to see this link **

Congratulations to the University of Chicago Press for releasing not only a ludicrously priced hardback for the libraries but also a rather more affordable paperback edition for interested non-specialists.