Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [455]
47. Bremmer, Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, pp. 11-40.
48. See ch. 8 under the topic of the Septuagint, for a fuller discussion of these passages.
49.Literally their breath or spirit, as below. The parallel is key, as it shows God’s immortal breath in contrast to human breath, which fails.
50. Or your breath.
51. De Boer, The Defeat of Death, p. 43.
52. See, for example, Aufrecht’s excellent book, Studies in the Book of Job, with excellent contributions by Ronald J. Williams, Peter C. Craigie, and Claude E. Cox.
53. J. Roberts, “Job’s Summons to Yahweh.”
54. See P. Johnston, Shades of Sheol, pp. 211-14, for a good review of the textual problems.
55. Possibly these are two different versions of the same Israelite tradition.
56. In the meantime, see Kvanwig, Roots of Apocalyptic; Vanderkam, Enoch; Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis.
57. Pope, Song of Songs.
58. See G. Wright, Old Testament Against its Environment.
59. A. Segal, Rebecca’s Children.
60. Later in the story we find out that stars are angels but that is another issue entirely. In point of fact, the equation of the stars with the angels is much earlier than the Genesis ch. 1 creation story.
61. Childs, Myth and Reality.
62. See ANET, pp. 37-41 for the story of Enki and Ninhursag.
63. Alternatively, it may signify the Tigris or the Nile in an anachronistic way.
64. I know that many feminists want to see some justification for equality of the sexes in this passage. Our modern ethics are in need of no biblical justification.
Chapter 4. Iranian Views of the Afterlife and Ascent to the Heavens
1. See A. Segal, Rebecca’s Children, pp. 13-37.
2. S. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness Boundaries.
3. The best place to start one’s study of Zoroastrianism in English is Oxtoby, “The Zoroastrian Tradition.”
4. Mary Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism; Zoroastrians; Study of Zoroastrianism; J. R. Russell, Zoroastrianism in Armenia.
5. See Oxtoby, “The Zoroastrian Traditions,” p. 159.
6. A good guess would be around 800-750 BCE, though no one really has convincingly dated Zarathustra’s life.
7. Gnoli, “Zoroastrianism.”
8. The other major possibility is that Zarathustra preached a more radical religion than was adopted in his name.
9. Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism.
10. See also Zaehner, The Teachings of the Magi; A Zoroastrian Dilemma.
11. Gnoli, “Zoroastrianism.”
12. See Gnoli, “Ateshgah.”
13. See Oxtoby, “Interpretations of Iranian Dualism,” pp. 62-63.
14. Boyce, Zoroastrianism, p. 73.
15. BeDuhn, The Manichean Body; Klimkeit, gnōsis on the Silk Road; Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road.
16. They may have been somehow alienated from their other Sanskritic language-speaking brethren because the word for god in Sanskrit is deva, demon is asura, while in the Avestan dialects, it is just the contrary: daeva means demon and ahura is god. Linguistic specialization alone might account for the variation between these cognate words in closely related languages. So attributing Iranian dualism to feelings of hostility against their neighbors is a lot to conclude from etymology alone. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that anyone in Zoroastrian Iran would have identified willingly with the dregvans and it is easy to understand how powerful a political belief dualism is for demonizing one’s enemies.
17. See, for example, the thoughtful book by J. R. Russell, Zoroastrianism in Armenia.
18. Boyce, Study of Zoroastrianism.
19. See Hultgård, “Persian Apocalypticism,” p. 67.
20. See Duchesne-Guillemin, The Hymns of Zarathustra, pp. 143-44; also Symbols and Values in Zoroastrianism.
21. For more detail, see Boyce, Zoroastrians, pp. 14-15.
22. See Kreyenbroek, Sroasa in the Zoroastrian Tradition.
23. See Kotwal and Boyd, A Guide to the Zoroastrian Religion, p. 78.
24. See Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road, pp. 28-29. His information, in turn, comes from Janos Harmatta, “Religions in the Kushan Empire,” p. 315; and Trinkhaus, “Mortuary Ritual