How our understanding of the ancient Egyptian afterlife was shaped by
Christianity. Many of us are familiar with the ancient Egyptians’
obsession with immortality and the great efforts they made to secure
the quality of their afterlife. But, as Rune Nyord shows, even today,
our understanding of the Egyptian afterlife has been formulated to a
striking extent in Christian terms. Nyord argues that this is no
accident, but rather the result of a long history of Europeans
systematically retelling the religion of ancient Egypt to fit the
framework of Christianity. The idea of ancient Egyptians believing in
postmortem judgment with rewards and punishments in the afterlife was
developed during the early modern period through biased
interpretations that were construed without any detailed knowledge of
ancient Egyptian religion, hieroglyphs, and sources. As a growing
number of Egyptian images and texts became available through the
nineteenth century, these materials tended to be incorporated into
existing narratives rather than being used to question them. Against
this historical background, Nyord argues that we need to return to the
indigenous sources and shake off the Christian expectations that
continue to shape scholarly and popular thinking about the ancient
Egyptian afterlife.
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The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226838243
Publisert
2025
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter