A History of Hope and Horror

An "archaeological dig" into three civilizations that shaped Western views of death: Egypt's earned immortality and the weighing of the heart, Mesopotamia's bleak "house of dust" (the Epic of Gilgamesh), and Greece's move from a gloomy Hades to Plato's immortal, disembodied soul. It explains how Greek dualism later seeped into Christian theology, and contrasts all three with the Hebrew idea of Sheol under God's sovereignty.