A Death, Dying, and the Afterlife

Comparative Exploration of Greek, Jewish, New Testament, and African Christian Perspectives

Abstract

Death, dying, and the afterlife have been central concerns across human cultures, with interpretations of such phenomena varying greatly across time and space. The paper offers a comparative review of Greek, Jewish, New Testament, and African Christian views on death and eschatology highlighting both points of convergence and divergence. Greek thought on death ranges from the Homeric shadowy, underworldly Hades, in which souls exist in a dismal limbo, to Platonic doctrines insisting on the soul’s immortality, to Epicurean philosophical positions denying postmortem existence altogether and emphasizing the finality of bodily death. Jewish thought similarly evolved from early depictions of Sheol in the Hebrew Bible, a shadowy place of the dead, toward Second Temple ideas embracing bodily resurrection, apocalyptic visions, and the hope of divine restoration. The New Testament reinterprets death through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ with an emphasis on bodily resurrection, final judgment, and communal eschatological hope. In African traditional conceptions, for example, among the Akamba and the Akan, death is not an end but a rite of passage into ancestorhood. These perspectives emphasize the continuity of community, moral accountability, and the ritual passage from the world of the living into the ancestral world. A comparative analysis demonstrates resonances between New Testament and African perspectives, such as beliefs in life beyond death, moral responsibility, communal orientation, and the importance of ritual in marking important transitions in life. However, divergences remain, particularly with respect to the nature of the afterlife judgement, and the Christocentric hope accentuated in Christian contextualized eschatology that incorporates indigenous motifs, in particular “homegoing” and ancestor remembrance, and yet grounds hope in the resurrection of Christ. Such an approach carries implications for pastoral care, catechesis, liturgy, and ethical living. Ultimately, this paper shows that African intuitions of continuity and relationality can enhance Christian theological reflection without compromising the distinctiveness of the gospel message.