Exploration of Death Through Socio-Historical Lenses

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Religion defines death by portraying ideas of legitimacy to life and, therefore, providing shelter and meaning to death. This essay will explore death through socio-historical lenses by identifying key death concepts in both Christianity and The people’s temple religions.

Christianity is the contemporary sense has around 41,000 (PewReasearch , 2011,)interconnected denominations, making it have overall influence of 31.7 percent (PewReasearch , 2011,) of the world religions. Making it one of the most powerful and influential institutions in the worlds. However, because of its size and minor differences between it many denominations it makes it hard to create a specific representation with every single idea considered, therefore this essay will address the Crucifixion as it is an element depicted in all denominations, secondly one crucial change in death systems, and finally how the Christianity has been utilized to define not just the death of an individual, but also the legitimate death of others. The Crucifixion is one of the most important pieces of literature found in the Christian Holy Scripture; the bible. The rationale behind this thought is because it describes the brutal death of the cult’s leader(Maslen, 2006, p.2), Jesus Christ who was, according to the Bible the only Son of god who was sent to earth to die for the sins of humans. However the death has more symbolic importance as the action as it was an act of the apparent absolution of the many sins of Christians. It is said on the third day Jesus defeated death, and rose again on the third day, so that one day Christians could join him and his father(International Bible Society, 1984, p.23:26-43). Implying the first sense of a Christian afterlife.

The first major chan...

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International Bible Society (1984). Luke 23:26-43. In The Holy Bible: New International Version. Colorado Springs, CO: International Bible Society.

International Bible Society (1984). Revelation. In The Holy Bible: New International Version(p. 14:11). Colorado Springs, CO: International Bible Society.

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