Introduction PART I Death in the Ancient Near East 1 Osiris and Isis: The life-theology of Ancient Egypt 2 Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman 3 Canaanites and Mesopotamians 4 Mere texts or living realities? The possible influence of the older thanatologies on Judaism and Christianity PART II From caves and rock-cut tombs to Judaism 5 The general archaeology of the Ancient Near East 6 Judaism: Towards the common era 7 Burying the Jewish dead 8 Good luck with your resurrection! Opening the heavens and raising the dead PART III Romans and Greeks: A theodicy of good fortune? 9 Roman and Greek philosophies of death 10 Roman religion and Roman funerals 11 Ovid’s ‘ever-varying forms’: Greek mythologies, sarcophagi and the boundaries of mortality 12 Ovid’s ‘bonds of love and duty’: Funerals, epitaphs, orations and death in the arena PART IV Christians, martyrs, soldiers, saints 13 Christian burial 14 The nature of martyrdom, Epilogue: Sacrificial living and sacrificial dying: Christians in the world