The Beliefs about the Nature of Good and Evil

The available literature does non seem to offer a clear picture of whether in that respect is or was any sort of orthodoxy common to completely the Lakota. Further, since Lakota usage is oral rather than written, there is no way to handbill how much the Lakota beliefs as they now exist have been influenced by Christian concepts. For example, Black Elk, one of the traditional "medicine work force" long accepted as a spokesman for Sioux spirituality, had actu solelyy reborn to papistic Catholicism in 1904, and was engaged in creating a theology that could accommodate both traditional Sioux religion and Roman Catholic doctrine. (He states his allegiance to basic Catholic doctrines quite straightforwardly in the preface to Brown, 1953.) There are many who regard that Black Elk succeeded in this task admirably, but he earth-closetnot be used with confidence as a reference point of primary information on traditional Sioux religion. However, John end Lame Deer seems less influenced by Christian concepts, and eventide Black Elk can be used with callable caution, in that any concepts or practices which are clearly various from those of traditional Christianity are probably of Lakota origin.

Traditional Christian beliefs rough life later on death are an amalgam of concepts from both different sources. The first was traditional Jewish beliefs active somatic resurrection, which was understood to be the reward for God's fri

ends and, among Christians, for the followers of Jesus as the Messiah who would inaugurate the overshadow of God on Earth. The second source was Greek beliefs about survival of the soul in the underworld or among the gods on Mt. Olympus (and about reincarnation--although the latter beliefs may not have been as universal as Plato makes them seem, e.g., in the Myth of Er at the end of The Republic). Christian preaching had to be recast in terms of immortality of the soul as Christianity spread out into the stone pitenic world during the second century A.D.

, since somatogenetic resurrection sounded like a punishment to the dualistic Greeks, many of whom considered the soul to be trap in the body in this lifetime (that is, the classical Greeks had a concept rather similar to that of the Hindu samsara). As an commentary for the eternal life promised to the Christian tight, either physical resurrection or immortality of the soul would be adequate--but both are not needed. almost Christians seem to believe that an individual soul is judged immediately after death and sent off to Heaven or Hell (or perhaps Purgatory). However, at the end of time, when the Last Judgment of all humans by the Messiah entrust take place, all people will be called back to undergo physical resurrection, and will then be sent to their final destinations in Heaven or Hell, or perhaps the Earth will become a colony of Heaven, a New Jerusalem. In fairness, one should emphasize that contemporary "catholic" Christians focus much on the concept that the faithful departed and the living faithful continue to make up a single community as the Family of God, and participate in worship together (Ware, 1972, pp. 258-60, provides a good example of such beliefs).

In conclusion, one can see that there are obvious parallels and obvious differences amid the beliefs about the afterlife in these three communities. However, it is not as obvious whether these parallels arise from parallel evolution or from histor
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