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Book of The Dead: in Early Science and Philosophy

The average human heart will beat approximately 2.5 billion times over the course of a 66 year lifespan. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the heart was weighed after death to determine if it was lighter than a feather, representing truth, to pass into the afterlife. Similarly, in the Bible the heart is referenced as the source of thoughts and emotions. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary are traditional Roman Catholic devotional images representing the heart.

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31 views

Book of The Dead: in Early Science and Philosophy

The average human heart will beat approximately 2.5 billion times over the course of a 66 year lifespan. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the heart was weighed after death to determine if it was lighter than a feather, representing truth, to pass into the afterlife. Similarly, in the Bible the heart is referenced as the source of thoughts and emotions. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary are traditional Roman Catholic devotional images representing the heart.

Uploaded by

Mitchell Johns
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The average human heart, beating at 72 beats per minute, will beat approximately 2.

5 billion times during an average 66 year lifespan

In Egyptian mythology, the heart portion of the soul was weighed in a balance against the feather of Ma'at, symbolising truth, in the judgment of the dead in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Egyptian sources do not actually reveal whether the heart had to be lighter than the feather for the deceased to pass into paradiseall depictions show only the weighing of the heart, not the actual results, heavier or lighter. Similarly, in the Bible, this idea emerges in the earliest passages; Genesis 6:5 situates the thoughts of evil men in their hearts, and Exodus 5 through 12 speak repeatedly of the Lord "hardening Pharaoh's heart." By this it is meant that God made Pharaoh resolve not to let the Israelite slaves leave Egypt, in order to bring judgment against Pharaoh and demonstrate his power: "'Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them'" (Exodus 10:1). In the Book of Jeremiah 17:9, it is written that the Lord is the judge who "tries" the human heart. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary are traditional Roman Catholic devotional images.

[edit] In early science and philosophy


Many classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason or emotion, often rejecting the value of the brain.[1] The Stoics taught that the heart was the seat of the soul. The Roman physician Galen located the seat of the passions in the liver, the seat of reason in the brain, and considered the heart to be the seat of the emotions. While Galen's identification of the heart with emotion were proposed as a part of his theory of the circulatory system, the heart has continued to be used as a symbolic source of human emotions even after the rejection of such beliefs.[2] These themes were reiterated in the European Middle Ages.

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