Misplaced Pages

Dying-and-rising god: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 11:42, 17 December 2009 editNikopolyos (talk | contribs)35 edits →Criticisms: Have added detail on the actual content of Jonathan z. Smith's claims and added detail form the wider accademic debate on the topic← Previous edit Revision as of 15:13, 17 December 2009 edit undoAri89 (talk | contribs)Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers4,342 edits restored after vandalismNext edit →
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Refimprove|date=November 2009}} {{Refimprove|date=November 2009}}
A '''life-death-rebirth deity''', also known as a "dying-and-rising" ]is a generic category for deities found within agrarian societies who are the focus of myth and rituals which represent the annual death and rebirth of the deity.<ref>]. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In ''The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.''. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.</ref> Examples include ]<ref>http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/osiris.htm</ref>, ]<ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/582039/Tammuz</ref>, ] and ]. Female deities who passed into the kingdom of death and returned include ] (also known as ], whose cult dates to 4000 BCE) and ]<ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452661/Persephone</ref> (the central figure of the ], whose cult may date to 1700 BCE as the unnamed goddess worshipped in Crete). A '''life-death-rebirth deity''', also known as a "dying-and-rising" ] is a generic category for deities found within agrarian societies who are the focus of myth and rituals which represent the annual death and rebirth of the deity.<ref>]. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In ''The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.''. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.</ref> Although the term was popular in later scholarship, movements in understanding ancient religions see the category "to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts."<ref>]. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In ''The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.''. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.</ref>


The term "life-death-rebirth deity" is particularly associated with the works of ], ], and their fellow ]. In their seminal works ''The Golden Bough'' and ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', Frazer and Harrison argued that all myths are echoes of rituals, and that all rituals have as their primordial purpose the manipulation of natural phenomena by means of ]. Consequently, the rape and return of Persephone, the rending and repair of Osiris, the travails and triumph of Baldr, derive from primitive rites intended to renew the fertility of withered land and crops. The Swiss ] ] argued that ] processes such as death and resurrection were part of the "trans-personal symbolism" of the ], and could be utilized in the task of psychological integration. Jung's line of argumentation, in combination with that of the Cambridge Ritualists, has been developed by ] and ]. The term "life-death-rebirth deity" is particularly associated with the works of ], ], and their fellow ]. In their seminal works ''The Golden Bough'' and ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', Frazer and Harrison argued that all myths are echoes of rituals, and that all rituals have as their primordial purpose the manipulation of natural phenomena by means of ]. Consequently, the rape and return of Persephone, the rending and repair of Osiris, the travails and triumph of Baldr, derive from primitive rites intended to renew the fertility of withered land and crops. The Swiss ] ] argued that ] processes such as death and resurrection were part of the "trans-personal symbolism" of the ], and could be utilized in the task of psychological integration. Jung's line of argumentation, in combination with that of the Cambridge Ritualists, has been developed by ] and ].
Line 6: Line 6:
Some scholars, beginning with ], classify ] ] as a syncretized example of this ].<ref>See also the article "]." As with all other world religions, ] and its symbols are categorized as a ] in academic disciplines such as ], ], and ]. The correspondences between Jesus Christ and other life-death-rebirth deities are unrelated to the question of the ]; even the interpretation of the ] as a strictly historical event in no way precludes its subsequent mythologization.</ref> In the Victorian era, the ] used parallels between Christ, Osiris and other solar dying-and-rising gods to construct elaborate systems of ] and ]. Following his conversion to ], ] believed that the ] belonged in this category of ]s, with the additional property of having actually happened in history: "If God chooses to be ''mythopoeic''&mdash;and is not the sky itself a myth&mdash;shall we refuse to be ''mythopathic''?"<ref>Lewis (1970).</ref> Some scholars, beginning with ], classify ] ] as a syncretized example of this ].<ref>See also the article "]." As with all other world religions, ] and its symbols are categorized as a ] in academic disciplines such as ], ], and ]. The correspondences between Jesus Christ and other life-death-rebirth deities are unrelated to the question of the ]; even the interpretation of the ] as a strictly historical event in no way precludes its subsequent mythologization.</ref> In the Victorian era, the ] used parallels between Christ, Osiris and other solar dying-and-rising gods to construct elaborate systems of ] and ]. Following his conversion to ], ] believed that the ] belonged in this category of ]s, with the additional property of having actually happened in history: "If God chooses to be ''mythopoeic''&mdash;and is not the sky itself a myth&mdash;shall we refuse to be ''mythopathic''?"<ref>Lewis (1970).</ref>



== List of life-death-rebirth deities ==
{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2009}}

{{col-begin}}

{{col-4}}

* ]
** ]{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}
** ]
* ]
** ]
** ]
* ]
** ]
* ]
** ]
** ]
* ]
** ]
*]/]
** ]{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}

{{col-4}}

* ]
** ]
* ]
** ]
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
* ]
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
* ]
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]<ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452661/Persephone</ref>

{{col-4}}

* ]
** ]
* ]
** ] <ref>{{cite web |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=1NonAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=heitsi+eibib&source=bl&ots=IbJD4Adj8B&sig=O8i68LXHMkKdHqrUJRoZqnc7cMs&hl=en&ei=gyqpSs6jO5OKMa_Q8bUG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&f=false |title=Myth, ritual and religion, Volume 2 By Andrew Lang}}</ref>
* ]
** ]
* ]
** ] <ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm |title= Völuspá |page= 14-15, 25}}</ref>
** ] <ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm |title= Völuspá |page= 10}}</ref>
**]
{{col-4}}

* ]
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}
** ]<ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452661/Persephone</ref>
* ]
** ]
** ]
* ]
** ]
** ]

{{col-end}}


==Criticisms== ==Criticisms==
The chief criticism that has been brought against the universal ''life-death-resurrection deity'' category charges it with ], insofar as it subsumes a range of disparate myths under a single category and ignores important distinctions. ] argues that it risks making Christianity the standard by which all religion is judged, since death and resurrection are more central to Christianity than many other faiths.<ref>Detienne (1994); see also Burkert (1987).</ref> The chief criticism that has been brought against the universal ''life-death-resurrection deity'' category charges it with ], insofar as it subsumes a range of disparate myths under a single category and ignores important distinctions. ] argues that it risks making Christianity the standard by which all religion is judged, since death and resurrection are more central to Christianity than many other faiths.<ref>Detienne (1994); see also Burkert (1987).</ref>


On the category of dying and rising gods, ], president of the ] has stated: On the category of dying and rising gods, ], a scholar of comparative religions has stated:
:The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts.<ref>]. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In ''The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.''. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27. :The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts.<ref>]. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In ''The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.''. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.
</ref> </ref>

Professors Smith's method is based on hair-splitting distinctions over what counts as a death and resurrection god; for example he claims that Osiris was not a dying and rising god because he did not 'resurrect' but mearly 'rejuvinated'. <ref>Jonathan Z. Smith, "Dying and Rising Gods," in Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987, Volume 3, page 524-5]</ref> Futher, he claims that Tammuz was not a death and resurection god because he was only a demi-god, etc.

Smiths claim that the topic of dying and rising gods are no longer acceped in accademia is wholy untrue: dying and rising gods are still a major topic of research and widely accepted in the accademic communtiy. ]'s book Riddle of Resurrection: "Dying and Rising Gods" in the Ancient Near East is the most authoratitive up to date scholarship on this matter; Professor Mettinger Dept of Theology, Lund U. Sweden is in no doubt of the validity of the concept of dying and rising gods.


Beginning with an overview of the ] ] of growing and withering herb gardens at the ] festival, Detienne suggests that rather than being a stand-in for crops in general (and therefore the cycle of death and rebirth), these herbs (and Adonis) were part of a complex of associations in the Greek mind that centered on ]s.<ref>These associations included seduction, trickery, gourmandise, and the anxieties of ].</ref> From his point of view, Adonis's death is only one datum among the many that must be used to analyze the festival, the myth, and the god. Beginning with an overview of the ] ] of growing and withering herb gardens at the ] festival, Detienne suggests that rather than being a stand-in for crops in general (and therefore the cycle of death and rebirth), these herbs (and Adonis) were part of a complex of associations in the Greek mind that centered on ]s.<ref>These associations included seduction, trickery, gourmandise, and the anxieties of ].</ref> From his point of view, Adonis's death is only one datum among the many that must be used to analyze the festival, the myth, and the god.

Revision as of 15:13, 17 December 2009

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Dying-and-rising god" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A life-death-rebirth deity, also known as a "dying-and-rising" deity is a generic category for deities found within agrarian societies who are the focus of myth and rituals which represent the annual death and rebirth of the deity. Although the term was popular in later scholarship, movements in understanding ancient religions see the category "to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts."

The term "life-death-rebirth deity" is particularly associated with the works of James Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, and their fellow Cambridge Ritualists. In their seminal works The Golden Bough and Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Frazer and Harrison argued that all myths are echoes of rituals, and that all rituals have as their primordial purpose the manipulation of natural phenomena by means of sympathetic magic. Consequently, the rape and return of Persephone, the rending and repair of Osiris, the travails and triumph of Baldr, derive from primitive rites intended to renew the fertility of withered land and crops. The Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung argued that archetypal processes such as death and resurrection were part of the "trans-personal symbolism" of the collective unconscious, and could be utilized in the task of psychological integration. Jung's line of argumentation, in combination with that of the Cambridge Ritualists, has been developed by Károly Kerényi and Joseph Campbell.

Some scholars, beginning with Franz Cumont, classify Jesus Christ as a syncretized example of this archetype. In the Victorian era, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn used parallels between Christ, Osiris and other solar dying-and-rising gods to construct elaborate systems of mysticism and theosophy. Following his conversion to Christianity, C. S. Lewis believed that the resurrection of Jesus belonged in this category of myths, with the additional property of having actually happened in history: "If God chooses to be mythopoeic—and is not the sky itself a myth—shall we refuse to be mythopathic?"


Criticisms

The chief criticism that has been brought against the universal life-death-resurrection deity category charges it with reductionism, insofar as it subsumes a range of disparate myths under a single category and ignores important distinctions. Marcel Detienne argues that it risks making Christianity the standard by which all religion is judged, since death and resurrection are more central to Christianity than many other faiths.

On the category of dying and rising gods, Jonathan Z. Smith, a scholar of comparative religions has stated:

The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts.

Beginning with an overview of the Athenian ritual of growing and withering herb gardens at the Adonia festival, Detienne suggests that rather than being a stand-in for crops in general (and therefore the cycle of death and rebirth), these herbs (and Adonis) were part of a complex of associations in the Greek mind that centered on spices. From his point of view, Adonis's death is only one datum among the many that must be used to analyze the festival, the myth, and the god.

See also

Notes

  1. Smith, Jonathan Z.. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.
  2. Smith, Jonathan Z.. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.
  3. See also the article "Jesus Christ in comparative mythology." As with all other world religions, Christianity and its symbols are categorized as a myth system in academic disciplines such as mythography, sociology, and anthropology. The correspondences between Jesus Christ and other life-death-rebirth deities are unrelated to the question of the Historicity of Jesus; even the interpretation of the crucifixion of Jesus as a strictly historical event in no way precludes its subsequent mythologization.
  4. Lewis (1970).
  5. Detienne (1994); see also Burkert (1987).
  6. Smith, Jonathan Z.. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.
  7. These associations included seduction, trickery, gourmandise, and the anxieties of childbirth.

Sources

  • Burkert, Walter. 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP. ISBN 0674033868.
  • Detienne, Marcel. 1994. The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP. ISBN 0391006118.
  • Endsjø, Dag Øistein 2009. Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230617292.
  • Frazer, James George 1996. The Golden Bough. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 0684826305.
  • Gaster, Theodor, H. 1950. Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East. New York: Henry Schuman. ISBN 0877521883. (Cf. Part II, "Seasonal Myths of the Ancient Near East", p. 129. On Baal and "the seasonal motif of the dying and reviving god".)
  • Godwin, Joscelyn. 1994. The Theosophical Enlightenment. Albany: State U of New York P. ISBN 0791421511.
  • Lewis, C. S. 1970. "Myth Become Fact." God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Ed. Walter Hooper. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1994. ISBN 0802808689.
  • Nash, Ronald H. 2003. The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought?. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R. ISBN 0875525598.
  • Smith, Jonathan Z.. 1995. "Dying and Rising Gods." In The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 521-27.
Categories: