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There two stories of Quetzalcoatl's dying myth, the first one the god burns himself on a pyre and becomes the planet Venus. In the other version Quetz sales into the ocean on a raft of snakes. Above is a pop culture rendering of Quetz in the anime Fate Grand Order

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In this story Osiris is murdered by his brother seth who wants to rule over Egypt in his stead. However Seth does not count on Isis Osiris's wife who resurrects her husband, sadly Osiris cannot remain among the living so instead becomes ruler of the underworld.

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The Egyptian myth of the death of Osiris - Alex Gendler

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"The Death of Baldr." AleHorn Viking Blog, AleHorn, www.alehorn.com/blogs/alehorn-viking-blog/the-death-of-baldr. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.

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Unfortunately, Badr doesn't return from his untimely death caused by Loki. Loki tricks Hodr into killing Baldr with his one weakness mistletoe and when Baldr dies Odin sends to Hel asking her to return Baldr she agrees if every living thing will weep for Baldr and Thokk (believed to be Loki in disguise) refuses to weep causing Baldr's true death until Ragnarok

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In this story we see Adonis a beautiful child, grows into a handsome young man loved by many people unfortunately this beauty would actually lead to his demise. Aphrodite the goddess of beauty would have his heart unfortunately other gods Artemis/Ares/Persephone (depends on which version you use) grows jealous of their affections and decides to send a boar to kill Adonis. As he lays bleeding in Aphrodite's arms his blood becomes roses and creates a beautiful flower. Signifying the death and rebirth cycle.

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Adonis and Aphrodite: the tragic love story...

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The Annuna, the judges of the underworld, surrounded her
They passed judgment against her.
Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death
She spoke against her the word of wrath
She uttered against her the cry of guilt
She struck her.
Inanna was turned into a corpse
A piece of rotting meat
And was hung from a hook on the wall.
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 60)

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The Sumerian poem, The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the journey of Inanna, the great goddess and Queen of Heaven, from her realm in the sky, to earth, and down into the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead. The poem begins famously with the lines:

From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below
From the Great Above the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below
From the Great Above Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below.
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 52)

The work then goes on to describe Inanna's descent to the underworld accompanied, part of the way, by her faithful servant and advisor Ninshubur.

Summary

Inanna is dressed in her finest clothes and wears the crown of heaven on her head, beads around her neck, her breastplate, golden ring and carries her scepter, the rod of power. Just before she enters the underworld, she gives Ninsubur instructions on how to come to her aid should she fail to return when expected. Upon her arrival at the gates of the underworld Inanna knocks loudly and demands entrance. Neti, the chief gatekeeper, asks who she is and, when Inanna answers, "I am Inanna, Queen of Heaven", Neti asks why she would wish entrance to the land "from which no traveler returns." Inanna answers:

Because of my older sister, Ereshkigal
Her husband, Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, has died
I have come to witness the funeral rites.
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 55)

Neti then tells her to stay where she is while he goes to speak with Ereshkigal.

When Neti delivers the news to Ereshkigal that Inanna is at the gates, the Queen of the Dead responds in a way which seems strange: "She slapped her thigh and bit her lip. She took the matter into her heart and dwelt on it" (Wolkstein and Kramer, 56). She does not seem pleased to hear the news that her sister is at the gate and her displeasure is further evidenced when she tells Neti to bolt the seven gates of the underworld against Inanna and then let her in, one gate at a time, requiring her to remove one of her royal garments at each gate. Neti does as he is commanded and, gate by gate, Inanna is stripped of her crown, beads, ring, sceptre, even her clothing and, when she asks the meaning of this indignity, is told by Neti:

Quiet, Inanna, the ways of the underworld are perfect
They may not be questioned.
(Wolkstein and Kramer 58-60)

Inanna enters the throne room of Ereshkigal "naked and bowed low" and begins walking toward the throne when:

The annuna, the judges of the underworld, surrounded her
They passed judgment against her.
Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death
She spoke against her the word of wrath
She uttered against her the cry of guilt
She struck her.
Inanna was turned into a corpse
A piece of rotting meat
And was hung from a hook on the wall.
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 60)

After three days and three nights waiting for her mistress, Ninshubur follows the commands Inanna gave her, goes to Inanna's father- god Enki for help, and receives two `galla', two transgender beings created "neither male nor female", to aid her in returning Inanna to the earth. The galla enter the underworld "like flies" and, following Enki's specific instructions, attach themselves closely to Ereshkigal. The Queen of the Dead is seen in distress:

No linen was spread over her body
Her breasts were uncovered
Her hair swirled around her head like leeks.
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 63-66)

The poem continues to describe the queen experiencing the pains of labor. The galla sympathize with the queen's pains and she, in gratitude, offers them whatever gift they ask for. As ordered by Enki, the galla respond, "We wish only the corpse that hangs from the hook on the wall" (Wolkstein and Kramer, 67) and Ereshkigal gives it to them. The galla revive Inanna with the food and water of life and she rises from the dead.

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As in the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, however, one who has sojourned in the underworld cannot just leave it so easily. Someone must be found to take Inanna's place and so the galla demons of the underworld accompany her up to the earth's surface to claim her substitute. The demons try to take Ninshubur first, then Inanna's sons Shara and Lulal and even Inanna's beautician Cara but, in all these instances, Inanna prevents them because Ninshubur, Shara, Lulal and Cara are all dressed in sackcloth and are in mourning for her apparent death.

When Inanna comes upon her lover Dumuzi, however, and finds him "dressed in his shining...garments...on his magnificent throne" she becomes enraged that he, unlike the others, is not mourning her and orders the demons to seize him. Dumuzi appeals to the sun god Utu for help and is transformed into a snake in order to escape but, eventually, is caught and carried away to the underworld. Dumuzi's sister, Geshtinanna, volunteers herself to go in his place and so it is decreed that Dumuzi will spend half the year in the underworld and Geshtinanna the other half. In this way, as, again with the myth of Demeter and Persephone, the seasons were explained. Yet why so elaborate a myth simply to explain the seasons? The Greek tale of Persephone (though, also, about much more than seasonal change) accomplishes the same end more succinctly.

Modern Interpretation

Modern readers of this poem have available to them a wealth of interpretation of the piece through writers applying a psychological, specifically Jungian, view to the poem as an archetypal myth of the journey each individual must take to reach wholeness. Inanna in this piece, so the interpretation goes, is not a `whole person' until she appears vulnerable before her `darker half', dies, and returns to life. At the poem's end, this interpretation asserts, Inanna, through her descent into darkness, the shedding of the trappings of her former self, confrontation with her `shadow', death of who she was, and final re-birth, is now a complete individual, wholly aware. Writers who have popularized this interpretation are so numerous that naming them all would be pointless; any reader acquainted with The Descent of Inanna will have already, or will eventually, come across one version or another of this interpretation.

The archetypes of Carl Jung have proven enlightening tools in understanding and explicating ancient myths for a modern audience (most notably through the works of Joseph Campbell). Such an interpretation of a text, however, must always keep in mind the text itself; the words on the page, the arrangement of those words, characterization and dialogue. However interesting, and even enlightening, the modern `Jungian' view of The Descent of Inanna may be, it is not supported by the text. Among other glaring omissions, this modern interpretation of the ancient story in no way accounts for the last lines of the poem which praise, not Inanna, but Ereshkigal:

Holy Ereshkigal! Great is your renown!
Holy Ereshkigal! I sing your praises!
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 89)

The text of the poem clearly states Inanna's intention of journeying to the underworld to attend the funeral of her brother-in- law, specifies her sister's displeasure at her visit, further specifies how the Annuna of the dead pass judgment against Inanna and how, after that, she is killed by Ereshkigal through the "word of wrath" and the "cry of guilt' and a blow, after which Inanna is hung on a hook, "a rotting piece of meat." The story continues to detail how Inanna is saved by her father-god Enki and how, finally, two people, Dumuzi and Geshtinanna, who had nothing to do with Inanna's decision to visit the underworld, end up paying the price for it.

Backstory of the Work

If a reader is acquainted with the story of Gilgamesh then The Descent of Inanna is more easily understood within the context & culture of ancient Mesopotamia.

A clearer understanding of The Descent of Inanna is available to any reader acquainted with the Sumerian work The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2150-1400 BCE), which, whether extant in written form at the time of the composition of The Descent of Inanna, was certainly known by oral transmission.

In the Epic, after the great heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu have killed the demon Humbaba in the Cedar Forest, their fame is great and Gilgamesh, after washing and dressing himself in royal robes, attracts the attention of Inanna (who, in the Epic, is known by her Akkadian/Babylonian name, Ishtar). Inanna tries to seduce Gilgamesh to become her lover, promising him all good things but Gilgamesh spurns her, citing the many lovers she has had in the past whom she discarded when they no longer interested her and who all met with bad ends. He says to her:

Your lovers have found you like a brazier which smoulders in the cold, a backdoor which keeps out neither squall of wind nor storm, a castle which crushes the garrison, pitch that blackens the bearer, a water skin that chafes the carrier. (Sandars 85-87)

Then, after detailing the misery her lovers have endured at her hands, Gilgamesh concludes saying, "And if you and I should be lovers, should not I be served in the same fashion as all these others whom you loved once?"(Sandars, 85-87). Inanna, upon hearing this, falls into a "bitter rage" and appeals to her father-god Anu (as she has Ninshubur do to Enki in the Descent) in tears over the insults Gilgamesh has heaped upon her. Anu's answer is that she has only gotten what she deserved through her "abominable behavior" (Sandars, 87).

Inanna, in no way pacified by this response, demands that Anu give her Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, that she might avenge herself on Gilgamesh and threatens that, if she does not get her way, she will break the doors of the underworld open, "there will be confusion of people, those above with those from the lower depths. I shall bring up the dead to eat food like the living; and the hosts of the dead will outnumber the living" (Sandars, 87). Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, is the husband of Inanna's sister Ereshkigal.

When Anu consents and gives her the Bull of Heaven she brings Gugalanna down to the city of Uruk to destroy Gilgamesh. The bull snorts and the earth opens and "a hundred young men fell down to death. With his second snort cracks opened and two hundred fell down to death" (Sandars, 88).

Gilgamesh and Enkidu then join in battle with the Bull of Heaven and kill him. Inanna, enraged further, appears on the walls of Uruk and curses the heroes, prompting Enkidu to tear off the bull's right thigh and hurl it at her. This presumption, on the part of a mortal, cannot be endured by the gods and they decree that Enkidu must die lest more mortals come to think more highly of themselves than they should. Enkidu is stricken with illness and suffers for days before finally dying (Sandars, 88-95).

A Clearer Interpretation

If a reader is acquainted with the story of Gilgamesh then The Descent of Inanna is more easily understood within the context and culture of ancient Mesopotamia. Inanna, showing no more regard for her sister's feelings than she did for the three hundred innocent young men she killed with the Bull of Heaven, decides she will attend the funeral of the brother-in-law whose death she is responsible for.

Once a reader understands that Inanna caused the death of Ereshkigal's husband Gugalanna, the Queen of the Dead's response upon hearing of her arrival is completely understandable, as is Inanna's subsequent judgment by the Annuna and death at Ereshkigal's hands. The "word of wrath" and the "cry of guilt" make perfect sense in this context as Ereshkigal is confronting the one responsible for her present grief; a grief made even greater by her pregnancy and the imminent birth of a child who will have no father.

As in The Epic of Gilgamesh, however, Inanna is able to manipulate the father-god figure into getting her what she wants; in that case the Bull of Heaven and, in this, a return to life. Inanna is ressurected and, in the same way that Enkidu and the three hundred young men paid the price for Inanna's indignation, Dumuzi and Geshtinnana pay for her insensitivity and rashness in deciding to attend Gugalanna's funeral.

The moral which an ancient hearer of The Descent of Inanna might take away from it, far from a `symbolic journey of the self to wholeness' is the lesson that there are consequences for one's actions and, further, might also be consoled in that if bad things happened to gods and heroes due to the unpredictability of life, why should a mortal bemoan unhappy fate?

Conclusion

In ancient Mesopotamia, humans regarded themselves as co-workers with the gods and the gods lived among them; Inanna lived in the city of Uruk, Enki at Eridu, and so on. The gods were not far away beings but were intimately tied to the daily lives of the people of the land and what affected a god would, invariably, affect those people directly.

Though one of the gods could have only the best intentions, another god could thwart whatever good was hoped for. Ereshkigal is praised at the end of the poem because she sought justice in killing Inanna. The fact that this justice was denied, even to a goddess of such power as the Queen of the Dead, would have ameliorated the sting of the daily injustices and disappointments suffered by the people hearing the tale.

The Descent of Inanna, then, about one of the gods behaving badly and other gods and mortals having to suffer for that behavior, would have given to an ancient listener the same basic understanding anyone today would take from an account of a tragic accident caused by someone's negligence or poor judgment: that, sometimes, life is just not fair.

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Inanna's Descent: A Sumerian Tale of Injustice

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The Sumerian poem, The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the journey of Inanna, the great goddess and Queen of Heaven, from her realm in the sky, to earth, and down into the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead.

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"Corn Woman." Order of the White Moon, www.orderwhitemoon.org/goddess/cornwoman/cornwoman.htm. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.

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This week, we learned about the corn mother, who represents both the sacrificial dying god archetype and the great mother archetype. In this myth, we see the earth and humanity on the brink of starvation, so the corn mother sacrifices herself, having her two sons drag her body across the land to make it grow new vegetation and bury her bones, which produce tobacco.

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"In Greek mythology, Dionysus, the son of Zeus, was a horned child who was torn to pieces by Titans who lured him with toys, then boiled and ate him.[28][29] Zeus then destroyed the Titans by thunderbolt as a result of their action against Dionysus and from the ashes humans were formed.[29] However, Dionysus' grandmother Rhea managed to put some of his pieces back together (principally from his heart that was spared) and brought him back to life"

This shows how the sacrifice of Dionysus lead to the destruction of the horrible Titans and birth f humanity.

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Dying-and-rising god

Description

A dying-and-rising god is born, suffers a death-like experience, and is subsequently reborn.

Proponents

James Frazer, Carl Jung, Tryggve Mettinger

Subject

Mythology
Religion

A dying-and-rising god, life-death-rebirth deity, or resurrection deity is a religious motif in which a god or goddess dies and is resurrected. Examples of gods who die and later return to life are most often cited from the religions of the ancient Near East. The traditions influenced by them include the Greco-Roman mythology. The concept of a dying-and-rising god was first proposed in comparative mythology by James Frazer's seminal The Golden Bough (1890). Frazer associated the motif with fertility rites surrounding the yearly cycle of vegetation. Frazer cited the examples of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, Zagreus, Dionysus, and Jesus.

Frazer's interpretation of the category has been critically discussed in 20th-century scholarship, to the conclusion that many examples from the world's mythologies included under "dying and rising" should only be considered "dying" but not "rising", and that the genuine dying-and-rising god is a characteristic feature of ancient Near Eastern mythologies and the derived mystery cults of late antiquity. " Death or departure of the gods" is motif A192 in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1932), and "resurrection of gods" is motif A193.

The motif of a dying deity appears within the mythology of diverse cultures - perhaps because attributes of deities were derived from everyday experiences, and the ensuing conflicts often included death. These examples include Baldr in Norse mythology and the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl in Aztec mythology to the Japanese Izanami.

Odin whispers to a dead Baldr as he is to be sent out to sea.

The methods of death vary. In Germanic mythology, for example, Baldr (whose account was likely first written down in the 12th century), is inadvertently killed by his blind brother Höðr who is tricked into shooting a mistletoe-tipped arrow at him. Baldr's body is then set aflame on a ship as it sails out to sea. Baldr does not come back to life because not all living creatures shed tears for him, and his death then leads to the "doom of the gods".

By contrast, most variations of Quetzalcoatl's story (first written down in the 16th century) have Quetzalcoatl tricked by Tezcatlipoca to over-drink and then burn himself to death out of remorse for his own shameful deeds. Quetzalcoatl does not resurrect and come back to life as himself, but some versions of his story have a flock of birds flying away from his ashes. In some variants, Quetzalcoatl sails away on the ocean never to return.

Hawaiian deities can die and depart the world in a number of ways. Some gods who were killed on Lanai by Lanikuala departed for the skies. In contrast, Kaili leaves the world by canoe and is never seen again. The Japanese god Izanami dies giving birth to the child Kagu-tsuchi (incarnation of fire) or Ho-Musubi (causer of fire) and Izanagi goes to Yomi, the land of gloom, to retrieve her, but she has already changed to a deteriorated state and Izanagi will not bring her back, and she pursues Izanagi, but he manages to escape.

Some traditions tie the cycle of life and death brought about by the seasons to deities which themselves undergo a cycle of death and rebirth. In effect, these gods take the form of a vegetation deity. Examples include Ishtar and Persephone, who die every year. The annual death of Ishtar when she goes underground represents the lack of growth, and her return represents the rebirth of the farming cycle. Most scholars hold that although the gods suggested in this motif die, they do not generally return in terms of rising as the same deity, although scholars such as Mettinger contend that in some cases they do.

The term "dying god" is associated with the works of James Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, and their fellow Cambridge Ritualists. At the end of the 19th century, in their 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.

The Osiris-bed is where he renews the harvest cycle in Egypt.

Early in the 20th century, Gerald Massey argued that there are similarities between the Egyptian dying-and-rising god myths and Jesus, but Massey's factual errors often render his works mistaken. For example, Massey stated that the biblical references to Herod the Great were based on the myth of "Herrut" the evil hydra serpent. However, the existence of Herod the Great is well established independently of Christian sources.

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.[page needed ] He also proposed that the myths of the pagan gods who symbolically died and resurrected foreshadowed Christ's literal/physical death and resurrection.[page needed ] The overall view of Jung regarding religious themes and stories is that they are expressions of events occurring in the unconscious of the individuals - regardless of their historicity. From the symbolic perspective, Jung sees dying and rising gods as an archetypal process resonating with the collective unconscious through which the rising god becomes the greater personality in the Jungian self. In Jung's view, a biblical story such as the resurrection of Jesus (which he saw as a case of dying and rising) may be true or not, but that has no relevance to the psychological analysis of the process, and its impact.

Bronze figurine of Osiris

The analysis of Osiris permeates the later religious psychology of Carl Jung more than any other element. In 1950 Jung wrote that those who partake in the Osiris myth festival and follow the ritual of his death and the scattering of his body to restart the vegetation cycle as a rebirth "experience the permanence and continuity of life which outlasts all changes of form". Jung wrote that Osiris provided the key example of the rebirth process in that initially only the Pharaohs "had an Osiris" but later other Egyptians nobles acquired it and eventually it led in the concept of soul for all individuals in Christianity. Jung believed that Christianity itself derived its significance from the archetypal relationship between Osiris and Horus versus God the Father and Jesus, his son. However, Jung also postulated that the rebirth applied to Osiris (the father), and not Horus, the son.

The general applicability of the death and resurrection of Osiris to the dying-and-rising-god analogy has been criticized, on the grounds that it derived from the harvesting rituals that related the rising and receding waters of the Nile river and the farming cycle. The cutting down of barley and wheat was related to the death of Osiris, and the sprouting of shoots was thought to be based on the power of Osiris to resurrect the farmland. In general rebirth analogies based on the vegetation cycle are viewed as the weakest elements in the death-rebirth analogies.

In Greek mythology, Dionysus, the son of Zeus, was a horned child who was torn to pieces by Titans who lured him with toys, then boiled and ate him. Zeus then destroyed the Titans by thunderbolt as a result of their action against Dionysus and from the ashes humans were formed. However, Dionysus' grandmother Rhea managed to put some of his pieces back together (principally from his heart that was spared) and brought him back to life. In other Orphic tales, Zagreus is depicted as the son of Hades and Persephone, and is the god of rebirth. Scholars such as Barry Powell have suggested Dionysus as an example of resurrection.

The oldest known example of the "dying god rising myth" is the Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld. The Sumerian goddess Inanna travels to the Underworld to see her sister Ereshkigal. While there, she is "struck down" and turns into a corpse. For three days and three nights, Inanna is dead, until she is resurrected with the help of her father, Enki, who sends the two galla to bring her back. The galla serve Inanna food and water and bring her back to life.

Aphrodite and Adonis, c. 410 BC, are at the Louvre.

The category "dying-and-rising-god" was debated throughout the 20th century, and most modern scholars questioned its ubiquity in the world's mythologies. By the end of the 20th century the scholarly consensus was that most of the gods Frazer listed as "dying-and-rising" only died and did not rise. Kurt Rudolph in 1986 argued that the oft-made connection between the mystery religions and the idea of dying and rising divinities is defective. Gerald O'Collins states that surface-level application of analogous symbolism is a case of parallelomania which exaggerates the importance of trifling resemblances, long abandoned by mainstream scholars. Against this view, Mettinger (2001) affirms that many of the gods of the mystery religions do indeed die, descend to the underworld, are lamented and retrieved by a woman and restored to life. However, Mettinger also disincludes Christianity from this influence.

Though the concept of a "dying-and-rising god" has a longer history, it was significantly advocated by Frazer's Golden Bough (1906-1914). At first received very favourably, the idea was attacked by Roland de Vaux in 1933, and was the subject of controversial debate over the following decades. One of the leading scholars in the deconstruction of Frazer's "dying-and-rising god" category was Jonathan Z. Smith, whose 1969 dissertation discusses Frazer's Golden Bough, and who in Mircea Eliade's 1987 Encyclopedia of religion wrote the "Dying and rising gods" entry, where he dismisses the category as "largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts", suggesting a more detailed categorisation into "dying gods" and "disappearing gods", arguing that before Christianity, the two categories were distinct and gods who "died" did not return, and those who returned never truly "died".

Smith gave a more detailed account of his views specifically on the question of parallels to Christianity in Drudgery Divine (1990). Smith's 1987 article was widely received, and during the 1990s, scholarly consensus seemed to shift towards his rejection of the concept as oversimplified, although it continued to be invoked by scholars writing about ancient Near Eastern mythology.

Beginning with an overview of the Athenian ritual of growing and withering herb gardens at the Adonis festival, in his book The Gardens of Adonis Marcel 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. These associations included seduction, trickery, gourmandizing, and the anxieties of childbirth. 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.

A main criticism charges the group of analogies with reductionism, in that it subsumes a range of disparate myths under a single category and ignores important distinctions. 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. Dag Øistein Endsjø, a scholar of religion, points out how a number of those often defined as dying-and-rising-deities, such as a number of figures in ancient Greek religion, actually died as ordinary mortals, only to become gods of various stature after they were resurrected from the dead. Not dying as gods, they thus defy the definition of "dying-and-rising-gods".

Tryggve Mettinger supports the category of dying and rising gods, and stated in 2001 that there was a scholarly consensus that the category is inappropriate. As of 2009, the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion summarizes the current scholarly consensus as ambiguous, with some scholars rejecting Frazer's "broad universalist category" preferring to emphasize the differences between the various traditions, but others continue to view the category as applicable.

In the 2010s, Paola Corrente conducted an extensive survey of the status of the dying and rising god category. Though she agrees that much of Frazer's specific evidence was faulty, she argues that the category as a whole is valid, though she suggests modifications to the specific criteria. Corrente specifically focuses her attention on several Near Eastern and Mesopotamian gods as examples which she argues have been largely ignored, both by Frazer (who would not have had access to most relevant texts) and his more recent critics. These examples include the goddess Inanna in Sumerian texts and Ba'al in Ugaritic texts, whose myths, Corrente argues, offer concrete examples of death and resurrection. Corrente also utilizes the example of Dionysus, whose connection to the category is more complicated, but has still been largely ignored or mischaracterized by other scholars including Frazer himself in her view.

In the webcomic Homestuck, players of the universe-creating game Sburb can attain conditional immortality and extraordinary power by ascending to "god tier", a process that requires dying on a special sacrificial bed. God tier players can be killed normally, but will return anew so long as the game does not judge their deaths "heroic" or "just".

In the video game Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, Razgriz is a powerful fairy tale demon who first uses its power to "[rain] death upon the land", before dying and returning as a great hero. Ace Combat 5 uses the tale of Razgriz as an allegory for the protagonists.

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Burkert, Walter

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Endsjø, Dag Øistein 2009. Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-61729-2

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Nash, Ronald H. 2003. The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought?. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R. ISBN 0-87552-559-8

Smith, Jonathan Z. (1987). "Dying and Rising Gods." In The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3.. Ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.

Stookey, Lorena Laura. 2004. Thematic Guide to World Mythology. Westport: Greenwood.

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Dying-and-rising god Description A dying-and-rising god is born, suffers a death-like experience, and is subsequently reborn. Proponents James Frazer, Carl Jung, Tryggve Mettinger Subject Mythology Religion A dying-and-rising god, life-death-rebirth deity, or resurrection deity is a religious motif in which a god or goddess dies and is resurrected.

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"Izanagi and Izanami Myth." Old World Gods, www.oldworldgods.com/japanese/izanagi-and-izanami-myth/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.

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In the story of Izanami and Izanagi, we see a husband and wife (brother and sister) who marry and create the island nation of Japan. Izanami goes on to birth many other deities however on the birth of her final child Kurgotsuchi Izanami dies and ends up in Yomi the land of the dead. Izanagi is barieved at the death of his wife and travels to Yomi to retrieve her however just like Persephone in Greek mythology Izanami had already eaten of the fruit of the underworld preventing her from being able to return.

Izanagi convinces his wife to travel back to the land of the living with him however she asks that he not look at her until they escape. Of course, he looks back and sees her rotting corpse prompting Izanagi to run and fear and board up the entrance to Yomi, leading to Izanami cursing all of creation.

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Bolton, Rachel. "Holy Horror: More Isn’t Always Better in The Passion of the Christ (2004)." Scriptophobic, 16 July 2020, www.scriptophobic.ca/2020/07/16/holy-horror-more-isnt-always-better-in-the-passion-of-the-christ-2004/.

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When it comes to dying god myths I believe the first one that comes to most people's minds would be Jesus, especially when you talk about the sacrificial trait that most dying gods share. The entire story of the crucifixion of Jesus is based on him sacrificing himself for all of humanity. At the beginning of the New Testament in the bible, we can read the first-hand account of the apostles traveling with Christ during his ministry until his death and subsequent resurrection. Here we see a depiction of this in pop culture in "The Passion Of The Christ". In this movie, we join Jesus through his last few days from his capture to his death and resurrection.

It truly is painful to see the struggles this God went through to sacrifice himself for all mankind's benefit.

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The story of Attis sees a young god of vegetation castrating himself leading to his subsequent death. After his death, Agtitis goes to Zeus begging that the young Attis's body never decay. The castration and rebirth of Attis were known to signal the changing of the seasons the death and rebirth of the vegetation as seasons changed

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Persephone is the child of Demeter abducted by Hades in most representations of the myth. Demeter is an almost perfect representation of the Great mother archetype. She controls the harvest, all vegetation, wheat, and herbs grow and die at Demeter's will. So when her daughter is abducted by Hades Demeter struck with grief begins to travel the world searching for her neglecting her duties and leading to the starvation of many.

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We spoke about Baldur when discussing the death and rebirth trait of the Dying god now here we are seeing a representation of Baldur as the child of the great mother Freya of Norse mythology.

In this short clip, we see Baldur coming face to face with his mother Freya though in this game he hates his mother for the "curse" she placed on him. Not a blessing of immunity from most pains but instead a curse to not feel anything at all.

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Jesus is not only a representation of sacrifice as we saw when discussing The Pasion Of The Christ movie from pop culture he is also a child of "the great mother" archetype.

The virgin Mary is seen as a saintly woman chosen by God himself to carry his child, she is not powerful like Demeter still, she carries the savior/prophet of the Abrahamic faiths not only in her womb but to his tomb. Truly a great mother.

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We discussed Osiris as a god of death and rebirth but did you know he had some time in the lime light? Yes, that's right the God of death and rebirth had a spot on American Gods the show on Prime Video.

What we're here to discuss is his relation to Nut his mother, the supreme goddess of the sky in Egyptian mythology. I suppose greatness is truly in the blood as Nut is considered a Great Mother Goddess of Egyptian Mythology.

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"There are several, sometimes contradictory, accounts of Babalú-Ayé's genealogical relationships to other orisha. Babalú-Ayé is often considered the son of Yemoja and the brother of Shango.[15] However, some religious lineages maintain that he is the son of Nana Buluku, while others assert that he is her husband.[16][17][18]

Some lineages of Candomblé relate myths that justify Babalú-Ayé being the child of both Yemoja and Nana Burukú. In these myths, Nana Burukú is Babalú-Ayé's true mother who abandons him to die of exposure on the beach where he is badly scarred by crabs. Yemoja discovers him there, takes him under her protection, nurses him back to health, and educates him on many secrets.[19]"

Here we see Babalu-Aye as being the child of the great mother left for dead and then nursed back to health.