Dying-and-rising deity  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

(Redirected from Dying-and-rising god)
Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

In comparative mythology, the related motifs of a dying god and of a dying-and-rising god (also known as a death-rebirth-deity) have appeared in diverse cultures.

The category life-death-rebirth deity also known as a "dying-and-rising" or "Resurrection" deity is a convenient means of classifying the many divinities in world mythology or religion who are born, suffer death, an eclipse, or other death-like experience, pass a phase in the underworld among the dead, and are subsequently reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense.

Male deities among such figures might include Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, phoenix, Jesus, Baldur, and Odin.

Female deities who passed into the kingdom of death and returned include Inanna (also known as Ishtar) whose cult dates to 4000 BC and Persephone, the central figure of the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose cult may date to 1700 BC as the unnamed goddess worshiped in Crete.

Historically, this category has been most strongly associated with two different approaches to the study of religion. The first, which might be labelled the "naturalist" approach, seeks to explain such myths in terms of parallels with natural processes. The second, which might be labelled the "internal" approach, seeks to explain such myths in terms of individual spiritual transformation.

Contents

Lists

Dying deities

Rising deities

These deities, rise after death.


See also





Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Dying-and-rising deity" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools