Dying-and-rising god

Dying-and-rising god
The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton (1891)
DescriptionA dying-and-rising god is born, suffers a death-like experience, and is subsequently reborn.
ProponentsJames Frazer, Carl Jung, Tryggve Mettinger
SubjectMythology
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.[1][2][3][4] 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.[5]

Frazer's interpretation of the category has been critically discussed in 20th-century scholarship,[6] 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.[7] "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.[8]

  1. ^ Leeming, "Dying god" (2004)
  2. ^ Burkert 1979, 99
  3. ^ Stookey 2004, 99
  4. ^ Miles 2009, 193
  5. ^ Frazer, quoted in Mettinger 2001:18, cited after Garry and El-Shamy, p. 19
  6. ^ summary in Mettinger (2001:15–39)
  7. ^ Garry and El-Shamy (2004:19f.), citing Mettinger (2001:217f.): "The world of ancient Near Eastern religions actually knew a number of deities that may be properly described as dying and rising [... although o]ne should not hypostasize these gods into a specific type ' the dying and rising god'."
  8. ^ Thompson's categories A192. Death or departure of the gods and A193. Resurrection of gods. S. Thompson, Motif-index of folk-literature : a classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, medieval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends, Revised and enlarged. edition. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1955-1958, p. 106.