This imprint, made from a cylinder seal found in Mesopotamia during the Akkad Period (circa 2334-2154 BCE) shows Inanna (Ishtar) standing with one foot upon her emblematic roaring lion.The juxtaposition of the weapons with her wings indicates both human and divine aspects to her character. The eight pointed star is also emblematic of her association with Venus, "the Morning and Evening Star." Her headress, which features mulitple curved horns, is consistent with the Sumerian practice of denoting divinity. The singled-horned mitre of the female to her left denotes her lower rank, as she raises one hand in a conventional sign of worship (Wolkstein 193). Cylinder seal dimensions: h. 4cm, d. 2cm; black stone material. (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter Story
Posted: April 10, 2009 11:28 AM to The Huffington Post
In this post, Valerie Tarico, author of The Dark Side, interviews Dr. Tony Nugent, scholar of world religions and mythology. Dr. Nugent is a symbologist, an expert in ancient symbols. He taught at Seattle University for fifteen years in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and is a Presbyterian minister.
Easter is coming. Some people are saying that the crucifixion and resurrection narratives simply retell the cycle of seasons, the death and return of the Sun. Others say that these stories are literal histories. But you say the reality is more complicated than either of these. You argue that the Easter stories – the death and resurrection of Jesus have very specific mythic origins.
I view the story of Christ in the Gospels of the New Testament as a powerful and spiritually wise sacred story. While the story is told as if it happened, it is a theologically and mythically constructed history. The conclusion of the story, the account of Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection and ascension to heaven, has many layers. But at its core I would say it is an historicized version of a very ancient myth from Mesopotamia, the Cradle of Civilization, the land we today call Iraq.
What does that mean?
Some stories speak to people in a deep spiritual way. These sacred stories are what are called “myths” in the field of religious studies. Despite our common usage, a myth traditionally is not just a false tale. Rather, it is a story that, at least at one point in time, had a very powerful spiritual resonance. The story of death and resurrection is one such story. In the Sumerian tradition, in which much of the Bible is rooted, the story is called, “From the Great Above to the Great Below” or “The Descent of Inanna.” There is also a Babylonian version of the myth, which is called “The Descent of Ishtar,” and she is known elsewhere as Astarte.
Let’s hear the story!
The Sumerian goddess Inanna is the personification of the planet Venus the “Queen of Heaven” and a major deity in the Sumerian pantheon. A long, long time ago, before humans are even created, Inanna, takes a journey to the Underworld, a realm under the control of her sister Ereshkigal. Before heading out Inanna gives instructions to her assistant about rescuing her if she runs into trouble, which she does. In the underworld, she enters through seven gates, and her worldly attire is removed. “Naked and bowed low” she is judged, killed, and then hung on display.
I can’t help but notice that the number seven is a sacred, just like it will be later in the Bible.
Yes, the numbers three, seven, twelve are sacred throughout ancient Mesopotamian writings including the Hebrew Bible (seven days of creation, twelve tribes of Israel) and subsequently Christianity (three days in the tomb, twelve apostles, twelve days of Christmas). They have their roots in universal human perceptions of the movements of the heavens (e.g. twelve signs of the zodiac).
To return to the story, the result of Inanna’s death is that the earth becomes sterile. Plants start drying up, and animals cease having sexual relations. Unless something is done all life on earth will end. After Inanna has been missing for three days her assistant goes to other gods for help. Finally one of them Enki, creates two creatures who carry the plant of life and water of life down to the Underworld, sprinkling them on Inanna and resurrecting her. She then prepares to return to the upper realm.
So Inanna is the prototype for Jesus in the Easter story?
Not quite. She is part of the prototype. After Inanna gets out of the underworld we are introduced to her husband Dumuzi. When mythic stories get passed from one culture to the next, sometimes one character can split into two or two characters come together. In this case, the Jesus of the resurrection story blends parts of Inanna and Dimuzi.
Ok, let’s hear about Dumuzi.
The Underworld has a number of names, including “the Great Earth” and “the Great City”, and it is also called the “Land of No Return.” If, by extraordinary chance, someone is resurrected or escapes from there, a substitute must be provided. So when Inanna returns to the upper realm she searches for a substitute. She doesn’t want to send anyone who has been missing her and mourning her down there, but she finds her husband Dumuzi on his throne and totally unconcerned about her being gone. She decides that he will be her substitute.
He protests vigorously and is helped to escape by his brother-in-law Utu, the Sun-god. But then a compromise is agreed upon, whereby Dumuzi will spend six months of every year in the Underworld, and for the other six months his devoted sister will substitute for him. Life and fertility thus return to the earth. And that’s how the story ends.
Six months up and six down. Now I am reminded of Persephone.
Yes, and many other dying and rising gods that represent the cycle of the seasons and the stars. In Christianity one way the story changes is that it is detached from this agricultural cycle. The dying happens just once.
But this story of Inanna/Ishtar is the oldest, the prototype?
It is one of the earliest epic myths recorded. We know this story because it has been found inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets dug up from the sands of Iraq by archaeologists, and because linguists have deciphered the Sumerian language and provided translations in English. This was a popular myth, and so we have multiple copies of it, or of portions of it. The earliest tablets inscribed with this story date to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, and it is thought to have been originally formulated about 2100 BC, i.e., 4200 years ago.
Lay it out for us. How do you see this being a prototype for the story of Christ’s death and resurrection?
Let’s start with the first part of the myth. Inanna and Jesus both travel to a big city, where they are arrested by soldiers, put on trial, convicted, sentenced to death, stripped of their clothes, tortured, hung up on a stake, and die. And then, after 3 days, they are resurrected from the dead. Now there are, to be sure, a number of significant differences between the stories. For one thing, one story is about a goddess and the other is about a divine man. But this is a specific pattern, a mythic template. When you are dealing with the question of whether these things actually happened, you have to deal with the fact that there is a mythic template here. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there wasn’t a real person, Jesus, who was crucified, but rather that, if there was, the story about it is structured and embellished in accordance with a pattern that was very ancient and widespread.
So what about the 2nd part of the myth?
The 2nd part of the Inanna myth really focuses on her husband Dumuzi. Dumuzi is the prototype of the non-aggressive, non-heroic male; he cries easily; he is the opposite of the warrior-god in the ancient pantheon. The summer month which corresponds to our month of July is named after him in both the Babylonian and Hebrew calendars, and during this month each year his followers, mostly women, mourn his death. From this myth we are talking about, and from a few other references, we also know that he is resurrected. But unlike Jesus, who dies and is resurrected once, he is imagined to die and be resurrected over and over, each year. There are other major differences. However, there really are a lot of similarities between the personalities and the stories of Jesus and Dumuzi. They both are tortured and die violent deaths after being betrayed by a close friend, who accepts a bribe from his enemies. They both have a father who is a god and a mother who is human. Dumuzi’s father, the god Enki, also has many similarities to Yahweh, the father of Jesus.
Other than this gospel story, are there any other signs of Inanna’s influence on Christianity or on Easter?
There are a few points I would mention. Inanna becomes known outside of Mesopotamia by her Babylonian name, “Ishtar”. She is a personification of Venus as an evening star, and there is also a male aspect of the deity who is usually the morning star. At the end of the Book of Revelation when Christ speaks to John he says, “I am the bright morning star.” In ancient Canaan Ishtar is known as Astarte, and her counterparts in the Greek and Roman pantheons are known as Aphrodite and Venus. In the 4th Century, when Christians got around to identifying the exact site in Jerusalem where the empty tomb of Jesus had been located, they selected the spot where a temple of Aphrodite (Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna) stood. So they tore it down and built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest church in the Christian world.
Also, our holiday of Easter was traditionally called ‘Pascha’, and still is in many languages, named after the Jewish festival of ‘Pesach’ or Passover. In the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon world we have, however, come to name the holiday ‘Easter’. This name is almost surely a reflex of the goddess Ishtar. In the pagan spiritual traditions of Germany and England in the medieval period Ishtar, who came to be called the goddess Easter, and who as a deity of resurrection and rebirth became strongly associated with the season of springtime and ultimately gave her name to Christianity’s main holy day.
End of extract
This detail of the uppermost register of the Uruk vase depicts the curved staffs with scarves to the right, which is meant to symbolize the presence of the goddess Inanna during the presentation of the gifts to the spiritual and temporal leaders. This scene is said to depict the New Years festivities, led by a priest-king during the springtime banquet. This cult procession occured in tandem with a mysterious ritual between the king and the chief priestess that was meant to symbolize the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi (Ascalone 182).
Inanna can be considered the most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia, for as early as the Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE), she was associated with the city of Uruk. The story of Inanna’s descent to the underworld is known from a poem on a relatively intact set of tablets.
| Heliocentric view of the seasons
The Earth’s seasons are caused by the rotation axis of the Earth not being perpendicular to its orbital plane. The Earth’s axis is tilted at an angle of approximately 23.44° from the orbital plane; this tilt is called the axial tilt. As a consequence, for half of the year (i.e. from around March 20 to around September 22), the northern hemisphere tips toward the Sun, with the maximum around June 21, while for the other half of the year, the southern hemisphere has this honor, with the maximum around December 21. The two instants when the Sun is directly overhead at the Equator are the equinoxes. Also at that moment, both the North and South Poles of the Earth are just on the terminator and day and night are divided equally between the hemispheres.  Bas-relief in Persepolis - a symbol of Zoroastrian Nowruz - on the day of a spring equinox, the power of the eternally-fighting bull (personifying the Earth), and a lion (personifying the Sun), are equal. Nowruz - New Light - marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in the Iranian calendar. The Jewish festival of Purim is probably adopted from the Persian New Year. Vernal Equinox The date (near March 21 in the northern hemisphere) when night and day are nearly the same length and Sun crosses the celestial equator (i.e., declination 0) moving northward. In the southern hemisphere, the vernal equinox corresponds to the center of the Sun crossing the celestial equator moving southward and occurs on the date of the northern autumnal equinox. The vernal equinox marks the first day of the season of spring. Christmas – also Dies Natalis Solis Invicti meaning “the birthday of the unconquered sun” and placed on the date of the solstice, as this was on this day that the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be “unconquered” – is nine months later… |
Chrest and the anti-Jewish Easter
Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referencing Easter is a mid-2nd century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis.
Left: Homily Peri Pascha (On the Passover) in the Bodmer Papyri attributed to Melitó of Sardis (P. Chester Beatty XII, leaf 3, verso)
Few details of his life are known. A letter of Polycrates of Ephesus to Pope Victor about 194 (Eusebius, Church History V.24) states that “Melito the eunuch [this is interpreted "the virgin" by Rufinus in his translation of Eusebius], whose whole walk was in the Holy Spirit”, was interred at Sardis, and had been one of the great authorities in the Church of Asia who held the Quartodeciman theory. His name is cited also in the “Labyrinth” of Hippolytus as one of the second-century writers who taught the duality of natures in Jesus. St. Jerome, speaking of the canon of Melito, quotes Tertullian’s statement that he was esteemed a prophet by many of the faithful. (‘St. Melito’: Catholic Encyclopedia)
The curious notice by Origen, that he ascribed corporality to God, and found the likeness of God in the human body, is, on account of its brevity, very difficult to explain. (‘Melito of Sardis’ at earlychurch.org.uk)
Melito in the modern age has become renowned for his anti-Jewishness and scholars have struggled with this:
Hall is not alone in this regard for, as A.T. Kraabel noted in 1971, a whole generation of scholars ignored the anti-Jewish polemic in Melito – a fact for which he could provide no ready explanation. A partial explanation is doubtless to be found in the basic hermeneutical principle that what is derived from a text depends to a great extent on the questions the interpreter brings to it. For Christian scholars whose interest is in the theology and liturgical practices of Melito and his community, and for whom the appropriation of Jewish traditions and the assertion of Jewish obduracy and perfidy are natural and necessary concomitants of Christian self-definition, Melito’s view of Judaism is likely to be neither an important nor a problematic aspect of his work. Yet, when approximately three quarters of the 105 sections of Peri Pascha (1-45, 72-99) deal implicitly or explicitly either with the status of Israel or the charge of deicide, the scholarly silence still remains some- what puzzling. A notable exception is the sensitive discussion of the charge of deicide by Blanks but, as we shall argue below, equally important for Melito’s view of Judaism is the typological exegesis of the Passover traditions at the beginning of the homily. (Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity: Separation and polemic by Peter Richardson, David M. Granskou, Stephen G. Wilson, Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1986)
This anti-Jewishness should not surprise, for Jesus Chrest is a Greek construct in a time when Greeks generally hated the Hebrew faith and were in regular conflict with Jews. This is true from the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (‘God Manifest’; born c. 215 BCE; died 164 BCE) and through the period of Roman dominion.
The first two centuries of the modern era saw three Jewish-Roman wars providing much of the impetus for the chrestic movement and anti-Jewish rhetoric with Lysimachus and Apion, Saul/Paul, Flavius Iustinus, Marcion, Hadrian and the Hadrianic gospels, then Melito of Sardis.
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of bishops convened in Nicaea by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 325, to attain consensus in the new Church and one of its main accomplishments was settling the calculation of the date of Easter: the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the northern hemisphere’s vernal equinox.
Two objections to maintaining the custom of consulting the Jewish community in order to determine Easter are implied in a letter from Constantine I, from the Council of Nicea (325 CE) to the absent bishops:
It appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews…For we have it in our power, if we abandon their custom, to prolong the due observance of this ordinance to future ages by a truer order…For their boast is absurd indeed, that it is not in our power without instruction from them to observe these things….Being altogether ignorant of the true adjustment of this question, they sometimes celebrate Passover twice in the same year. (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.18, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume 14: The Seven Ecumenical Councils, Eerdmans, 1956, p. 54.)
Nowhere in the earliest texts of Melito of Sardis does he use the term ‘Christ’. Instead and in the manner of Codex Vaticanus, he uses an abbreviation: XC. We learn what this represents from Codex Sinaiticus: Chrest/Good. As the term ‘Christ’ does not appear until the 4th century, there is no support for the claim, made almost universally by biblical scholars, for XC to mean ‘Christ’ – such a claim is blind faith.
5. For God replaced the lamb, and a man the sheep; but in the man was Chrest, who contains all things.
6. Hence, the sacrifice of the sheep, and the sending of the lamb to slaughter, and the writing of the law–each led to and issued in Chrest, for whose sake everything happened in the ancient law, and even more so in the new gospel.
On the Passover by Melito of Sardis
Notionally, the paschal full moon refers to the ecclesiastical full moon of the northern spring used in the determination of the date of Easter and the name “paschal” is derived from “Pascha”, a transliteration of the Greek word, which is itself a transliteration of the Hebrew pesach, both words meaning Passover. Passover is a (predominantly) Jewish holy day to commemorate the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.
Plate depicting Cybele, a votive sacrifice and the sun God.
Ai Khanoum, 2nd century BCE. Musée Guimet.
Easter is a pagan festival, which – through Alexander III of Macedon and his successors – became Panhellenististic, an example such faith we see with the above plate from Ai Khanoum (lit. “Lady Moon” in Uzbek and probably the the historical Alexandria on the Oxus).
The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.
In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today’s Vatican Hill. Cybele’s lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering “sunrise services” at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that? (The pagan roots of Easter, Heather McDougall, guardian.co.uk, 3 April 2010)
The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours (Greek: soter) too.
Taurobolium, or Consecration of the Priests of Cybele under Antoninus Pius. Engraving by Bernhard Rode (undated, ca. 1780).
The Taurobolium, according to historical evidence, first appears in an inscription from Puteoli, Italy in 134 CE in connection to Venus Caelestis, otherwise known as the Syrio-Phoenician Astarte (Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis, p. 102). In 160 CE we find a reference from Lugdunum, Britain that commemorates a Taurobolium in connection to the Magna Mater. However, it has been agreed by scholars that Taurobolia were performed every 20 years, so our estimated earliest possibility for Taurobolia to be performed is 124 CE (ibid. p. 134). The rite conferred upon the recipient the blessings of purification, preservation, health, and well-being and the date of an individual’s taurobolization was referred to as ‘natalicium’, or birthday. It was typical to describe the individual as being “in aeternum renatus”, or in other words being reborn, restored for eternity.
Peace and happiness this Easter.
Related posts:
- The Pantheon: Hadrian’s giant sundial
- Private: An army of divine men and the secret army of Mithras
- Archaeology of a first-century wizard
- Augustus: the Roman Messiah
- Mani and Authorship of the Canonical Gospels
- Helios
- Romans at Stonehenge: from standing stones to cosmic pillars
- Pliny correspondence with Trajan: Christians or Chrestians?
- Archaeology of a magical, distant land
- Helios and Selene in Alexandria on the Oxus
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