Who is tammuz the god

Additional sources are here , as well as this post. Weeping for Tammuz was a 40 day mourning period for a pagan sun deity that which God castigates Israel for whoring after in Ezekiel Today this period of mourning is called Lent.

The reasons for celebrating our major feasts when we do are many and varied. In general, however, it is true that many of them have at least an indirect connection with the pre-Christian [pagan] feasts celebrated about the same time of year — feasts centering around the harvest, the rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice now Dec. Dietzen, M. He appears to have been a god of the spring, and the myth regarding him told of his early death and of the descent of Istar his bride into the underworld in search of him.

This superstition had been introduced into Jerusalem. A Commentary on the Holy Bible , pp. Here is a an additional source , covering most of the same information, but more recently printed, although not as plainly laid out. Tammuz was a pagan god or idol that the women were weeping for on the north side of the temple.

According to T. Jacobson page in Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays, the myth was that Tammuz died and went to the underworld. The visions of the temple that God gave to Ezekiel in chapter eight actually show what was taking place in Jerusalem at the temple. The leaders of Jerusalem were worshiping images that represented pagan gods Between the altar and the porch of the temple there were twenty-five men worshiping the sun There was an idol in the temple court that angered God The people had forsaken God, forgot God, and God would destroy the temple.

Only a small remnant would escape and Ezekiel cried out for mercy Ezekiel saw first hand the secret sins of Jerusalem's leaders in the visions. Intercession would not stop the destruction of Jerusalem This judgement would come upon those who worshiped idols, sexually abused others,cheated people financially, slandered people, oppressed the orphan and widow Gary Smith, An Introduction to the Hebrew Prophets.

Tammuz was an actual person. He was the son of Nimrod. And this is how it goes: Nimrod was descended directly from Noah- Noah had a son named Ham. Ham had a son named Cush. Cush married a woman named Semiramis and they had a son named Nimrod. When Cush died, Nimrod married his mother Semiramis. When Nimrod died Semiramis was pregnant. When she had the baby, she named him Tammuz.

In fact, it is only when the image is obscured that it looks like a cross. So why was Tammuz carrying a branch? Well, I have talked about Semiramis before, she was a real Queen who lived just before the time of King David — now that woman was a piece of work! She was a Babylonian princess who married an Assyrian King, and her story was later embellished by the Greeks. We primarily know about her because an ancient author named Sanchuniathon first millenium BCE wrote about her — and actually Sanchuniaton is a man from whom we get a lot of our information from about ancient Near Eastern religion because he was a prolific Phoenician sage.

Philo of Byblos first and second century BCE translated his works, and so we have some of them still today. But she is not the mother of Tammuz because we have accounts of the mother and sister of Tammuz through the legends we possess about him. Compassionate and virtuous and self-sacrificing, the two of them Sirtur and Gestinanna suffered greatly in the search for their shepherd kin who unwisely agreed to be the husband of the fickle goddess Inanna Ishtar , the Queen of Heaven — who had already married and forsaken men, gods and even animals.

Love poetry centered on the relationship between Inanna and Tammuz is quite pornographic Pritchard, pgs Different stories about Dumuzi Tammuz describe either his death or non-death. In Inanna and Bilulu, Tammuz the shepherd husband who seems to become some sort of demi-god in the epics went out with his sheep and was killed by an evil woman Bilulu and her son Girgire during a livestock raid — his head beaten in with a mace.

Tammuz is sent unceremonially down to the underworld by his angry wife after being hunted down by demons , not even dead but just consigned to live down there for six months out of every year.

Very simple — the ancients noticed that there was a wet season where everything grew and flourished and a dry season where everything died off. There must be a reason. Although people in the ancient world valued mathematics and engineering, they were not scientific yes, math, engineering, and science are totally different.

I am a chemist, and my husband is an engineer — we had to take some of the same classes, but both basic engineering and the sciences can exist without each other — but neither can exist without physics or math.

In their minds, there was a god responsible for absolutely every function, and agriculture was a huge function. So why was the god not doing his job for six months? Why was everything dying? View all related items in Oxford Reference ». All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.

Oxford Reference. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. He was also believed to be responsible for making the ground fertile. Additionally, he was a shepherd god who was believed to provide milk to ewes to nourish their lambs. As a result, he was very important to shepherds. The marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid. Public Domain.

Another important part of the myth regarding Tammuz is his death at the hands of his lover, the goddess of love, Inanna. According to the myth, Inanna went down to the underworld. While in the underworld, she was struck dead for sitting on the throne of the queen of the underworld. Because she was the goddess of love and sex, all sexual activity on earth ceased and a way had to be found to revive her.

She was able to get out of underworld eventually. When she returned to her home city, however, she found that her lover, Tammuz, had not properly mourned her and was sitting on her throne. In rage, she struck him dead. Fragment of a stone plaque from the temple of Inanna at Nippur showing a Sumerian goddess, possibly Inanna c. Eventually, Inanna brought her husband back from the dead temporarily for part of the year, though he was not able to be completely restored to the realm of the living.

In the ancient Near East, this myth was commemorated at the summer solstice when women would weep for several days for the death of Tammuz. This myth may allegorize the seasons. During the hot, dry seasons with little agricultural productivity of the ground, Tammuz was dead which began at the summer solstice. The rainy season in fall and winter was the time when Tammuz would return from the underworld and life could once again flourish on the earth.

There are parallels between this myth and the story of the resurrection of Jesus. Like Tammuz, Jesus also died and rose from the dead. Jesus was also divine. Beyond these similarities, however, the story of Tammuz and Jesus are rather different. One main difference is the reason for their deaths. Jesus died for the sins of humanity while Tammuz was killed out of rage by his lover.

It is true that Tammuz was killed as part of a sacrifice, but it was not something that he did willingly. Jesus, on the other hand, willingly went to the cross to be crucified if the gospel text is taken at face value. Another difference is that Tammuz appears to only save people from physical starvation and death.