Editing Dying-and-rising god (section)

==Scholarly criticism==
[[File:Aphrodite Adonis Louvre MNB2109.jpg|thumb|[[Aphrodite]] and [[Adonis]], {{circa|410 BC}}, are at the [[Musée du Louvre|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.<ref name=Garry/> [[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.<ref name=Collins>[[Gerald O'Collins]], "The Hidden Story of Jesus" ''New Blackfriars'' Volume 89, Issue 1024, pages 710–714, November 2008</ref> 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.<ref name="Gary19f"/>

Though the concept of a "dying-and-rising god" has a longer history, it was significantly advocated by Frazer's ''Golden Bough'' (1906&ndash;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.<ref name="Mettinger2004">Tryggve Mettinger, "The 'Dying and Rising God': A survey of Research from Frazer to the Present Day", in Batto et al. (eds.), ''David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts'' (2004), [https://books.google.com/books?id=Vlkb0cSBGlIC&pg=PA373 373&ndash;386]</ref> 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'',<ref>{{cite book|first=Jonathan |last=Zittell Smith |title=The Glory, Jest and Riddle. James George Frazer and The Golden Bough|type= Yale dissertation |year=1969|url=http://rel.as.ua.edu/pdf/rel490jzsdiss.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://rel.as.ua.edu/pdf/rel490jzsdiss.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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".<ref name=JZSmith>Smith, Jonathan Z. (1987). "Dying and Rising Gods", in ''The Encyclopedia of Religion'' Vol. IV, edited by Mircea Eliade {{ISBN|0029097002}} Macmillan, pages 521–527</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Gale|first1=Thomson|title=Dying and Rising Gods|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dying-and-rising-gods|website=Home Search Research categories|publisher=Encyclopedia.com|access-date=10 October 2016}}</ref>

Smith gave a more detailed account of his views specifically on the question of parallels to Christianity in ''Drudgery Divine'' (1990).<ref>Jonathan Z. Smith "On Comparing Stories", ''Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity'' (1990), [https://books.google.com/books?id=cTGuREaQOewC&pg=PA85 85&ndash;115].
</ref> 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.<ref>Mettinger (2004) cites M. S. Smith, ''The Ugaritic Baal Cycle'' and H.-P. Müller, "Sterbende ud auferstehende Vegetationsgötter? Eine Skizze", TZ 53 (1997:374)</ref>

Beginning with an overview of the [[Classical Athens|Athenian]] ritual of growing and withering herb gardens at the [[Adonis (mythology)|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.<ref name=GardenAdonis>''The Gardens of Adonis'' by Marcel Detienne, Janet Lloyd and Jean-Pierre Vernant (April 4, 1994) {{ISBN|0691001049}} Princeton pages iv–xi</ref> These associations included seduction, trickery, gourmandizing, and the anxieties of childbirth.<ref name=Batto/> 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.<ref name=Batto>''David and Zion'', Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts, edited by Bernard Frank Batto, Kathryn L. Roberts and J. J. M. Roberts (July 2004) {{ISBN|1575060922}} pages 381–383</ref><ref name=Elinor301>''Comparative Criticism'' Volume 1 by Elinor Shaffer (November 1, 1979) {{ISBN|0521222966}} page 301</ref>

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.<ref>{{harvnb|Detienne|1994}}; see also {{harvnb|Burkert|1987}}</ref> [[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 [[Resurrection#Ancient Greek religion|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".<ref>Dag Øistein Endsjø. ''Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity.'' New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009.</ref>

[[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.<ref name=Met7221>Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. (2001). ''The Riddle of Resurrection: Dying and Rising Gods in the Ancient Near East''. Almqvist & Wiksell, pages 7 and 221</ref> 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.<ref name=Bailey>Lee W. Bailey, "Dying and rising gods" in:  David A. Leeming, Kathryn Madden and Stanton Marlan (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion'' (2009) {{ISBN|038771801X}} Springer, pages 266–267</ref>

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.<ref name=corrente2012>Corrente, Paola. 2012. "[https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/tesis?codigo=95410 Dioniso y los Dying gods: paralelos metodológicos]". PhD thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.</ref><ref name=corrente2019>Corrente, Paola and Sidney Castillo. 2019. "[https://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/podcast/philology-and-the-comparative-study-of-myths/ Philology and the Comparative Study of Myths]", The Religious Studies Project (Podcast Transcript). 3 June 2019. Transcribed by Helen Bradstock. Version 1.1, 28 May 2019.</ref>