XPost: sci.anthropology   
   From: bglake@hotmail.com   
      
   "Larry Caldwell"  wrote in message   
   news:MPG.1c49ef13bf697ee998b449@news.west.earthlink.net...   
   > In article <348u97F480udpU1@individual.net>, bglake@hotmail.com (Barbara   
   > Lake) says...   
   >   
   >> One other point, Dumuzi was not a Sumerian god.  He was a shepherd who   
   >> was   
   >> elevated to king by virtue of marrying Inanna, Queen of Heaven.  His   
   >> death   
   >> and resurrection fall in line with other mythology relative to the   
   >> "rebirth   
   >> of the earth" following winter.   
   >   
   > Yeah, just like Jesus was a Jewish carpenter, until he started appearing   
   > to people after he was dead.   
   >   
   > Deifying people is an ancient middle eastern tradition.  It doesn't   
   > meant they weren't gods.   
      
   Perhaps I wasn't all that clear.  The earliest Sumerian account of   
   Inanna/Ishtar and Dumuzi did not deify Dumuzi.  To my knowledge, this would   
   be the partly translated "Inanna, Queen of Heaven, Her stories and Hymns   
   From Sumer."  Dumuzi was, in this account a lover, a husband and, for all   
   intents and purposes, a human sacrifice.  He did not become the "Shepherd   
   King" until his marriage to Inanna.  However, his return from the   
   underworld, (as with Jesus), is seen as a powerful symbol of restored spring   
   and new life, a repetitive theme throughout all mythology.  Later accounts   
   do refer to Dumuzi as a Sumerian god, and since those accounts are a record   
   of an early (if not the earliest) Sumerian belief system, I suppose that's   
   enough.   
      
   BTW, do I know you from somewhere?  Are you an attorney?   
      
   Barbara   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)