Tammuz (mythology)

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Tammuz is a Babylonian and Assyrian shepherd god. He is considered the consort or lover of Ištar .

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A text from the Seleucid period (dated September 16, 287 BC), which has been handed down in neo-Babylonian form, uses the topos of the lament for Tammuz for a political statement and accuses Bel , i.e. Babylon , of the devastation of Sumer and Akkad. He ends with the words: “Weep Nippur ! Silence surrounds me, the heavens have veiled me, my throne has been overturned: Bel has stolen my companion, my beloved husband ”(lines 20-23).

Equations

Tammuz is often equated with the Sumerian vegetation god Dumuzi , whose disappearance many lamentations of Sumerian literature lament. However, it has also been suggested to derive the biblical Joseph or Jesus Christ from Tammuz.

In his book The Two Babylons , Alexander Hislop shows a different interpretation. He equates Tammuz with Nimrod , the founder of the city of Babylon, who lived about 180 years after the flood of Noah's day. The Bible describes King Nimrod as an adversary against the God Noah, whose great-grandson Nimrod was. ( Gen 10.1–12  EU ) The religious tradition says that Nimrod was executed for his rebellious resistance against YHWH , the god of Noah. Nimrod's followers viewed his violent death as a calamity and made him a god. Every year the memory of his death is celebrated on the first or second day of the lunar month of Tammuz, when his idol was weeped.

literature

  • Michael M. Fritz 2003. “- and weeping for Tammuz”: the gods Dumuzi-Amaʾušumgalʾanna and Damu. Münster, Ugarit publishing house.
  • Thorkild Jacobsen 1962. Toward the Image of Tammuz. History of Religions 1/2, 189-213.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ WG Lambert 1983, A Neo-Babylonian Tammuz Lament. Journal of the American Oriental Society 103/1 (Studies in Literature from the Ancient Near East by Members of the American Oriental Society, dedicated to Samuel Noah Kramer), 211-215
  2. ↑ M. Elser, S. Ewald, G. Murrer (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Religions. Weltbild, Augsburg 1990, p. 359
  3. ↑ Edwin M. Yamauchi 1965. Tammuz and the Bible. Journal of Biblical Literature 84/3, 283f.