I've done several blog posts on
the Christ Myth, and I think that there is another one in order. The Christ Myth is the theory that what we believe about
Jesus was cobbled together from myths and stories of dying and rising gods from pagan sources predating Jesus. This time I want to look at the myth of
Inanna. I researching on Ehteshaam Gulam on
YouTube I came across the following video:
Recall that Ehteshaam Gulam has debated Mary Jo Sharp on the topic of
whether or not Jesus died on the cross and lost miserably. Being the sore looser he seems to be, it seems that he has decided to attack another topic that Mary Jo Sharp has spent a great deal of her considerable skills fighting against - the Christ Myth. But rather than engage in a scholarly moderated debate (that she did offer to do with him), he made the video embedded above. Go Figure. Personally, I think it was because he doesn't want to be trounced again.
But be that as it may, in the video he makes the claim that three figures can be pointed out as being just like Jesus - died and rose again.
1. Inanna
2. Osirus - which I have already address
here.
3.
Apollonius of Tyana - which I have also already posted on
here
I admit Inanna is a new one for me and surprise, surprise - Inanna is a she! I had never heard of her before I saw this video. I want to focus on Inanna on this post because I have seen the claims for Osius and Apollonius resoundly destroyed by Jame White, James P. Holding, Lee Strobel, and others. Ehteshaam Gulam claims that further information on Inanna can be found at:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/improbable/crucified.h...
James Holding asks: "Who on earth would believe a religion centered
on a crucified man?" Well, the Sumerians perhaps. One of their top
goddesses, Inanna (the Babylonian Ishtar, Goddess of Love and "Queen of
Heaven"), was stripped naked and crucified, yet rose again and,
triumphant, condemned to Hell her lover, the shepherd-god Dumuzi (the
Babylonian Tammuz). This became the center of a major Sumerian sacred
story, preserved in clay tablets dating over a thousand years before
Christ.[1]
The corresponding religion, which we now know included the worship of a
crucified Inanna, is mentioned by Ezekiel as having achieved some
popularity within Jerusalem itself by the 6th century B.C. The "women
weeping for Tammuz" at the north gate of the Jewish temple (Ezekiel 8:14)
we now know were weeping because Inanna had condemned him to Hell,
after herself being crucified and resurrected. So the influence of this
religious story and its potent, apparently compelling allure upon
pre-Christian Judaism is in evidence.[2]
Even so, my point is not that the Christians got the idea of a
crucified god from early Inanna cult. There may have been some direct or
indirect influence we cannot trace. We can't rule that out--the
idea of worshipping a crucified deity did predate Christianity and had
entered Jewish society within Palestine. But we don't know any more than
that.[3]
Rather, my point is that we have here a clear example of many people
worshipping a crucified god. Therefore, as a matter of principle--unless Holding wants to claim that Inanna really was resurrected--it appears that people would worship a false crucified god. Therefore, Holding cannot claim this is improbable.
I also think that Ehteshaam Gulam should pay close attention to the third note:
[3] I caution strongly against overzealous attempts to link Christianity with prior religions--see my critical comment on "Kersey Graves and The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors" (2003); and for a good comparative study see Hans-Josef Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions
(2000). But I can't deny there are some intriguing parallels, including
those between this story of Inanna and the story of the Incarnation of
the Lord told in the Ascension of Isaiah.
There are many important differences, but it is curious that in the
Sumerian story Inanna descends through the seven gates of Hell, with a
different encounter at each stage, and her humiliation and crucifixion
are at the bottom. Similarly, in the Jewish story the Savior (Jesus)
descends through the seven heavens, with a different encounter at each
stage, and his humiliation and crucifixion are at the bottom. Jesus also
supposedly said he would be "three days and three nights" in the grave (Matthew 12:40),
while Inanna herself was dead for three days and three nights. Of
course, we are told Jesus was not actually dead for three nights, only
at most two, but it is still curious why there would be a tradition of
his saying otherwise, a tradition matching that of Inanna.
I admit these parallels are worth noting, but they are too little to make much of. For instance, Jonah 1:17 also shares the three-days-and-nights motif (and Matthew 12:40
explicitly draws from it), which, as I explain elsewhere, probably
derived from a common ancient concept of death. See Richard Carrier, "Jewish Law, the Burial of Jesus, and the Third Day"
(2002). On the Jonah parallel specifically (as a motif for death and
resurrection), see Evan Fales, "Taming the Tehom," in Jeff Lowder &
Bob Price, eds., The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave
(2005). Therefore, the suggestion is not that the Christians "got the
idea" of a third-day motif from Inanna cult (directly or by transmission
through later religions), but that they "got the idea" from the same
cultural concepts governing the construction of the Inanna myth.
However this brings up some questions for me. What is mean here by "crucifixion"? The Sumarians did not crucify people and certainly not a thousand years before Jesus?
Crucifixion was in use at a comparatively high rate among the Seleucids, Carthaginians, and Romans from about the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. In the year 337, Emperor Constantine I abolished it in the Roman Empire out of veneration for Jesus Christ, the most famous victim of crucifixion.[2][3] It was also used as a form of execution in Japan for criminals, inflicted also on some Christians. (Wikipedia - Crucifixion)
I want to know how does the Ascension of Isaiah have anything to do with the Gospel narrative, given that it's not canonical and post dates the four Biblical gospels. Gonna have to reach farther than that. So I decided to see if such evidence exists that Inanna was what is being alleged. The article does include some references but it turns out that there are multiple versions of Inanna's story.
One version can be found on
Wikipedia - under Inanna's Descent to the Underworld and the other at
Aren’t there some striking parallels between the Jesus and Inanna stories?
The versions of the story I looked at both agree that Inanna went to the underworld ornately dressed but by the time she reached the bottom she was naked. But she took off her clothes one by one - she was not stripped by force. The Wikipedia version of the story does not even mention any violence towards her. But the other article does describe her being put on a stake or meat hook. Nothing like the crucifixion Jesus endured. Look at this from the second article.I'm going to bold the original text and annotate it with some some additional points:
Some parallels, but nothing striking. Inanna, the Sumerian goddess
of love, procreation, and war, was at times considered either a virgin or
very promiscuous. In some versions of the story, Inanna descends to
the underworld to visit her sister Ereckigala, the goddess of death. As
she passes through seven gateways, she is forced to surrender all seven articles
of her clothing, one item at a time, finally arriving at her sister's lair
naked.
No where in the Bible does it say anything about seven gates to hell or seven gates to heaven. The myths make Inanna seem schizophrenic. There are also various reasons why Inanna even wanted go to hell. The being naked part by the time she reaches the final destination is consistent. I wonder why? Wink wink. Nudge nudge.
Ereckigala becomes furious and kills Inanna, then hangs her
on a meathook or nail.
Inanna's minister, Nincubar, sends a pair of
flies to Ereckigala to bargain for Inanna's release. Ereckigala releases
Inanna on the condition that she find someone to take her place. Inanna
is either reincarnated into a new body or is resurrected to life, ascends
from the underworld, and finds that her consort,
Tammuz, had taken over her throne. She
sends Tammuz to the underworld in her place.
I just don't see how this is like the Gospels at all. Inanna did not die as a substitution for anyone. Someone else was substituted in her place. That's backwards. If Christians wanted to make something up based on the same ideas as Inanna, why flip it?
Critics claim that Inanna was crucified, though no cross or tree was involved,
and, besides, she was already dead when placed upon the meathook or nail.
That's a good point.
Critics claim that Inanna was resurrected, which is true in some pre-Christian
versions of the story, so this is a valid similarity. However, since
the death and resurrection took place in the underworld, and not in ours,
the similarity lacks much in the way of comparisons to Jesus.
Critics claim that Inanna was a savior. She was not.
Exactly, her death and resurrection changed nothing on earth or had any meaningful effect on anyone else. not directly involved in the story. If you need to appeal to the myth of Inanna to find a corresponding story of a dying and rising God to compare to Jesus Christ, you are really despersately scraping the proverbial bottom of the barrel . Jesus is the one and only.
