The Riddle of Resurrection: "Dying and Rising Gods" in the Ancient Near East.

• Author: Hendel, Ronald
• Position: Book Review

By TRYGGVE N. D. METTINGER. Coniectanea Biblical, Old Testament Series, vol. 50. Stockholm: ALMQVIST & WIKSELL INTERNATIONAL, 2001. Pp. 272. SK 238 (paper).

The arrival of a new monograph by Tryggve Mettinger is an occasion for scholarly delight. Mettinger is one of the finest biblical scholars in the world, and he is unafraid to venture into ancillary fields (archaeology, Assyriology, and other dangerous forests) to pursue his quarry. In this book, as in his others, Mettinger's careful and insightful discussions are based on massive and intensive research, and he displays remarkable control of the primary texts and current scholarly arguments. The target of his new book is the old Frazerian paradigm of dying-and-rising gods. In recent scholarship (from the attack by Roland de Vaux in 1933 to more recent fusillades by Jonathan Z. Smith and Mark S. Smith), this paradigm has been discarded, with Smith the Younger announcing "The Death of 'Dying and Rising Gods' in the Biblical World" (SJOT 12 [1998]: 257-313; cf. M. S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism [Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001], 104-31). Mettinger carefully surveys the relevant data and major scholarly positions, and concludes that this proclamation of death is premature.

Mettinger's strategy is meticulous and comprehensive. He surveys the history of scholarship on this issue and lays down his careful theoretical approaches to ritual, myth, and the comparative study of religion in chapter 1. Then he turns to a series of insightful and circumspect discussions of the data on the various relevant gods: Ugaritic Baal (chapter 2); Tyrian Melqart (chapter 3); Greek and Byblian Adonis (chapter 4); Sidonian Eshmun (chapter 5); Egyptian Osiris (chapter 6); and Mesopotamian Dumuzi/Tammuz (chapter 7). He concludes that "The world of ancient Near Eastern religions actually knew a number of deities that may be properly described as dying and rising gods" (p. 217). He notes that each god is distinctive in various ways, such that "one should not hypostasize these gods into a specific type 'the dying and rising god'" (p. 218), but notes that there is a coherent set of family resemblances. The conclusion and the discussions it rests upon are entirely convincing, and represent a landmark in the comparative study of ancient Near Eastern religions.

The gods that loom largest in Mettinger's discussions are Baal and Dumuzi, since these have the most abundant data (Osiris is treated as a special...