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The Riddle of Resurrection: "Dying and Rising" Gods in the Ancient Near East, by Tryggve N. D. Mettinger. Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament Series 50. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2001. 275 pp., 6 figures. Cloth. SEK 253.00.
Professor Mettinger of Lund University states on p. 8 of his preface that The Riddle of Resurrection is "an investigation limited to the controversial issues of the death and return to life of these gods" (i.e., those "in the biblical world," p. 7). As was the case with his earlier monograph No Graven Image (1995), Mettinger takes his readers on a well-charted expedition into worlds long forgotten and forbidden (he reminds the reader that earlier interpreters had rejected out of hand the possibility that pre-Christian gods could die and return to life). Following a 38-page history of interpretation, Mettinger "inverts our world" and he does so with sustained and compelling erudition. He musters an impressive array of evidence and argument in support of the surprising, even bold, conclusion that-contrary to popular opinion-dying and rising gods such as Baal, Melqart, Adonis, and Eshmun . . . died and rose!
At first glance, one might be tempted to dismiss The Riddle of Resurrection as merely resuscitating the turn-of-the-century, outmoded ideas of Sir James George Frazer. In fact, Mettinger identifies Frazer as the first early modern advocate of a universally attested dying and rising god. In fact, Frazer had pinpointed the ancient Near East as the site of the earliest versions of the dying and rising god and proposed that this category of gods subsequently migrated to Greece and to other parts of the Mediterranean. Admittedly, Mettinger, like Frazer before him, maintains that there are gods who are portrayed as having died and thereafter returned to life in ancient Near Eastern mythology and ritual and that these myths are intimately associated with the agrarian seasonal cycle. But Mettinger is quick to point out that while there may be similarities between his work and that of Frazer, his own possesses several distinct features. Mettinger's work, in contrast to those of many of his early predecessors, incorporates previously unaccounted for data and criticism. He treats in his analysis the more recently discovered texts from Late Bronze Age Ugarit, including the Baal cycle,...