Sauron and Azazel

We all know that Melkor The Morgoth is basically Satan in J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology.  But have you ever wondered if the other great Dark Lord of Middle Earth can also be equated with a specific Fallen Angel from the Judeo-Christian tradition?  Well I happen to have a theory on that.

Now up front I want to remind people that I’m aware Tolkien hated direct Allegory, like George Lucas he drew on many mythological concepts and motifs, but nothing was meant to be a one to one allegory, even Morgoth’s connection to Satan comes with qualifications (first of which is that it's more of a Paradise Lost perception of Satan then anything The Bible clearly teaches).

Also the development of Sauron as a figure in Tolkien’s Mythology was uniquely complicated.  I personally suspect that before Tolkien actually began writing a sequel to The Hobbit, Sauron’s roles in the tale of Beren and Luthien, in the Fall of Numenor and as the Necromancer mentioned in The Hobbit were three completely separate characters.  For example in the case of Beren and Luthien the role eventually taken by Sauron was originally just a Werecat type monster.  But it’s none of those proto-Saurons I’m comparing to Azazel here, this is specifically about Sauron as The Lord of The Rings.

There are conflicting traditions about Azazel, sometimes that name is just used as another name for Satan, which could very well be the original intent behind it’s use in Leviticus 16.  This analysis is mainly about the figure of Azazel as he appears in The Book of Enoch aka First Enoch.  The Richard Laurence Translation was published in 1883 and the R.H. Charles translation was published in 1917, so both are books Tolkien could have read at some point.

When I first read the Book of Enoch, I couldn’t help but notice how much Azazel’s role stood out narratively.  In the initial list of the leaders of the Grigori/Watchers that fell (chapter 7 verse 9 in the Laurence version and chapter 6 verse 7 in the Charles version) Azazel’s name isn’t included, in either the Ethiopic or Aramaic texts.  Yet when Azazel is first mentioned in chapter 8 verse 1 he is suddenly being treated as one of the single most important of them. 

Then in chapter 10 verses 4-12 he’s given a uniquely different fate, being buried under rocks in Dudael rather then being chained in the Abyss/Tartarus like the others.  I eventually learned some of that uniqueness is a product of how the name is used in Leviticus 16 and traditions derived from that, but it still stands out.  If you think you can explain this by just saying Azazel and Samyaza/Shemjaza are different names for the same Angel, the Aramaic text of chapter 8 lists Shemjaza separately as the one who taught Sorcery.  And Chapter 9 lists them separately in both versions.

In The Enemy section of The Valaquenta in the published Silmarillion, the only Maia who joined Morgoth singled out for special mention are the Balrogs as a group and Sauron as an individual.  One Youtube video I watched on the Balrogs theorized their special status among Morgoth’s followers might be that they were the very first Maia to follow him.  Sauron meanwhile came much later, never openly betraying the Valar till after Angband was firmly established.  So even the difference between Sauron and the Balrogs echos the difference between Azazel and the Grigori. 

But the crux of why I feel this comparison works is what’s said in Chapter 8 Verse 1 of the Book of Enoch.

"And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals 〈of the earth〉 and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures."

That certainly sounds like he’d be a Maia of Aule (as both Sauron and Saruman were) if placed in Tolkien’s Cosmology.  In fact it’s tempting to see even the Rings of Power themselves in that verse.

I also can’t help but wonder if Dudael where Azazel met his final doom being traditionally placed East of Jerusalem is echoed in Mordor being East of Gondor.

Another possible mythological influence on Sauron were various pagan gods associated with Blacksmithing and/or Volcanoes.  If you were to compare the Valar to the Olympians then Aule would be Hephaestus/Vulcan, yet Sauron ultimately resembles Hephaestus more since Hephaestus was cast down from Olympus. Typhon is a figure in Greek mythology some scholars suspect was originally the same as or an aspect of Hephaestus, one of his birth stories is the same, being borne by Hera in response to the birth of Athena.  Also in some versions Typhon is buried beneath Mt Etna a Volcano on Sicily which is also said to be the location of Hephaestus's workshop.

Is it possible to connect Hephaestus/Typhon to Azazel independent of comparing them to a modern literary figure?  I think so, like for example winding up buried, and of course Azazel’s status as a craftsman already mentioned above.  That the Greeks identified Typhon with Set gives precedence for seeing him as a Desert Storm god.  I feel the Book of Enoch definitely developed post Hellenization, it’s mentioning Tartaros is evidence of that.  There was a blacksmith god in the Canaanite pantheon, Kothar-wa-Khasis, but he wasn’t cast out like Hephaestus was.  So I think the figure of Azazel in the book of Enoch was possibly modeled a bit after Hephaestus and/or Typhon.

So maybe Tolkien likewise consciously or unconsciously made the same connection between them?

Greek Myths echoing The Bible

John R Salverda argued for Pelops being based on Ahab.  I had considered that possibly being valid in the past, but by splitting up his parallels for Naboth and Elijah.  But even though in the context of one particular cycle I think certain grandsons of Pelops are memories of some Davidic Kings, I’ve come to view Pelops as mainly a Hellenic memory of Jehu.

Pelops killing Oenomaus in a chariot race could be based on Jehu killing Jehoram son of Ahab in a battle where both rode in Chariots.  Hippodamia could be another example of a Princess in a myth sort of representing the nation.  But given the statement that Jehu did more than what II Kings records it’s not impossible he did marry a princess of the House of Omri, it was the direct male lines of descent from Ahad that were prophesied to be wiped out.

Myrtilus’ curse on the House of Pelops could be a memory of Hosea’s Prophecy that Yahuah will “Avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the House of Jehu” in chapter 1 verse 4.

Stymphalus in this theory represents the Prophets/Priests of Baal at Samaria, who Jehu initially promised peace to but then slaughtered them when he had control of the city in II Kings 10:19-25. 

That equates Samaria with Arcadia. I’ve often identified the Arcadians with the Arkite tribe of Canaan, we don’t have other information on that tribe like we do the first 5 or so Canaanite tribes, they’re mentioned only in Genesis 10 and 1 Chronicles 1.  So Samaria could be where the Arkites originally lived and this Baal cult included some of their genealogical remnant.  [Update: I now know the Arkites referred to people in north western Lebanon north of modern Tripoli.  It could be these particular Priests of Baal Jezebel relied on came from up there.]

It seems possible that the story about Aeacus praying to end a drought after a murder may not have originally been specifically linked to Stymphalus and Pelops, Aeacus’s own Wikipedia page doesn’t mention Stymphalus or Pelops by name here, and he’s generally affiliated with more northern parts of Greece not the Peloponnese.  So my past observation that he maybe resembles Obadiah in 1 Kings 18 who’s piety helped end the drought associated with Elijah remains possible.

Salverda makes a point out of how Aeacus role as a judge of the dead in Plato’s Republic resembles some Jewish traditions about Elijah as a judge of the dead.  But those Jewish tradition are very late, well after men like Philo and Aristobulus of Alexandria had started bringing Platonic ideas into the Judeo-Christian tradition.  So in that case it was the Jews putting Elijah in Aeacus position.

What’s more interesting though is that Aeacus is said to have the keys of Hades.  In Revelation 1 Jesus says He has the Keys of Hades and Death.  In Revelation 3:7 he introduces himself to Philadelphia as he who has the Key of David from Isaiah 22:22.  The equivalent introductions in the other Seven Churches messages all repeat titles from Revelation 1.  Sheol came up in some Davidic Psalms, including one quoted by Peter at Pentecost in Acts 2.  David is also tied to the Resurrection because of how he’s named in Ezekiel 37.  So those keys could be synonymous. 

Pindar Isthmian Odes VIII referred to Aeacus as the dearest of all men to Zeus.  It sounds like Aeacus could be a memory of David more then any Prophet.  Salverda leaves out how royalty did descend from his three sons Peleus, Telamon and Phocus.  Through Achilles son of Peleus the Kings of Epirus claimed descent from Aeacus, and thus through his mother so did Alexander The Great.  What a lot of people don’t know about the Patroclus and Achilles relationship was that Patroclus was actually older than Achilles and a mentor figure to him, not the younger pretty boy you usually see in modern films.  So comparing that relationship to David and Jonathan fits even better than I originally thought.

Aeacus kingdom was also ravaged by a plague once.  He is also said to have built a “Temple” of some type on Mount Panhellenus, but then after he died his people built an even grander Temple.  Pindar also associated him with Psalms.  So Panhellenus could be Zion where the Tabernacle of David was, while the later Temple is a memory of Solomon’s.

Wives and children of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat King of Judah were taken as hostages by the Philistines.  Joel 3 records how Philistia and Tyre sold Judeans and Jerusalemites as slaves to the Ionians.  Another grandson of Aeacus was said to have founded Salamis on Cyprus (an Island also anciently settled by children of Javan and colonized by Phoenicians) that city could have been named after Salem or David's ancestor Salmon/Salmah/Salma.

Because Greek mythology is very much a composite mythology, Aeacus may not be the only memory of David.  I’ve contemplated Endymion as David before, being both a Shepherd and a King in Elis.  Of the wives of David, Avitail is the first I’d look at as a possible basis for Selene, since her name means "Father of the Dew” which is a fitting poetic name for the Moon.  The wives married at Hebron were probably mainly David making important marriage alliances within the Tribe of Judah. 

If one of his wives was of the Jerahmeel clan then it's interesting how that name looks like it begins with the Hebrew word for Moon.  1 Chronicles 2’s genealogy of the Jerahmeel clan includes a Eleasah son of Helez, Eleasah actually makes more sense to me etymologically as an origin for Elis, the Eleans and Elysium then Elishah, though perhaps so could David's son born in Jerusalem named Elishua.

But also Numbers 26:20 tells us there was a clan of Shelanites descended from Judah’s third son Shelah.  The Hebrew word for Shelanite is Shelani (Strong number 8024) which could be an etymological origin for Selene.  1 Chronicles 4:21 also names some sons of Shelah.

Ezekiel 23 gives Aholah as a poetic name for Samaria, probably in the sense of Samaria representing the entire Northern Kingdom, but if you wanted to make it more tribally specific Samaria was properly in Western Manasseh.  Aeolians could have in origin meant people of Aholah but then the Hellenic mythology invented Aeolus to be an ancestral figure for them. 

The original main four sons of Aeolus were Athamas, Salmoneus, Sisyphus and Cretheus.  Some stories about Athamas and his sons clearly seem to be based on Abraham and Isaac.  Meanwhile Salmoneus is clearly a memory of Solomon, while Sisyphus I view as Jeroboam and Cretheus as Abinadab of 1 Kings 4:11 with Taphah as Tyro, the islands of Taphos may also have been named after her.  

Cretheus ruled Thessaly in Greek Mythology, the Dorians were also said to have come from Thessaly according to Herodotus.  In The Bible Dor was a region allotted to Asher but was also inhabited by Manasseites (Joshua 17:11, Judges 1:27 and 1 Chronicles 7:29).  So I think the Aeolians were the Mansseites of Dor while the Dorians were the Asherites.  The name Hellen could come from Hellem who fathered an Asherite clan in 1 Chronicles 7:35.

Of course I should consider that maybe the Dorians who invaded Greece were actually the Canaanites of Dor.  And that the tribe of Asher isn’t lost since all of them seem to have accepted Hezekiah’s Passover Invitation and Anna the Prophetess was of Asher.

Other sons of Aeolus include Makedon and Magnes (who are sometimes given as sons of Aeolus but sometimes as his cousins, sons of a sister of Hellen), and Aethlius the first king of the Eleans. 

This makes the ancestry of Alexander The Great pretty firmly Aeolian though with some Doric and possibly Davidic influence.  Joel 3 foretells that from those Israelites sold into slavery to Greece would come the means by which God would judge Tyre and Philista.  Alexander’s two most notable sieges were of Tyre and Gaza, with Gaza being one of the few cities he completely destroyed.

I already have a post on Jehosheba and Electra which goes on to talk about the Acheans and Danaans being Dan.

On Second thought the Aeolians were probably the Asherites since Thebes was also Aeolian and it was said to be founded by Cadmus coming from Tyre and Tyre was in Asher's allotment and not listed among those Asher couldn't chase the Canaanites out of.  Meanwhile Berea home of the Bereans of Acts 17 was probably originally Aeolian being in northern Thessaly before Macedon captured it.  And I think it's name could come from the Beriites of Numbers 26:44-45 the clan of Asher's son Beriah of Genesis 46:17, I also suspect Larissa could be a reference to Ishuah.

It's Christmas Time

I'm probably not gonna do any major project here for Christmas.  But I wanna link to some Christmas Relevant post I'd made in the past.

Pagan Winter Solstice Holidays linked to Christmas
http://tinyurl.com/PaganChristmas

http://preview.tinyurl.com/PaganChristmas

 Hanukkah is a Biblical Holy Day
http://tinyurl.com/HanukkahIsBiblical

http://preview.tinyurl.com/HanukkahIsBiblical

 A Hanukkah and Christmas relevant post from my SolaScripturaChristianLiberty BlogSpot blog
http://tinyurl.com/h8hyd58

http://preview.tinyurl.com/h8hyd58

Those are some of the older ones I still consider worth linking too.

 https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2017/04/venus-could-be-star-of-bethlehem.html

https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2017/12/when-i-say-i-think-jesus-was-born-on.html

https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2017/01/i-dont-think-jesus-was-born-on.html

Pagan ideas compared to The Trinity

Inspiring Philosophy did a video addressing people accusing The Trinity of being Pagan called Is The Trinity Pagan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAcDV270D_0


It’s a pretty good video, but I would say he slipped a bit in addressing the Hindu Trimurti comparison.  Hinduism does have distinct personalities for Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva so saying it’s more like Modalism doesn’t really work. 

The main failure of that analogy is that when you break it down, comparing Brahma to The Father and Vishnu who incarnated as Human Avatars to The Logos can make a little sense, but comparing the Holy Spirit to Shiva the God of Destruction makes no sense, their functions are literally the opposite.

And then there is the fact that this Trimurti idea developed late, I don’t think you can actually find it in the Rigveda, Ramayana or Mahabharata, and even some of those writings come after the Northern Tribes were dispersed Eastward.  The Kurma Purana seems to be the earliest clear expression of it and it’s Eighth Century AD at the earliest.  Christians had migrated to India from Persia at least as early as the 4th Century AD.

I also think the development of Hinduism and Buddhism may have been influenced by the Gnostics. The Manicheans had spread throughout Persia and further east. And the Mahabrahma is like the Gnostic Demiurge, a lesser creator who thinks he's the top god even though he isn't.

A closer Comparison to The Trinity would be Neo-Platonism’s concept of The One, The Intellect and the World Soul.  A key distinction I’d make there is that it is mostly the Intellect emanating from The One and the World Soul emanating from The Intellect.  While the Christian Trinity is much more Triangular in its relationship, in fact the Greek Orthodox would stress that the Holy Spirits proceeds from The Father not The Son.

But again, while Neo-Plaotnism draws on Plato, nothing this close to a Trinity is in Plato.  Neo-Platonism is largely said to have began with Plotinus (204-270 AD) or his mentor Ammonius Saccas (175-242 AD).  Tertullian (155-240 AD) had already laid out a doctrine of The Trinity pretty similar to the Nicene one before their careers started, and he was just inserting himself into a discussion Christians were already having.  Theophilus of Antioch (died by 185 AD) was the first to use the term Trinity and defined it as The Father, The Logos and Sophia. 

Porphyry, an Anti-Christian Neo-Platonist writer, said that Saccas’s parents had been Christians but he rejected their faith.  So actually there is good reason to suspect that many similarities between Christian and Neoplatonic Philosophy came from Christians first.  That said I do still believe reverence for Socrates, Plato and Aristotle has been a very bad influence on Church History.

Learning this about Saccas as I researched this post was quite interesting.  It’s easy to assume Christian ides didn’t influence the secular world before Constantine, but what Constantine did was possible because Christianity was already becoming mainstream in many places.  So this documentation of a Pre-Nicene Pagan writer with a Christian background is quite fascinating.

I suppose I should mention briefly the Zoka SanShin (Three Kami of Creation) from Shinto Mythology.  Everything we know about Japanese mythology stems from the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki which were both early Eighth Century writings.  If certain theories about the Hata Clan are true then Christians could have been an influence on Japan well before then.  Though in its final form the Zoka SanShin is more like the Neoplatonist trinity then the Christian one, being more linear than triangular.  And they are in no way defined as being Homusias.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2018/04/nestorianism-and-church-of-east.html

Dinosaurs and Dragons

You don't have to be a Six-Day Young Earth Creationist to see a connection between Dinosaurs and mythical creatures like Dragons.  You can hold the mainstream view of the age of the Earth and still think a few small patches survived to Ancient or even modern times.  Or you could say Ancient people stumbled upon Dinosaur fossils which helped inspire those myths, but the later option doesn't explain eye witness accounts.

However opposition to Young Earth Creationism is the only explanation I can think of for why so many insist on denying any connection exists or could exist, insisting it must be just a coincidence that man imagined Dragons and then we found the bones of creatures that fit exactly the definition of what a Dragon is.  Because they love being able to casually mock Creationists with "if the Earth is only 6000 years old how come humans never saw Dinosaurs", then countless accounts of people seeing things like Dinosaurs are pointed out to them and they go "no, but..." and move the goal posts.

I'm not desperate to convert anyone to Creationism any more since I'm an Evangelical Universalist now.  I just want people to know that the existence of Dinosaurs is not a sufficient reason to doubt The Bible.

Dinosaurs weren't the only things to inspire these ancient myths, they're often also allegories of more abstract things like Greed.  Same as Godzilla was not inspired only by Dinosaurs but was first and foremost an allegory for the destructive power of Nuclear Weapons.  Even Jurassic Park is about more then just Dinosaurs, it's also another re-imagining of Frankenstein as well as being about the evils of Capitalism.

A lot of why people feel so confident they can mock the idea of a connection is because the modern default idea of what a Dragon looks like is much more specific then what it actually used to mean, being basically Smaug and Charizard.  But even in Tolkien not all Dragons looked like Smaug, Smaug represents a specific sub group, the winged Fire Drake.  And the really specific look of Smaug I don't think was even precedented much before Tolkien, even Beowulf's dragon is not described quite like that in the original text.  There were actually medieval bestiaries describing many different kinds of Dragons, not all of which could even be described as gigantic in size.

Yes, a lot of the images Creationists point to don't look exactly perfectly like a specific Dinosaur, just as Bugs Bunny doesn't look that much like a real bunny rabbit.  Artistic depictions take liberties and oral traditions can obscure the details even when they're trying to be perfectly accurate.
http://creationwiki.org/Ancient_dinosaur_depiction

The 12th century Ta Prohm Temple near Angkor Wat in Cambodia has a carving which resemblance to a Stegasaur is way to close to be coincidental.

But for something that's a personal hypothesis of mine that takes a bit more room for interpretation, let's talk about the Tarasque.

First of all it's said to originally come from Galatia, which fits the fact that the earliest Christian Community of Southern France were people who came there from Ephesus in the 2nd Century.  Now I'm not convinced Martha or the other Bethany siblings actually went to Asia Minor either, I suspect their remains are among those found at the Dominus Flevit Church on the Mont of Olives.

The most peculiar detail of the Tarasque is that it's not a Turtle but is described as having a turtle shell on it's back.  I think this animal was inspired by an Ankylosaurus (the same type of Dinosaur that inspired Anguirus).  This creature doesn't have a Turtle Shell on it's back but one can easily see how it might look that way to an ancient observer.

I no longer share the hostility other Creationists have to the idea of Feathered Dinosaurs.  I don't think Dinosaurs evolved into modern Birds, but God could easily have created creatures that would seem to us like Lizard/Bird hybrids, just as an Ankylosaur could have been mistaken to be a hybrid of a Turtle and something else.

And once we acknowledge Feathered Dinosaurs we can realize that only adds to the amount of evidence of them being known to the Ancients.  From Mesoamerican gods depicted as feathered serpents to the European examples of the Cockatrice and Basilisk.  Both words have been used in translations of The Bible.  Now I don't think the Hebrew word tsepha' was likely to be referring to the same thing as either of those European terms.  But if you're a radical KJV onlyist like Kent Hovind, you can't then deny that what Cockatrice meant to a 1611 English speaker is something The King James Bible is claiming exists (it's right in the etymology of Cockatrice that it resembles a Rooster in some fashion).  I remember watching one Kent Hovind debate where his opponent brought up the Cockatrice and Hovind just ignored it.

And now we've transitioned into talking about Dinosaurs in The Bible.  I believe Seraphim was a term for Pterodactyls aka Ropens.  And I mostly stand by my past speculation that Jonah was swallowed by a Sea Dinosaur. Reem (Unicorn in the KJV) however I do not think refers to a Dinosaur but probably an Auroch.

Now the big two when it comes to Dinosaurs in The Bible speculation are Behemoth and Leviathan.  It boggles my mind every time someone tells me that in context' it's clearly describing a demonic creature and not a natural animal.  No, it's context in Job 38-41 is as the climax of a list of normal animals, yet people keep getting away with saying it's the opposite.

Yes there are extra Biblical Jewish legends turning Behemoth and Leviathan into cosmic horrors not compatible with any real animals.  That's why Paul warned us to not regard Jewish Fables.  These non-Biblical ideas about Behemoth and Leviathan are partly the inspiration for Groudon and Kyogre the 3rd generation mascot Legendary Pokemon (and Rayqyaza was based on the Ziz) but none of that has any basis in Job.

I watched this YouTube video on Behemoth recently, at the very end it starts vaguely alluding to Republican politics and a Soterolgoy I no longer support, but mostly it's a pretty good video.  There is little internal debate among Creationsits about what Dinosaur the Behemoth is, it's a longed neck herbivore, basically the first Dinosaur we see clearly and unobstructed in Jurassic Park, so just imagine John Williams score for that scene as you read Job 40.

Leviathan is more complicated however.

Firstly because unlike Behemoth the word does show up outside of Job, in Isaiah 27 and a couple of Psalms.  Other references to Leviathan are possibly using him as an analogy for the 7 headed Dragon and/or The Beast out of the Sea of Revelation, like how Jesus uses Birds to represent Satan in the Kingdom Parables of Matthew 13, being used symbolically in some places doesn't make it not a word for a real animal.  I also think Leviathan is possibly used of a Constellation in some verses.  If The Ancient Hebrews had a view of the Constellations analogous to our own, then Draco, Serpens, Hydra and Cetus are all good candidates.

I think it's best to stick to Job when defining the Zoological characteristics of Leviathan.  Which first of all means the words translated "piercing" and "crooked" in Isaiah 27:1 aren't used in Job 41 and so maybe descriptions of the Constellation or poetic idioms about Satan are not useful for figuring out what the real animal looked like.

Isaiah 27:1 is a really complicated verse to consider here.  It could be using multiple idioms for one thing, or describing three different things, two Leviathans and a Dragon, or two things, Leviathan and a Dragon.  This verse probably isn't about the actual animal anyway, but I still wanted to point that out.

If we limit our clues for the real animal to Job 41 does that weaken it's aquatic association?  Not quite, verse 31 seems to say it spends some time in the sea.  But it is most likely Amphibious and not purely a Sea Creature.

I have a personal hunch that the Leviathan of Job 41 could be Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.  There are plenty of inaccuracies to how this Dinosaur was depicted in Jurassic Park 3, but according to this video it was indeed Amphibious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STn0CxdMIKk&t

Fire breathing, that is the big factor in objections to saying Dragons are real, including specifically Biblical ones which definitely attribute fire breathing to Leviathan and possibly but more debatably the Seraphim (there are other views of what them being called "firey" means).

The Bombardier beetle has an ability that certainly seems like shooting fire. 

Skeptical analysis of such arguments for fire breathing animals often miss the point. Creationists only need the specific Biblical references to be literally true, so it doesn't matter if it actually looked like what Smaug or a Fire Type Pokemon can do.

One anti-Creationist website I was reading gave a simplified summery of the history of dragon legends and claims dragons didn't start breathing fire till the 5th century AD and none had wings till the 13th.  That ignores The Bible's own descriptions of both winged serpents and Leviathan, as well as Beowulf.  Basically this site wants to say Dragons didn't start resembling Dinosaurs till the 19th Century, which is an utterly absurd suggestion.

This is a Post about Higurashi/When They Cry

The very nature of what I want to discuss here is a spoiler.  Higurashi is one of the few shows where I think it’s important to not be spoiled.  As I already explained when I declared season 1 the ideal Horror Anime.

This post will even spoil season 2.  In fact it's more so about season 2.  Though some important hints at the themes I'm discussing here are in season 1.  October just started so it's as good a time as any to watch it.

Endymion & Selene compared to Inanna & Tammuz

That Endymion is called both a Shepherd and a King for awhile had me thinking David is the only other "mythological" figure he could viably be compared to.  And while that connection is still one I'm perusing.  I eventually remembered that on the Sumerian Kings List the Antedeluvian Dumuzi/Dumuzid (from which the name Tammuz comes) was called a Shepherd.

En is a Sumerian honorary prefix usually translated "lord".  Also an -on often winds up added at the end of Greek transliterations of foreign names (this Greek feature is the only reason we call Babylon that, in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of the Old Testament it's always Babel/BBL, it's also traditionally viewed as why we spell Solomon that way).  For those two reasons, I could see Lord Dumuzi being corrupted to Endymion in Greek.  Also Damu is another form the name of Dumuzi used in a text titled In the Desert by the Early Grass.

The genealogy of Inanna/Ishtar is contradictory in various Sumerian/Akkadian and other Mesopotamian sources.  Sometimes she's the daughter of Anu directly, sometimes of Enlil, rarely of Enki.  But in one of the oldest Sumerian poems about her relationship with Dumuzid called Inana and Bilulu: an Ulila to Inana she is specifically depicted as the daughter of Nanna aka Suen/Sin (The Moon god) and his wife Ningal.  Which gives a pretty strong basis for seeing her as a Lunar Goddess.

So basically, Inanna=Selene and Dumuzid/Tammuz=Endymion.

This is not the only Greek version of this Sumerian myth, as it's usually more commonly compared to Adonis, the Adonia happens the same time of year the Women wept for Tammuz.  But remember Greece also had multiple Flood legends.  In the Adonis tradition Inanna is Aphrodite, so that's the version that came through Cyrpus and Kythira.  I also believe Eos and other Indo-European Dawn Goddess (plus Uzume in Japan) are also an aspect of Inanna/Ishtar.

What's interesting is how I could stretch this analogy beyond just the original Greek Myth and make it match even more by comparing it to the Lore of the Manga/Anime franchise Sailor Moon, starting with Ningal as Queen Serenity.

Bilulu could be compared to either Beryl or Queen Metaria.  Metaria could also perhaps be compared to Ereshkigal, though that basically becomes a female version of the turning Hades into Satan trope.

The loyal Maid-Servants of Inanna like Ninshubur could perhaps be the other Sailor Senshi in this analogy, and I'm oddly attracted to Makoto as Geshtinanna.  It's also theorized by some that Inanna and Ishtar were originally separate deities later merged together with Ishtar being originally mainly a name for the Planet Venus, so that makes Ishtar as Sailor Venus an interesting option since Sailor Venus was sometimes a body double for the Princess.

The four Shitennou could perhaps be compared to people like Lulal and Shara who were governing other cities under the sway of Uruk.  Also Ningishzida who was a brother in-law of Dumuzi and sometimes paired with him.

I simply lack a Sailor Moon character to compare Girgire/Jirgire to, besides that maybe in a different way he also plays the role of the Shitennou.