| Life-death-rebirth deity | |
|---|---|
 The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton (1891). | |
| Description | A life-death-rebirth or dying-and-rising god is born, suffers a death-like experience, passes through the underworld, and is subsequently reborn. |
| Proponents | James Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison, Carl Jung |
| Key texts | The Golden Bough |
| Subject | Mythology |
A dying god,[1][2][3][4] also known as a dying-and-rising or resurrection deity, is a god who dies and is resurrected or reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense. Male examples include the ancient Near Eastern and Greek deities Baal[5] , Melqart[6] , Adonis[7] , Eshmun[8], Tammuz, [9] Asclepius, Orpheus, as well as Krishna, Ra, Osiris[10], Jesus, Zalmoxis, Dionysus,[11] and Odin. Female examples are Inanna, also known as Ishtar, whose cult dates to 4000 BCE, and Persephone, the central figure of the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose cult may date to 1700 BCE as the unnamed goddess worshiped in Crete.[12]
