Who Is Inanna?
Today we are going to connect the Descent of Inanna to the Jesus Resurrection Narrative. The skeleton of the Inanna story can be found to match to the Jesus resurrection narrative in several ways.
Inanna is a Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and war. She is identified as Ishtar by the Akkadians and Assyrians. She is also identified as the Roman goddess Venus. Inanna is also the daughter of Enki in some myths and the daughter of Nanna is others. She is often referred to as “The Queen of Heaven.”
The Descent of Inanna
First, we don’t expect the story to exactly be paralleled in the Jesus narrative. We would expect some common ideas or themes that are prominent in both narratives. In the beginning, Inanna abandoned her throne to journey to the underworld and predicted to her followers what would happen prior to her death. She asked for 3 men to be asked for help but only the 3rd one will help. She was also foretold that she would die albeit that is what is assumed by going to the underworld. In this narrative, she is crucified when she gets down there. She is attacked verbally and with Mick Jagger face prior to being “turned into a corpse and hung on a hook.” This is the most obvious connection to Jesus.
She spends 3 days and nights being dead, then is brought back to life via magic plants and water. She goes on to ascend from the underworld but must provide them with a substitute. Her Husband Tammuz didn’t mourn her death so he was substituted but ultimately was saved.
Matching Jesus To Inanna
Inanna and her Descent were known to the Israelites. They would mourn for Tammuz, Inanna’s sacrificed husband, in the Jewish temples. (Ezekiel 8:14). They also made offerings to Inanna herself:
As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 44:15-26
Not only then, but in the book of Jeremiah they talk about how they would worship Inanna and Tammuz just make other Jews mad:
The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.
Jeremiah 7:18
So to say that the Israelites would have no knowledge of Inanna or her descent would just be lying.
Similarities between Inanna’s Descent and the passion narratives are the 3 days and nights, The persecution, stripping of clothes, death, crucifixion, and resurrection. Of course, Jesus didn’t have to leave a substitute person behind. We would expect the Jews to present a savior that is more powerful than the old Gods. If Jesus was just as powerful, then he’d just be another agricultural God.
Inanna’s treatment on the way to the Underworld, her being stripped of her clothes and killed, matches what happened with Jesus as well. Both Jesus and Inanna predicted what would happen to them. Both were seen by their followers after they ascended.
Conclusion
The Israelites had intimate knowledge of the Inanna myths. They even worshipped them to spite God and faithful Jews. It’s no wonder that they drew up on these already established myths that they once held to concoct a Jewish savior. They just took the skeleton of Inanna’s myth and tweaked it for a Jewish audience.
I will list some of the more noteworthy problems:
First, Ishtar and Inanna are not one-to-one the same deity. Ishtar is a syncretistic conglomeration, including elements of the male deity Attar (this is why Ishtar is depicted in both masculine and feminine ways). So GE’s discussion already is missing a lot of key points and nuance, not that we should be surprised.
Second, he argues that the Israelites were aware of Inanna’s descent. While they were certainly aware of Tammuz’s own demise (Ezekiel 8:14), there is no evidence they were aware of the full legend, and, in fact, later accounts of Tammuz only recognize his own demise, not Inanna/Ishtar’s. Interestingly enough, Tammuz in later writings close to the time of Jesus is equated most closely with Adonis, to which there is no connecting myth of Ishtar nor a resurrection attested in our sources (at best is Lucian’s De Dea Syria, however the language is also consistent with apotheosis, not necessarily resurrection). This is what later Christian church fathers like Jerome and Origen did. GE makes several extrapolations which the texts do not support. He argues for them knowing of Ishtar/Inanna’s descent into the underworld based on a few passages which may or may not mention her, none of which ever mention her descent either (Jeremiah 7:18, 44:15-26; Ezekiel 8:14). In short, GE resorts to pure conjecture. His position is not supported.
Third, there is actually wide debate as to whom we should identify as the Queen of Heaven. In fact, most scholars do NOT identify this as Ishtar in Jeremiah, but as one of the many Canaanite goddesses (or a syncretism of them). M. Dijkstra identifies her as Asherah (not Ishtar), some identify her as Qudshu, some as Anat, some as Astarte, and even Shapshu are all options for this identification. Since numerous ANE goddesses possessed this epithet, GE’s conclusion simply cannot be in any way an articulated fact. Furthermore, none of those passages mention Ishtar’s descent. As such, GE is simply stating things without any understanding of them.
Fourth, Inanna does not rise after three days. It is after three days that mourning rituals begin. Mettinger noted this in his book The Riddle of Resurrection (page 189), noting that there is not a period of “three days between death and resurrection but between the death and the beginning of the mourning rites.” In short, GE has completely misread the text and fabricated a false parallel.
Fifth, Inanna is not crucified. She is transformed into a “corpse” and then hung on a hook, akin to how a butcher hangs meat. The text never mentions her being crucified, nor is there any iconography depicting this of any kind. Furthermore, in the later Akkadian version (see Lapinkivi’s latest edition from Eisenbrauns for more on this) she is not ever hung on a hook either. This means that the versions of the myth closest to Jesus don’t have that element, it was lost or altered. In short, it is not a parallel to Jesus at all.
Sixth, Ishtar/Inanna being stripped of their robes and garments has to do with them being stripped of their power. Jesus’ beatings and assaults and torture (not at all a valid comparison) are actually the exact opposite, since those ascend him to power and achieve ultimate authority. Ishtar/Inanna’s entire goal was to take dominion over the underworld, which failed. Jesus’ was to achieve salvation, which succeeded. In short, it is not a parallel. GE has simply fabricated these things by misreading (something that a basic introductory course on these subjects would have clarified for him). Furthermore, Inanna/Ishtar is not persecuted. Lastly, Jesus would never be “just another agricultural god” as GE states. He has no ties to vegetation fertility or growth, unlike Inanna/Ishtar and her husband Dumuzi/Tammuz.
Conclusions:
GE knows barely anything about these myths, except surface readings and things probably gleaned from the highly doubtful and ill-researched works of Richard Carrier. He clearly has not an understanding of the nuance, nor of anything else regarding these issues.