Doina

I'm sort of changing topics here (because it is easier for me to reply than to actually start a new thread--very newbie on technical aspects).
In any case, my reason for posting here is because I am looking at the relationship between Indo-European myths (my particular interest), and possible parallels in Semitic or other languages.

But before I change the subject, you might be interested in a whole discussion of Romulus and Remus and their position as founders of Rome, and the relation to Indo-European creation myths, here:
yama_an_indoeuropean_god_from_a_linguistic perspective
[link removed by system]

Personally, I do not feel that this myth, nor its corresponding gods parallel Jesus at all well.

But what I wanted to ask about is this issue in which the same myth appears in Ugaritic sources, and then is apparently picked up in the Psalm 74. I wrote
the whole set of texts here:
the_creation_myth_of_the_indoeuropeans
[link removed by system]

It's very long so I'm not going to copy it in here, but in short, Yama is a being found throughout IE myth who is the first to die, and is slaughtered and dismembered by his brother Manu, the first man, and then from his body the world is made. This myth is reconstructable for the Indo-European languages. However, the form in which it appears in Ugaritic is assumed to be a story in which Baal or Mot kills Yam in attempt to overwhelm or kill the sea because Yam does indeed mean sea or lake in the relevant Semitic languages. (The creature that dies has the same name Yam, or Yama, with cognates in various IE languages, whereas the beings that kill him seem to be quite interchangeable; it might be Ashur or Marduk killing Tiamat in Babylonian, etc.) But the translation in Ugaritic, which I quoted seems to describe the slaughter of a cow, although the translator, Gibson doesn't say so. My question is, has anyone else heard this sort of analysis before in the literature? I am not at all familiar with Semitic languages nor with the publications about them so I wondered if this were old hat.

Thanks, if anyone knows any more about it.

Toto

The missing links may be:

yama an indoeuropean god from a linguistic perspective

and
The Creation Myth of the Europeans

lpetrich

Wikipedia has a nice collection of stuff on Proto-Indo-European religion

From several sources, one can reconstruct an Indo-European creation myth.

There were once two brothers, Man and Twin (Manu and Yemos). Man sacrificed Twin, dismembered, him, and created the familiar Universe from his body parts.

Parts of it may be familiar in the form of the story of Ymir, whom Odin, Vili, and Ve had killed, dismembered, and built the familiar Universe out of.

There are other such mythological stories, like some Vedic and Avestan ones, and a rather curious revision from ancient Rome. That creation story got reinterpreted as the creation story of Rome, and those two twins became Romulus and Remus. Romulus here likely means "the Roman", and Remus is likely an alliterated version of *Iemus, the likely original of his name.

-

Another common Indo-European mythological motif is a god or a hero killing a villainous snake or dragon. Some of that may have diffused into the Middle East, where we find Baal killing Lotan and Marduk killing Tiamat. Marduk even dismembers Tiamat in Ymir fashion and builds a universe out of Tiamat's parts.

Doina

**while that is true, the argument about the IE creation myth has mostly been mangled on Wik, by xian religionists (or honestly very psychotic people--good luck making any sense out of the link to the "wheel, the thunder god ..." and whatever other nonsense they have posted on there).

**while there are many mythological stories in which heroes kill dragons, the generalized one which has been attributed to the Indo-European languages is actually an element of christian doctrine, that 1) all myths are variations on christian myths in which the xian god will overcome satan (in the form of a snake), and 2) all pagan myths are actually variations on xian myths and even when they were written before the invention of xianity, they are only tricks of satan to confuse the faithful. Real Indo-European mythology is much more interesting than that.

**In any case, my question (and I won't belabor it) is, had anyone else noticed this particular borrowing of an IE god and his associated myth into Ugaritic, and then apparently Hebrew?

Doina

lpetrich

Do you have any better accounts that I can work from?

What gives you that idea? There are several stories of draconicidal heroes that are much older than Xianity. In fact, St. George is likely a Xian version of a pagan dragon-killer.

Doina

**why, yes I do. I'll get back to you on that in a day or so, though. I just reread the wiki page. It has been thoroughly mangled to obscure the fact that the IE myth always includes a cow somewhere, occassionally nearby as in the Ymir story (where her name is Audhumla), but usually the form of Yama is a cow/bovine. The names of Romulus and Remus may be related to the form ruminant, cow. There are other possible interpretations.

**I am trying to scrounge up a picture of the original St. George, I'll let you know when I get it uploaded. Most of the supposed dragon killings are of something more like a weather phenomenon, e.g. Perkuna melts the icy rivers, causing flooding. Apollo does actually kill Python, so that might be an exception, but this has been interpreted as the ending of a drought. The two things are not necessarily in conflict, most IE myths have multiple layers in which celestial things are personified as humans/gods, so that they work on several levels. I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself because most of this hasn't been published anywhere.

Doina

Doina

(I have deleted so much of the message, I'm not sure now what you were asking.) For a better creation myth description see:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...ns.html?cat=37


I have finally managed to scrounge up a picture of one of the typical Roman army monuments in which a Roman soldier on horse back is shown trampling a barbarian. It's in the public domain, so I could post it on the Pagan Saints article.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...an_saints.html
I think I can find one of a Roman soldier trampling a Dacian dragon standard, but they probably are not in the public domain so I'm not sure how I can show them to you.

Doina

mountainman

In fact, there is at least one account which states Constantine used the emblem of himself stepping upon a dragon (for example)