Tammuz (Heb. Tammûz, perhaps “son of life” or “ardor”; Bab. Dumuzi, Duzûzu and Dûzu). 1. God of Sumerian origin whose cult spread throughout the ancient world. He was the god of pastures and flocks, the heavenly shepherd who died annually and was resurrected to new life each year when Ishtar, his wife and sister, descended to the underworld and resurrected him. The festival of Tammuz was one of the most celebrated among the ancient Semites. In the days of Ezekiel, the cult of Tammuz had penetrated into Judah, and some Hebrew women wept for this god at the doors of the temple (Eze 8:14); from this it is deduced that they carried out the religious rites related to his annual death. The myth of Tammuz and Ishtar, described in many Babylonian texts and sung in numerous hymns, passed to the Phoenicians as the cult of Adonis, and from there to Greece and Rome, where it was expressed in the form of the myth of Venus and Adonis. 2. Name of the 4th Babylonian month. After the exile, when the Jews adopted the Babylonian names of the months, it also became the name of the 4th month of the Jewish religious calendar; it is not mentioned in the Bible. It began with the new moon in June or July. See Year; Nisan.
Source: Evangelical Bible Dictionary
Fertility god widely worshiped in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine; equivalent to Osiris in Egypt and Adonis of the Greeks. His consort was the goddess Istar (Astarte). His worship involved licentious rites. Tammuz was supposed to have been killed by a boar while he was herding his herds. His wife rescued him from hell. His death represented the beginning of winter.
The long dry season was broken by the spring rains when Tammuz came back to life. The fourth month of the Babylonian and later Jewish calendar was named after him (June-July). The only mention of Tammuz in the Bible appears in connection with the custom of women mourning him (Eze 8:14). The name of him gr. Of him, Adonis, derives from the Phoenician and Hebrew word used for Lord.
Source: Hispanic World Bible Dictionary
Syrian deity, but of Chaldean origin. In a famous Babylonian poem she was identified with a handsome shepherd boy who was torn to pieces by a boar. The goddess Istar, in love with him, went down to look for him in hell and resurrected him. This poem was recited in the fourth month of the Babylonian year, for which the Jews exiled there came to name that month as T., something that still lasts. The cult of T. was done through periods of lamentations alternated with parties to signify the cycle of renewal of nature. The custom was assimilated by the population in Jerusalem, since Ezekiel saw at the door of the †¢temple †œwomen who were sitting there mourning T.† (Eze 8:14). These rites passed from the Phoenicians to the Greeks, who gave T. the name of Adonis.
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
tip, GOD AGRI CALE
see, TIME, PAGAN DIVINITIES
vet, Babylonian Divinity. The ancient oral traditions about Tammuz were recorded in Sumerian. He was worshiped in Babylon, Assyria, Phenicia, and Palestine. His name came to be that of the fourth month of the Semitic year (see TIME). He was considered the protector of agriculture and herds. Tammuz was represented as dying each year, reborn to life in the spring, during the floods that revived the vegetation. The prophet Ezekiel had a vision about the Jews who practiced the cult of Tammuz: some women, sitting at the northern door of the Temple, wept for the death of this god (Ez. 8:14). Cyril of Alexandria and Jerome assimilated Tammuz to the Phoenician and Syrian Adonis. In June, a hot season that dries up the crops, the women mourned the disappearance of Adonis, and launched themselves in search of him. This cult involved immoral rites. (See PAGAN DIVINITIES, b.)
Source: New Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Deity whose cult was characterized by offerings and ritual lamentations. In a vision Ezekiel saw women sitting at the north gate of the *temple in Jerusalem weeping and lamenting Tammuz (8.14). The cult of Tammuz is little known and it is not at all certain that the death of this god was mourned in the 4th month of the * Babylonian calendar that bore his name.
Tammuz was an antediluvian Sumerian shepherd and ruler who married the goddess *Ishtar. When she died, she followed him to the nether world to try to free her, and all fertility on earth ceased. At one time it was thought that the death and resurrection of Tammuz were reflected in the disappearance of the vegetation in June and its reappearance the following spring.
However, it now seems more likely from the textual evidence that he died never to be resurrected (JSS 7, 1962, pp. 153), or if he did so it was for no more than half a year when his place in the nether world was taken by the goddess Gestinanna (BASOR 183, 1966, pp. 31), or was merely a spirit who appeared with others for the funerary offerings prepared for him (JSS 11, 1966, pp. 10–15). Babylonian sources provide hymns and lamentations dedicated to this god but little in the way of worship. Tammuz seems to have had devotees in Air and in Arad (BASOR 208, 1970, pp. 9–13) and later in *Phoenicia and Syria, where a similar legend is told about Adonis (identified in *Egypt with Osiris) and Aphrodite, whose temple at Byblos (Gebal) was the center of worship in Hellenistic times.
Bibliography. MT Jacobsen in WL Moran (eds.), Towards the Image of Tammuz, 1970, pp. 73–103; B. Alster, Dumuzi’s Dream, 1972, pp. 9–15; ANET, 1969, pp. 637–642.
DJW
Douglas, J. (2000). New Biblical Dictionary: First Edition. Miami: United Bible Societies.
Source: New Bible Dictionary