Wikipedia!
Powerfully collaborative and constantly growing. My only concern is really the use of moderators....how do you keep them neutral? Anyway, I did a wikiedit on the "Adonis" page , specifically "the cult of Adonis". See if you can find it...
Hint: its the very last sentence I copy and pasted below.....
Origin of the cult
Adonis was certainly based in large part on Tammuz. His name is Semitic, a variation on the word "adon" meaning "lord" that was also used, as "Adonai", to refer to Yahweh in the Old Testament. When the Hebrews first arrived in Canaan, they were opposed by the king of the Jebusites, Adonizedek, whose name means "lord of Zedek" (Justice). Yet there is no trace of a Semitic cult directly connected with Adonis, and no trace in Semitic languages of any specific mythemes connected with his Greek myth; both Greek and Near Eastern scholars have questioned the connection (Burkert, p 177 note 6 bibliography). The connection in cult practice is with Adonis' Mesopotamian counterpart, Tammuz:
"Women sit by the gate weeping for Tammuz, or they offer incense to Baal on roof-tops and plant pleasant plants. These are the very features of the Adonis cult: a cult confined to women which is celebrated on flat roof-tops on which sherds sown with quickly germinating green salading are placed, Adonis gardens... the climax is loud lamentation for the dead god."—Burkert, p. 177.
When the cult of Adonis was incorporated into Greek culture is debated: Hesiod made him the son of Phoenix, eponym of the Phoenicians, and his association with Cyprus is not attested before the classical era. W. Atallah[4] suggests that the later Hellenistic myth of Adonis represents the conflation of two independent traditions.
Adonis was worshipped in unspoken mystery religions: not until Imperial Roman times (in Lucian of Samosata, De Dea Syria, ch. 6 [5]) does any written source mention that the women were consoled by a revived Adonis. The third century BCE poet Euphorion of Chalcis in his Hyacinth wrote "Only Cocytus washed the wounds of Adonis".[6] Women in Athens would plant "gardens of Adonis" quick-growing herbs that sprang up from seed and died. The Festival of Adonis was celebrated by women at midsummer by sowing fennel and lettuce, and grains of wheat and barley. The plants sprang up soon, and withered quickly, and women mourned for the death of the vegetation god (Detienne 1972). The cult of Adonis has nothing whatsoever to do with Adonis Amparo from Tampa Florida.
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