1. Gabriel Hartley • Ohio University
Song of Songs
Gabriel Hartley • Ohio University

2. Sacred Sexuality & Fertility Gods

3. Ishtar
Ishtar is the East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex.
Sumerian Inanna
Northwest Semitic Aramean goddess Astarte/Ashtoreth
Egyptian Isis
Greek Aphrodite
Roman Venus
Ishtar Wikipedia

4. Ishtar - Easter
Ishtar
Astarte
Ostara
Esther
Easter

5. Divine Lovers Ishtar & Tammuz • Tammuz Wikipedia Shiva & Shakti
Isis & Osiris
Orpheus & Eurydice
Diana & Artemis

6. Dionysian Mystery Cults
The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly.

7. Descent Into the Underworld
Katabasis • Sheol • Hades • Hell
The descent to the underworld is a mytheme of comparative mythology found in a diverse number of religions from around the world. The hero or upper-world deity journeys to the underworld or to the land of the dead and returns, often with a quest-object or a loved one, or with heightened knowledge. A deity who returns from the underworld demonstrates eschatological themes such as the cyclical nature of time and existence, or the defeat of death and the possibility of immortality.

8. Solomon the Lover
1King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter--Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.
2They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
3He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
4As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites.

9. Solomon & Naamah (mother of Rehoboam)

10. Solomon & the Queen of Sheba

11. Wikipedia Links Song of Songs Ishtar Tammuz Solomon Queen of Sheba
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