Ishtar
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian version of the fertility goddess, sharing local goddess space with the Summerian Innanna, and semitic goddess Astarte (Ashtoret in Hebrew). Though each goddess had local flair, they largely reflected a similar view of the goddess and even shared many specific myths of her doings.[citation needed] In addition to her role as a fertility goddess, she was also the war goddess.
Innana, was both the most powerful woman in Sumerian religion and also unwed. She was at times considered more powerful than the most powerful god; Enki. Her rituals consisted of the cross-dressing of cult personnel, rituals "imbued with pain and ecstasy, bringing about initiation and journeys of altered consciousness; punishment, moaning, ecstasy, lament and song, and participants exhausting themselves with weeping and grief." [1]
Ishtar was often honored in the form of sacred prostitution,[2] and widely derided in the Bible as a pagan icon.
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[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Nomis, Anne O (2013) "Dominatrix Rituals of Gender, Transformation, Ecstasy and Pain" in "The History & Arts of the Dominatrix" p.59-60
- ↑ McCarthy & Healey Biblical & Near Eastern Essays