Information AboutDagon |
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| deities in the hebrew bible | |
| west semitic gods | |
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THE ANCIENT GOD DAGON Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god, reportedly a god of grain and agriculture, worshipped by the early Amorites , by the people of Ebla and Ugarit , and a major god, perhaps the chief god, of the Biblical Philistine s, Demon ized by Christians. His name appears in Hebrew as דגון (in Modern Transcription '''Dagon''', Tiberian Hebrew '''Dāḡ?n'''), in Ugaritic as '''dgn''' (probably vocalized as ''Dagnu''), and in Akkadian as '''Dagana''', '''Daguna''' usually rendered in English translations as '''Dagan'''. Etymology In Ugaritic, the word ''dgn'' also means ''grain''. Similarly, in Hebrew ''dāgān'', Samaritan ''dīgan'', is an archaic word for ''grain'', perhaps related to Middle Hebrew and Jewish Arotrios." The word ''Arotrios'' means "ploughman", "pertaining to agriculture". Another theory relating the name to Hebrew ''dāg''/''d?g'', ''fish'', is discussed in a later section of this article called Fish-god tradition. Non-Biblical sources The god Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BCE in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the gods Ilu ( Ēl ), Dagan, and Adad are especially common. At comprising some 200 deities and bore the titles ''BE-DINGIR-DINGIR'', "Lord of the gods" and ''Bekalam'', "Lord of the land". His consort was known only as Belatu, "Lady". Both were worshipped in a large temple complex called E-Mul, "House of the Star". One entire quarter of Ebla and one of its gates were named after Dagan. Dagan is called ''ti-lu ma-tim'', "dew of the land" and ''Be-ka-na-na'', possibly "Lord of Canaan ". He was called lord of many cities: of Tuttul, Irim, Ma-Ne, Zarad, Uguash, Siwad, and Sipishu. An interesting early reference to Dagan occurs in a letter to King Zimri-Lim of Mari, 18th Century BCE , written by Itur-Asduu an official in the court of Mari and governor of Nahur (the Biblical city of Nahor) (''ANET'', p. 623). It relates a dream of a "man from Shaka" in which Dagan appeared. In the dream, Dagan blamed Zimri-Lim's failure to subdue the King of the Yaminites upon Zimri-Lim's failure to bring a report of his deeds to Dagan in Terqa. Dagan promises that when Zimri-Lim has done so: "I will have the kings of the Yaminites {Link without Title} ked'' on a fisherman's ''spit'', and I will lay them before you." In Ugarit around 1300 BCE , Dagon had a large temple and was listed third in the pantheon following a father-god and Ēl, and preceding Baīl Ṣapān (that is the god Haddu or Hadad /Adad). But in the Ugaritic mythological texts, Dagon is mentioned solely in passing as the father of the god Hadad. According to Sanchuniathon, Dagon, the brother of Ēl/ Cronus and like him son of Sky/ Uranus and Earth, was not truly Hadad's father. Hadad was begotten by "Sky" on a concubine before Sky was castrated by his son Ēl, whereupon the pregnant concubine was given to Dagon. Accordingly, Dagon in this version is Hadad's half-brother and stepfather. Otherwise Dagon has practically no surviving mythology. Dagan is mentioned occasionally in early of Ashurnasirpal II (''ANET'', p. 558) refers to Ashurnasirpal as the favorite of Anu and of Dagan. In an Assyrian poem, Dagan appears beside Nergal and Misharu as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the Underworld prison warder of the seven children of the god Emmesharra. The Phoenician inscription on the sarcophagus of King Eshmunʿazar of , the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon , in accordance with the important deeds which I did." ''Dagan'' was sometimes used in royal names. Two kings of the Dynasty of Isin were Iddin-Dagan (c. 1974–1954 BCE) and Ishme-Dagan (c. 1953–1935 BCE). The latter name was later used by two Assyrian kings: Ishme-Dagan I (c. 1782–1742 BCE) and Ishme-Dagan II (c. 1610–1594 BCE). Dagon in Biblical texts and commentaries In the Tanakh , Dagon is particularly the god of the Philistine s with temples at Beth-dagon in the Tribe Of Asher ( Joshua 19.27), in Gaza ( Judges 16.23, which tells soon after how the temple is destroyed by Samson as his last act). Another temple was in Ashdod ( 1 Samuel 5.2–7, 1 Maccabees 10.83;11.4). There was also a second place known as Beth-Dagon in the Judah (Joshua 15.41). Josephus (''Antiquities'' 12.8.1; ''War'' 1.2.3) mentions a place named Dagon above Jericho . Jerome mentions Caferdago between Diospolis and Jamnia. There is also a modern Beit Dejan south-east of Nablus . Some of these names may have to do with grain rather than the god. The account in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 relates how the Ark of Yahweh is captured by the Philistines and taken to Dagon's temple in Ashdod. The following morning they found the image of Dagon lying prostrate before the ark. They set the image upright, but again on the morning of the following day they found it prostrate before the ark, but this time with head and hands severed, lying on the ''miptān'' translated as "threshold" or "podium". The account continues with the puzzling words ''raq dāg?n nišʾar ʿālāyw'', which means literally "only Dagon was left to him." (The Septuagint , Peshitta , and Targum s render "Dagon" here as "trunk of Dagon" or "body of Dagon", presumably referring to the lower part of his image.) Thereafter we are told that neither the priests or anyone ever steps on the ''miptān'' of Dagon in Ashdod "unto this day". Marnas Marcus Diaconus, in the Life of Porphyry Of Gaza , writes of the great god of Gaza, then known as Marnas ( Aramaic ''Marnā'' the " Lord"), who was regarded as the god of rain and grain and invoked against famine. He was identified at Gaza with Cretan Zeus, ''Zeus Kr?tagen?s'' . It's likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon. His temple, the Marneion, was Burned By Order Of The Roman Emperor in 402, the last surviving great cult center of paganism. Fish-god tradition Rashi records a tradition that the name ''Dāg?n'' is related to Hebrew ''dāg''/''d?g'' 'fish' and that Dagon was imagined in the shape of a fish. David Kimchi ( 13th Century ) interpreted the odd sentence that only Dagon was left to him to mean "only the form of a fish was left", adding: "It is said that Dagon, from his navel down, had the form of a fish (whence his name, Dagon), and from his navel up, the form of a man, as it is said, his two hands were cut off." John Milton uses this tradition in his '' Paradise Lost '' Book 1: ... Next came one Various 19th century scholars, such as Julius Wellhausen and William Robertson Smith , believed this tradition to have been validated from the occasional occurrence of a merman motif found in Assyrian and Phoenician art, including coins from Ashdod and Arvad. Dagon is sometimes identified with Matsya , the fish avatar of Krishna . A statue in Keshava Temple in Somnathpur , India depicts this. References and external links
Some parts of the above derive from the 1911 ''Encyclop?dia Britannica''. DAGON IN FICTION Dagon appears in Milton's epic poem '' Samson Agonistes '' as one of the deities the Philistines worship. Dagon has also been used as a figure in the fictional Cthulhu Mythos , one of the hidden powers known as the Great Old Ones . The traditional fishy Dagon seems to have inspired H. P. Lovecraft in creating his story " Dagon ", first published in 1919. The story of a victim of a World War I German Merchant Raider attack is cast up on a mysterious land mass, seemingly emerged from the bottom of the ocean, where he finds first inhuman ruins and then a gigantic humanoid sea monster: :Vast, Polyphemus -like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds. On his escape to civilization, he inquires about the connection between this creature and the historical Dagon: :Once I sought out a celebrated ethnologist, and amused him with peculiar questions regarding the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon, the Fish-God; but soon perceiving that he was hopelessly conventional, I did not press my inquiries. A reference to Dagon appears again in Lovecraft's " The Shadow Over Innsmouth " (1936), one of Lovecraft's best-known stories. The tale concerns a Massachusetts town that has been taken over by the Deep Ones , a race of water-breathing humanoids. A center of the Deep Ones' power in Innsmouth is the Esoteric Order of Dagon, ostensibly a Masonic -style fraternal order. Other Cthulhu Mythos stories refer to the creature as Father Dagon, depicting him as having a similar being, Mother Hydra , as a mate. In '' The Horror At Martin's Beach '', a short story by Lovecraft and Sonia Greene, a creature very much like Dagon appears. It is monstrously large, one-eyed, scaly-limbed, fishlike, and has a subtle connection with the moon, just as Dagon does, but is an infant: :It was unmistakably a gilled fish in its major affiliations; but with certain curious modifications such as rudimentary forelegs and six-toed feet in place of pectoral fins, which prompted the widest speculation. Its extraordinary mouth, its thick and scaly hide, and its single, deep-set eye were wonders scarcely less remarkable than its colossal dimensions; and when the naturalists pronounced it an infant organism, which could not have been hatched more than a few days, public interest mounted to extraordinary heights. Fred Chappell , considered a literary writer, wrote a novel called ''Dagon'', which attempted to tell a Cthulhu Mythos story as a psychologically realistic Southern Gothic Novel . The novel was awarded the Best Foreign Novel Prize by the French Academy in 1972. In Terry Pratchett 's Discworld series, a recurring joke involves an allusion to the vague but unpleasant fate of a "Mr. Hong", who "opened The Three Jolly Luck Takeaway Fish Bar on the site of an old temple to a fish god on Dagon Street at the time of the full moon." Director Stuart Gordon and screenwriter Dennis Paoli, who worked together on '' Re-Animator ,'' made a movie called ''Dagon'' in 2001. Though the film credits both Lovecraft's "Dagon" and his "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," much more of the plot is (loosely) adapted from the latter story. In the movie '' Blade Trinity '', the third of a trilogy of vampire films, a character asserts that Dracula was once known as Dagon. In the White Wolf RPG game, Demon The Fallen , Dagon is depicted as an Earthbound obsessed with transforming all of humanity into soulless, mindless clockwork beings, an ambition similar to that of the Technocracy (World Of Darkness) . In Mahou Sentai Magiranger , Dagon is the name of the Creature From the Black Lagoon-based leader of the Infershia Pantheon Gods. Lord Dagon also appears in The Elder Scrolls RPG game series. In Buffy The Vampire Slayer the Sphere of Dagon was an orb that weakened the god, Glory. In The Elder Scrolls series, a Daedric Prince is named "Mehrunes Dagon" although it bears little resemblance to the traditional or Lovecraftian Dagon. EXTERNAL LINKS
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