From ancient byways to modern highways, glimpses of faith are everywhere...

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

'Adonis' lives on



Venus and Adonis  (Painting by Francois Lemoyne)
The name "Adonis" is ironically related to the Hebrew word “Adonai,” which is one of the names for the Supreme Deity of the Hebrew Bible.

This is ironic because Adonis was "originally a Phoenician god of fertility representing the spirit of vegetation.”  He might have also been directly associated with the worship of Ba’al.  Torah adherents would therefore have scorned him as a lesser god.

The Ancient Greeks added quite a bit of their own mythology to the Adonis story.  They had explained that Adonis was physically beautiful, to such an extent that both Aphrodite (Venus) and Persephone fell in love with him.  He was later killed by a wild boar, perhaps sent by Aphrodite’s jealous lover Ares.

Nevertheless, the legacy of Adonis continues.  A research team was recently able to determine that “a Bosnian pine located in northern Greece” is a whopping 1,075 years old (at least!).  This youthful tree has been dubbed “Adonis” because of its ongoing beauty and fertility.

Resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/08/19/Researchers-identify-oldest-living-organism-in-Europe/3911471622979/

Copyright August 23, 2016 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved


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