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Old 09-10-2016, 12:41 PM   #27
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: Moon Priests/Priestesses

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
Indeed, from what I can tell in my own research, the Greco-Roman "Sun God/Moon Goddess" is an aberration among Indo-European and Semitic mythologies, likely due to Egyptian influence. In almost all other Indo-European mythologies, the sun has a feminine aspect and the moon a male aspect (like the Norse goddess Sol and god Mani, as a better-known example).
On the other hand, the Vedic sun god Surya has to be one of the older actually attested forms. In those texts both gods seem to be male. Gods actually change name and gender and portfolio and relationship through time in ways that seem baffling to modern Westerners - "wait, the son of the Sun god this cult statue is of to was the sister of the Sun god in the dedication inscription of the shrine it is in?"

Incidentally one weird connection I found paging through a list of lunar and solar deities is that in addition being the Semitic moon god, the name Sin(a) is used for several Polynesian moon goddesses and spirits (possibly from a root meaning something like silver haired), see for example the Samoan myth on the origin of coconuts Sina and the Eel.
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