5. Excuses. Triduum: A Notion of Return after Three Days?

The idea of a three-days span of time between death and return, a triduum, seems to be at hand in Hosea 6:2 in a context where the imagery ultimately draws upon Canaanite ideas of resurrection: “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up.” Apart form Hosea 6:2 one should remember also Jonah 2;1 (Engl. 1:17) where Jonah is in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. I understand the belly of the fish as a metaphor for the Netherworld. The following points should be noted:

(1) Formulations about three days, or the third day, may well be a way of indicating a short period of time. Gradwohl has assembled a number of Hebrew occurrences of this nature, and Barré has called attention to the use of the Akkadian expression in the context of medical prognosis to refer to a quick recovery form illness.

(2) We should note, with Nötscher, that the expression in Inanna’s Descent does not refer to the span of time between death and resurrection but rather to the time that passages before Ninshubur incites Enki to take action. On the other hand, an Emar text seems to refer to death on the first day and resurrection on the fourth day. But this is a text that deals with a different deity, Ninkur, and there is no seasonal connection.

(3) We nowhere hear about a third-day resurrection of Baal. Note, however, that the crucial passage in the Baal myth was damaged, so that we should perhaps not rush to conclusions from silence.

(4) It is possible but not proved that a triduum is referred to in the iconography of the Sidon vase depicting Melqart’s (or Eshmun’s) death and resurrection (see above Chap. III.3).

(5) Hosea speaks of “the third day”, while Jonah refers to “three days and three nights”, thereby hinting at a departure from the belly of the fish on the fourth day? The difference in counting, however, may be due to whether the day of death, or only the of following one, is counted as the first day.

Baudissin juxtaposed the formulation in Hosea 6:2 with similar ideas related to Adonis, Osiris etc. He found it a valid possibility that there was in Phoenicia an idea of a three-day span between death and resurrection. Baudissin refers to the Adonis rituals in De Dea Syria § 6 as a possible case of a three-day cycle. I am prepared to subscribe to this on qualified opinion. He also refers to Osiris in Plutarch, who dies on the 17th of Athyr and is found again on the 19th of the same month. Note, however, that Osiris is hardly a dying and rising deity in the sense in which we use the term in the present investigation. Nevertheless, the probable presence of such a notion of a triduum in Byblos is not void of interest.

The question before us, of whether there was in the ancient Near East a firm notion of a triduum, must finally be left open. We would be wise to admit the possibility that this was the case, but this is still far from being an established fact.