The Dying and Rising God archetype represents one of the most powerful symbolic patterns in mythology: deities who experience death and return to life, embodying the eternal cycle of death and rebirth that governs nature and existence.
This pattern appears in figures like Osiris, who is murdered and resurrected to rule the underworld; Persephone, who descends to Hades and returns each spring; Dionysus, torn apart and reborn; Tammuz and Adonis, whose deaths bring winter and whose resurrections herald spring; and Baldr, whose death precipitates Ragnarok. These myths connect divine experience to agricultural cycles, seasonal changes, vegetation renewal, and the human hope for life beyond death. They transform the fear of mortality into a promise of transformation and continuity.