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Cattle are prominent in some religions and mythologies. As such, numerous peoples throughout the world have at one point in time honored as sacred. In the Sumerian religion, Marduk is the "bull of Utu". In Hinduism, Shiva's steed is Nandi bull, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull, whether lunar as in Mesopotamia or solar as in India, is the subject of various other cultural and religion incarnations as well as modern mentions in New Age cultures.
" The human-headed winged bulls protective genies called shedu or lamassu, ... were placed as guardians at certain gates or doorways of the city and the palace. Symbols combining man, bull, and bird, they offered protection against enemies."Castor Marie-José, Department of Near Eastern Antiquities: Mesopotamia, Musée du Louvre
The bull was also associated with the storm and rain god Adad, Hadad or Iškur. The bull was his symbolic animal. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus; the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus; the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Amun. When Enki distributed the destinies, he made Iškur inspector of the cosmos. In one litany, Iškur is proclaimed again and again as " great radiant bull, your name is heaven" and also called son of Anu, lord of Karkara; twin-brother of Enki, lord of abundance, lord who rides the storm, lion of heaven.
The Epic of Gilgamesh depicts the horrors of the rage-fueled deployment of the Bull of Heaven by Ishtar and its slaughter by Gilgamesh and Enkidu as an act of defiance that seals their fates:
Ishtar opened her mouth and said again, "My father, give me the Bull of Heaven to destroy Gilgamesh. Fill Gilgamesh, I say, with arrogance to his destruction; but if you refuse to give me the Bull of Heaven I will break in the doors of hell and smash the bolts; there will be a confusion of people, those above with those from the lower depths. I shall bring up the dead to eat food like the living; and the hosts of the dead will outnumber the living." Anu said to great Ishtar, "If I do what you desire there will be seven years of drought throughout Uruk when corn will be seedless husks. Have you saved grain enough for the people and grass for the cattle?" Ishtar replied "I have saved grain for the people, grass for the cattle."...When Anu heard what Ishtar had said he gave her the Bull of Heaven to lead by the halter down to Uruk. When they reached the gates of Uruk the Bull of Heaven went to the river; with his first snort cracks opened in the earth and a hundred young men fell down to death. With his second snort cracks opened and two hundred fell down to death. With his third snort cracks opened, Enkidu doubled over but instantly recovered, he dodged aside and leapt onto the Bull and seized it by the horns. The Bull of Heaven foamed in his face, it brushed him with the thick of its tail. Enkidu cried to Gilgamesh, "My friend we boasted that we would leave enduring names behind us. Now thrust your sword between the nape and the horns." So Gilgamesh followed the Bull, he seized the thick of its tail, he thrust the sword between the nape and the horns and slew the Bull. When they had killed the Bull of Heaven they cut out its heart and gave it to Shamash, and the brothers rested.Sanders, N.K., trans. The Epic of Gilgamesh 1972. Penguin Classics. pp. 87-88
Ka, in Egyptian, is both a religious concept of life-force/power and the word for bull.
Andrew Gordon, an Egyptologist, and Calvin Schwabe, a veterinarian, argue that the origin of the ankh is related to two other signs of uncertain origin that often appear alongside it: the Was-sceptre, representing "power" or "dominion", and the djed pillar, representing "stability". According to this hypothesis, the form of each sign is drawn from a part of the anatomy of a bull, like some other hieroglyphic signs that are known to be based on body parts of animals. In Egyptian belief semen was connected with life and, to some extent, with "power" or "dominion", and some texts indicate the Egyptians believed semen originated in the bones. Therefore, Calvin and Schwabe suggest the signs are based on parts of the bull's anatomy through which semen was thought to pass: the ankh is a thoracic vertebra, the djed is the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae, and the was is the dried penis of the bull.
The storm god Rudra is called a bull as are the Maruts or storm deities referred to as bulls under the command of Indra, thus Indra is called "bull with bulls." The following excerpts from The Rig Veda demonstrate these attributes:
"As a bull I call to you, the bull with the thunderbolt, with various aids, O Indra, bull with bulls, greatest killer of Vrtra." — Atri and the Last SunNandi later appears in the Puranas as the primary vahana (mount) and the principal gana (follower) of Shiva. Nandi figures depicted as a seated bull are present at Shiva temples throughout the world."He the mighty bull who with his seven reins let loose the seven rivers to flow, who with his thunderbolt in his hand hurled down Ruhina as he was climbing up to the sky, he my people is Indra." — Who is Indra?
"I send praise to the high bull, tawny and white. I bow low to the radiant one. We praise the dreaded name of Rudra." — Rudra, father of the Maruts. The Rig Veda. Wendy Doniger, trans. Penguin Classics. 1981.
Kushan empire (c.30-275 CE) coins and those of the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom (230-365) depict the Iranian god Wēś beside a bull, sometimes holding a trident and beside a Nandipada symbol.Taasob, R. 2020. Representation of Wēś in early Kushan coinage: Royal or local cult? Afghanistan, 3(1): pp. 83-106.
The silver "bull and horseman" Jital of the Kabul or Hindu Shahi (850-1000) depicts a recumbent bull with a trishula on rump and the Nāgarī script legend above: "Sri Samanta Deva (Radiant Samanta the God). This design was copied by later Rajput dynasties including the Tomaras of Delhi, the Chauhan dynasty and the Rathore dynasty on copper and billon (alloy) coins. Coins of India Through the Ages. Government Museum. Madras. 1953.
Upon independence from colonial rule, the bull reappeared in modern coins of the Indian rupee on the reverse of the 2 Anna coin in 1950.
Exodus biblelexicon.org, Exodus 32:4 reads "He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, 'This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt'."
Nehemiah biblelexicon.org, Nehemiah 9:18 reads "even when they made an idol shaped like a calf and said, 'This is your god who brought you out of Egypt!' They committed terrible blasphemies."
Calf-idols are referred to later in the Tanakh, such as in the Book of Hosea, which would seem accurate as they were a fixture of near-eastern cultures.
Solomon's "Molten Sea" basin stood on twelve brazen bulls.
Young bulls were set as frontier markers at Dan and Bethel, the frontiers of the Kingdom of Israel.
Much later, in Abrahamic religions, the bull motif became a bull demon or the "horned devil" in contrast and conflict to earlier traditions. The bull is familiar in Judeo-Christian cultures from the Biblical episode wherein an idolatry of the golden calf () is made by Aaron and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula (Book of Exodus). The text of the Hebrew Bible can be understood to refer to the idol as representing a separate god, or as representing Yahweh himself, perhaps through an association or religious syncretism with Egyptian or bull gods, rather than a new deity in itself.
Dionysus was another god of resurrection who was strongly linked to the bull. In a worship hymn from Olympia, at a festival for Hera, Dionysus is also invited to come as a bull, "with bull-foot raging." "Quite frequently he is portrayed with bull horns, and in Cyzicus he has a tauromorphic image," Walter Burkert relates, and refers also to an archaic myth in which Dionysus is slaughtered as a bull calf and impiously eaten by the Titans.Burkert 1985 pp. 64, 132
For the Greeks, the bull was strongly linked to the Cretan Bull: Theseus of Athens had to capture the ancient sacred bull of Marathon (the "Marathonian bull") before he faced the Minotaur (Greek for "Bull of Minos"), who the Greeks imagined as a man with the head of a bull at the center of the labyrinth. Minotaur was fabled to be born of the Queen and a bull, bringing the king to build the labyrinth to hide his family's shame. Living in solitude made the boy wild and ferocious, unable to be tamed or beaten. Yet Walter Burkert's constant warning is, "It is hazardous to project Greek tradition directly into the Bronze Age."Burkert 1985 p. 24 Only one Minoan image of a bull-headed man has been found, a tiny Minoan sealstone currently held in the Archaeological Museum of Chania.
In the Classical period of Greece, the bull and other animals identified with deities were separated as their agalma, a kind of heraldic show-piece that concretely signified their numinous presence.
Another Roman mystery cult in which a sacrificial bull played a role was that of the 1st–4th century Mithraic Mysteries. In the so-called "tauroctony" artwork of that cult ( cultus), and which appears in all its temples, the god Mithras is seen to slay a sacrificial bull. Although there has been a great deal of speculation on the subject, the myth (i.e. the "mystery", the understanding of which was the basis of the cult) that the scene was intended to represent remains unknown. Because the scene is accompanied by a great number of astrological allusions, the bull is generally assumed to represent the constellation of Taurus. The basic elements of the tauroctony scene were originally associated with Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.
Macrobius lists the bull as an animal sacred to the god Neto/Neito, possibly being sacrifices to the deity.Macrobius, Saturnalia, Book I, XIX
Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, describes a religious ceremony in Gaul in which white-clad climbed a sacred oak, cut down the Viscum album growing on it, sacrificed two white bulls and used the mistletoe to cure infertility:Miranda J. Green. (2005) Exploring the World of the Druids. London: Thames & Hudson. . Page 18–19
Bull sacrifices at the time of the Lughnasa festival were recorded as late as the 18th century at Cois Fharraige in Ireland (where they were offered to Crom Dubh) and at Loch Maree in Scotland (where they were offered to Saint Máel Ruba).MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the Beginning of Harvest. Oxford University Press, 1962. pp.407, 410
In some Christian traditions, Nativity scenes are carved or assembled at Christmas time. Many show a bull or an ox near the baby Jesus, lying in a manger. Traditional songs of Christmas often tell of the bull and the donkey warming the infant with their breath. This refers (or, at least, is referred) to the beginning of the book of the prophet Isaiah, where he says: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib." (Isaiah 1:3)
Oxen are some of the animal sacrifice by Greek Orthodox believers in some villages of Greece. It is specially associated to the feast of Saint Charalambos. This practice of kourbania has been repeatedly criticized by church authorities.
The ox is the symbol of Luke the Evangelist.
Among the Visigoths, the oxen pulling the wagon with the corpse of Saint Emilian lead to the correct burial site (San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja).
Taurus (Latin for "the Bull") is one of the of the zodiac, which means it is crossed by the plane of the ecliptic. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere's winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to at least the Early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
In his book 'Robin Hood: Green Lord of the Wildwood' (2016), John Matthews interprets the scene from the ballad in which Sir Richard-at-Lee awards, for the love of Robin Hood, a prize of a white bull to the winner of a wrestling match as seeming 'to hark back to an ancient time when the presentation of such a valuable, and probably sacred beast, would have represented an offering to the gods'. For Matthews, the Bull-running at Tutbury, mentioned in another Robin Hood ballad, may have had similar significance.
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