The myth of our descent from the Greeks satisfied that need.
(Origen, Commentary on John 2.12.87) Fragments 2 and 3, giving accounts of Jesus' baptism and temptation or transfiguration, spring from the widespread Greco-Roman myth of the descent of divine Wisdom; this underlies the parallel passages in the gospels of Matthew (11.25 30), Luke (7.18 35 and 11.49 51) and John (1.1 18), as well as the Gospel of Thomas.
Those include shared historical experiences and memories, myths of common descent, a common culture and ethnicity, and a link with a historic territory or a homeland, which the group may or may not currently inhabit.
Fairly close to Sumerian prototypes is an Akkadian version of the myth of "Inanna's Descent".
A closely similar tale forms the second half of the Sumerian myth "The Descent of Inanna," in which Inanna (Akkadian: Ishtar) sends Tammuz as her substitute to the netherworld.
Thus, the article highlights the historicity of traditional means of relating to the past, highlighting the often bitter and divisive politics of traditional ritual, myth, kinship, descent and 'being first'.
In traditions concerning animals and plants, relations of descent are most prominent in myths of the origin of man and in totemic (animal-clan relational) materials.
In a myth called "The Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld," the fertility goddess decides to visit kur-nu-gi-a ("the land of no return"), where the dead "live in darkness, eat clay, and are clothed like birds with wings".
Only the speed of descent would differ.
A persistent myth tells of their descent from members of an errant division of Alexander the Great's army, which ripped through the mountains of northern Pakistan more than 2,000 years ago.
He called it the "Myth of the Night Sea Journey," with the hero undergoing a descent into darkness or temporary death.
