Talk:Hierodule

RE the dispute -- The obvious etymology of the word, and dictionaries like American Heritage, say that "hierodule" means nothing more than "temple slave."

Yep... I was about to raise the problem myself. technically a hieros doulos or "sacred slave" is no more than a slave that is the property of a temple.

To boot, The Mesopotamian priestesses of Inanna, and later Ishtar were definitely Not of servile status. especially not the High Priestess who performed the annual rite of hieros gamos with the king. Of course, there might have been female temple slaves raising revenue by working as temple prostitutes... but all of this is purely conjectural, as no reliable sources on the matter exist ... --Svartalf 02:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not see that the external link to Temple Zagduku serves any purpose here, or adds any information relevant to this subject.Babel2675 15:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

On "Hierodule" the word, there is the etymology/origin of the word itself, and its definition, and then the argument over the definition. it is infinitely more useful that it be here separately, as a word, than having to hunt for it in the larger realm of "religious prostitution," a complex and multilayered subject which ranges far beyond the Hierodules of Sumeria, or the modern day, especially if one is trying to meet a deadline for a paper. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucretius23 (talk • contribs) 18:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that it may stay as it is, separate article. to merge hierodule with religous prostitution does not seem to be of value as this office only included sexual rites in Asia, while in Greece did not, and Venus of Sicily required them to be celibate (based on the Russian version of the article that in turn bases on Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary that is most often consistent when pronouncing facts related to Classical Antiquity Tar-ba-gan (talk) 16:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Unreliable: delete!
Based on the above discussion, and that the article contradicts information in the article Nadītu, I think there is no good reason why the current article deserves survival. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 18:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Redirection
The article as it stands is next to useless. However, there COULD be a well-researched article on this page which may not need to be merged into Sacred prostitution. Look at the Dutch article, for example... Moogsi (talk) 00:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)