If we view mythology as reflecting psychological archetypes, then I think the main difference between Greek and Hebrew mythology was that the Greeks defined the human mind by viewing it from the top-down, while the Hebrews viewed it from the bottom up.
This is evident in how the Greek’s viewed the universe as originating out of “chaos”, while the Hebrews viewed the universe as originating out of a “void”.
Hence, why Greek mythology introduces us to an entire pantheon of gods, giving the mythology a whole spectrum of flavor; while Hebrew mythology introduces us to thee God, and an “order of angels” take the place of a “pantheon of gods”.
I take it you refer to the Christian version of Judaism, where the 10 Gods which appear throughout the Torah are translated to have the same name.
Judaeism proper works with a set of deities similar to those of Greek/Roman mythology. They’ve been linked by later theologicians, as follows:
Eheieh Asher Eheieh = Zeus the all begetter
JHWH = Uranus, the expanse of heaven, Space
Elohim = Kronos, Time
El = Zeus the Father
Elohim Gibor = Ares, god of war
Yehovah Aloah va Daath = Apollo, Sungod, representing light of reason and structure
Yehovah Tsevaoth = Venus
Elohim Tsevaoth = Mercury
Shaddai El Chai = Moon, Artemis
Adonai Malekh = Earth, Demeter/Persephone
Imperfect linkage, but very similar nontheless. Both worked with ‘archetypes of nature.’ the Judaeic Void you speak of is divided into three layers of ‘negative existence’ in order to somehow arrive at something from nothing through a weird kind of logic. It’s true the Greeks never attempted such a thing.
Zeus is also ‘thee God’, by the way, regardless of being surrounded by family members.
Your answer begs the question: just how much do you know of Judaeism?
I have had no hand in these associations, and if you’re genuinely interested in the topic you’ve made these claims about, you’ll be perfectly able to find dozens if not hundreds of sources telling you the same thing.
I googled “ten hebrew gods” and “ten gods in Judeism” and found literally nothing about the associations you made. Just some sites giving the different names for Judaism’s “One God”.
So are you one of those people who thinks “all religions are built from the same concepts”?
Jungian Psychology suggested “Archetypes” as an explanation for the phenomenon - not as a theory that “all religions are fundamentally the same”.
Even as different cultures developed seperate of each other, they still approached the same types of problems and scenarios -resulting in similarities between their culture and religions.
Perhaps you are one of those people who thinks Judaism took its concepts from other religions, probably to satisfy some unrelated desire of yours to view contemporary Judeo-Christian society as inferior.
Who gives a shit if you were left out by your peers when you were a kid? Don’t try to form our perspective of history around your personal problems.
The connections you made between the two mythologies are grotesquely vague and non sequitur. They are ridiculous. And any legitimate scholar or historian supporting those connections is ridiculous too.
Furthermore, nothing in my original post provoked or even inclined such an arbitrary comparison between mythologies, especially given that the name of the topic is “Contrasting Greek and Hebrew Mythology”.
Now I want you to reply in complete denial of how accurate everything I’ve just said is – I want you to get it out of your system and leave it out of your system, so afterwards you may actually start contributing relavant information to the topic.
“Chaos” only came to be associated with “void and empty” after centuries of being translated and misinterpretted by predominantly Judeo-Christian individuals.
It is much more likely that Nyx and Erebus were the gods that were meant to represent “void and vast emptiness, nothingness” - which formed as an extension of chaos; they were not chaos itself.
The earliest Ancient Greek descriptions of Chaos depict it in the proper sense - a primordial state of existence that was random, unpredictable, and undefinable in all aspects.
The evidence that Judaism shared very many basic narrative concepts with neighbouring religions, and was significantly influenced by contemporary neighbours like Hellenism, Gnosticism and Zoroastrianism is pretty substantial. Likewise with Christianity, it’s hard not to see that as being Hellenised or see the change in the relationship with Lucifer as reflecting some aspects of Zoroastrianism. I don’t see any call for ridiculing that stance; it’s the opposite position that has the burden of proof, really. Do you hold that it sprang up unique and apart from the surrounding cultures, or that it is revealed truth?
Never mind, Humean - this is Peachys personal suburbian amphetamine chant. He comes here to unload his toxants.
Peach - when youre done quivering around in your drool and get yourself together for a moment, why dont you try googling the terms Ive written down for you, before you sink into another round of spasms? I know its an avanced tip… but have all the hope in the world that you can pull it off.
Then again Ive always been a bit on the optimistic side toward puberescent psychotics, even while theyre dropping from the thirteenth floor in blabbering bunches, I trust they have a bright future ahead of them. Splat!
Judaism inherited a lot of its aspects from other cultures and religions, but there were original aspects as well.
What do we find when we contrast Greek and Hebrew mythology?
Greeks - Gods are assigned to human psychological traits; various psychological/sociological aspects are represented as gods
Hebrews - One God with one designated set of psychological traits (love, power, forbearance, etc)
Therefore, when considering psychological archetypes, it would seem that when the Ancient Greeks formed their mythology from the top-down – in that they first took a look at the human mind, and then began dividing it into gods and myths.
Where as the Hebrews seemed to have formed their mythology from the bottom-up – in that they first took a look at the concept of a God and then divided the human mind with it.
Yes? No?
Jesus fucking Christ
PS, the only reason I’m specifying Judaism is because of Kabbalah - which doesn’t seem as present to such an extent in any other religion.
And these various traits, how coincidental that they are exactly the same as those by which the Greeks divided their mind!
And how coincidental that the ten names translated into ‘God’ which occur in the Torah refer to exactly these traits!
It is true that I have contributed nothing to your nonsensical premise. I merely showed you that it has nothing to do with what you claim you are examining.
You think like a typical New Age hippy, who reads something about something about something and has an insight about a basic dichotomy. These insights have nothing to do with the subject they are supposed to pertain to, they should be taken to illustrate the basic problems the person is struggling with himself. We call it projection.
It is clear that you are trying to have your own version of Rome vs Judah, to arrive at a kind of Nietzschean insight by your own means, but your choosing the wrong path. Nietzsche arrived there through rigorous study of political and religious practice, not by making statements about religious texts he hadnt read.
With apologies to Sauwelios, who’s remained polite and on-topic, I’m locking the thread for a day to allow the two principals to cool off a little and read their warning notifications.
That’s one way of looking at it. There’s a fundamental difference in the approach to society, the heroic (at least pre-Athenian) versus the theocratic. As a culture, the Greeks valued excellence and the Jews obedience as the primary values. Hence the one led to virtue ethics, the other to raw deontology, thou shalt versus thou shalt not. Struggle for the Greeks, harmony for the Jews… although to be honest I’m not sure how much of that came in later from Platonism.
How much mythology shaped and was shaped by society is very hard to say, of course. But there’s a fundamental division, and the West lost the Greek(-Germanic-Viking) heroic side to the Judaeo-Christian(-Platonic) harmonic.
There had to be original aspects in order to be a new belief system, a new religion - “they way”. The differences are a product of culture and time. The similarities between the two would seem far more interesting to me as I’m not sure the differences hold any deeper insights. They are different because the people who created them were different.
