ancient greek gods and lore revisited pdf

Egypt had the gods Isis and Osiris, who were thought to have taught crafts, agriculture, law, and religion to their people. Thus, Mesopotamia had its Apkallu, the seven sages who lived before the flood and instructed their fellow humans in wisdom, medicine, and craftsmanship. Even medieval Europeans had the feeling that the world was growing old and tired. They projected the wished-for situation in to the past, not in to the future. The ancient worldview, instead, rather saw the world as deteriorating from a legendary ‘golden age’ in which people lived happily and enjoyed long lives, through a ‘silver age’ in which life became ever more harsh, ending in a cold ‘iron age’.

Modern people view their world as originating from more or less primitive roots, yet ever developing towards something better and higher. Ancient worldview s, thus, differed substantially from the conceptual world that gained a foothold since early modernity in the Western world. Therefore, they usually attributed inventions like crafts, agriculture, metallurgy, writing, law, or the use of astronomical data to one or more heroes in the distant past. For the ancients, the accomplishments of their society appeared to be of a nearly superhuman quality, impossible to invent for a common mortal. It seems that virtually every ancient culture reflected either in written or oral form on its origins and on the provenance of its crafts and knowledge. See Also: The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4: Analysi s and History of Interpretation ( Old Testament Studies 76. What are we to imagine when Gen 6:1–4 describes heavenly beings as entering into a sexual relationship with human women, from which liaisons giant children are born? Such seems rather to belong to the realm of Greek mythology, but hardly fits within the biblical tradition.

Ancient greek gods and lore revisited pdf