Early Christian Mythology

Greek Mythology and Christianity are two completely different beliefs, especially when we compare the characteristics of Zeus and the attributes of God in the Bible. Greek Mythology is defined as: a body of myths and teachings that belonged to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. The Greeks had multiple gods and goddesses, each with a specific purpose. Zeus is the head of all gods. Christianity has one God who rules over all His creation. That is probably the only similar characteristic between these two; they are both referred to as god and worshipped by people. However there are many more differences between them such as, sovereignty,

In many cultures there are flood myths that normally pertain to angered Gods who release their anger by flooding the world to cleanse whatever caused the anger in the first place. In the Roman culture, one of the flood myths mentioned states that Jupiter had been angered by the evil that came with humanity and had wanted to burn the Earth. However, Jupiter had feared by doing so Heaven would be set ablaze as well and thus, with Neptune's help, flooded the Earth. The hero Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha had been the only two to survive. Jupiter had recognized their religious lifestyle had let them live and retracted the flood. Deucalion and Pyrrha had then repopulated the world by throwing stones behind them. In the Murato culture, there is a myth in which a man had been fishing in a lagoon of the Pastaza river, a crocodile had swallowed the fisherman’s bait and the man killed the crocodile. The mother of crocodiles had been angered by this and had slashed the water with her tail creating a flood in the area and drowning everybody except for one man who had climbed up a palm tree. After the flood had subsided the man climbed down from the tree, cut off a piece of his flesh, planted it in the soil, and had grown a woman. He had then married the woman and begun to repopulate the world.

Ancient Creation myths are similar but at the same time are still very different. What is a myth? A myth refers to a fiction story or only half true story. What makes up a myth? It has several different characteristics that make it different from other types of stories. Ancient Greco-Roman myths are interesting because they talk about another religion and how they are being reflected. Hebrew creation myths are also interesting because they explain the power of God who made the universe in just 6 days.

In The Bible Among the Myths, John N. Oswalt, opens up his book by establishing his expertise in the subject of the Ancient Near East (ANE). Oswalt started his study into the ANE at Asbury Theological Seminary. After attending Asbury Theological Seminary, he went to Brandeis University. This is where his fascination with the subjects and Ideas of the ANE started to grow. Oswalt eventually went on to teach at Asbury Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Wesley Biblical Seminary.

When one approaches the biblical text, it is important to explore the cultural context in which the text occurs. With regard to the Book of Genesis, it is important to examine the writing with other contemporary works of similar geography and topics. The people of ancient Mesopotamia, where the oldest civilizations originated, produced a number of stories of creation and natural occurrences. It is important to note that many of the stories of the Sumerians, Akkadians and Hebrews began as oral traditions as the events they depict predate writing, so it is difficult to date these works on the basis of when these prehistoric myths were initiated. Comparison to writings contemporary to the people of Israel, can offer a deeper understanding of

Oswalt first learned about the issues in “The Bible Among the Myths” while taking a class taught by Dennis Kinlaw at Asbury Theological Seminary. His interest in the subject has grown since with graduate study and his own classes which he taught. William F. Albright, his students, and G. Ernest Wright led the rethinking of the evolutionary paradigm within the philosophy of Idealism. Although they believed the differences between the ways the Israelites thought and their neighbor’s thoughts of reality caused no evolutionary explanation to show, today it is found that Israelite faith can be explained by evolutionary change. Scholars today say that it is no longer about the differences between the two, but more about the

The world in hell has a totally different set up in the book rather than the casual all in flame, red and hot place that the most common person might think or describe, but an elevator kind of feel, with different stages, settings and even ice on hell. Hell is set up in nine circles that each contain a strong meaning and also some very interesting cultural figures, each circle has a meaning from Limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and the worst of them all, treachery were Lucifer himself was placed. Each of these levels are Dante's vision of hell, and for each sin is the way he grades how bad the action was. Nevertheless, the feeling of true dislike in some these important figures such as Alexander the Great, Pope Anastasias, Helen of Troy and even a Centaurus which is a mythological creature are place in hell for those motives.

Myth Project Written Portion - Revised Daniel Li The Greek creation myth starts off with chaos. Within this chaos the Earth, or Gaia, appears. Gaia then gives birth to Uranus, the sky, and has children with him.

Does hell have its own history? For Dante, the structural and thematic history of ‘hell’ in the Inferno begins with the Roman epic tradition and its champion poet, Virgil. By drawing heavily from the characteristics of hell in Book VI of The Aeneid, Dante carries the epic tradition into the medieval world and affirms his indebtedness to Virgil’s poetry. Moreover, Virgil becomes a central character in the Inferno as he guides Dante, the pilgrim, who has no knowledge of hell, through his own historical model. Similarly, the protagonist of The Aeneid, Aeneas, lacks the foresight necessary to make the journey through hell on his own and thus places his trust in the

The Israelites worshipped the deities of the Canaanite Pantheon throughout their earlier development. The members of the Canaanite Pantheon are mentioned numerous times in the Hebrew and Greek Septuagint version Old Testament, but not much else is known about their religious practices until late 1800AD.

Hellenism had a great influence during the time of the early church. The language and culture of the Hellenistic world was Greek. This pagan influence was Hellenistic influence and we can find scripture that shows the early Christian church being persecuted by the Hellenist. Acts 9:29, "And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him." Some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, preached to the Hellenists, having the hand of the Lord with them, converting many to

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire (NIV Bible). There is another rendition of Hell depicted by a Catholic believer aptly called Dante Alighieri. He envisioned that Hell was divided into nine different circles each level more horrible than the last, while being led through it by Virgil, an ancient Roman Poet. “The first circle is called limbo which isn’t horrible at all, it is the place where virtuous non-Christians and unbaptized pagans who are punished with eternity in an inferior form of Heaven” (Dante's Inferno). In the second circle it contains individuals that have done the deadly sin of Lust, in which their punishment is to continuously be blown by wind from every direction and not allowed to rest. On further note each circle they document the deadly

“The Christian church … conceived of hell as a place where the good were separate from the evil, and the deeds on earth were weighed and judges.”(Bondanella XXXIII) Hell is a place that was created as a punishment for those people who died with mortal sins and did not ask for forgiveness. In this case Dante’s hell in the Inferno is divided into three sections and nine circles. These circles within hell were based off of the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Along with the seven deadly sins Dante’s Catholic religion also influenced him in his choices about who to put and where to put people in Hell. According to his beliefs, if you were not a Christian, you automatically went to Hell. (Trotter) As well even though Dante's hell affected all people no matter their religion, the representation of how Hell

Not all mythology comes from ancient cultures. People all around the world continue to create new myths and rework existing ones. Modern technology such as movies, publishing, telecommunications, and the internet allow folktales, rumors, and myths to travel faster around the world. A feature of some modern legends is that they originated as artistic creations. Modern legends offer images of the best and worspect aspects of mankind. Modern myths suggest that good behavior can be rewarded while greedy and foolish behavior will be punished. While modern mythology is different from ancient mythology they are similar in that monstrous and scary partly human creatures still fascinate people today. Vampires and Werewolves are examples of modern mythologies most fascinating monsters. Modern mythology spawns from life’s wonder, excitement, mystery, and fear.

In Dante's Inferno, Dante places people of all types into one of the nine different circles depending on what they had done in their life and what punishments they deserve. His religion is what said which sins made someone have to spend eternity in Hell and what sins were worse than others. Some of the sins Dante chose to be included in his own version of Hell are wrath, sloth, greed, lust, and gluttony. These sins were seen as some of the worst in the Catholic religion, which influences Dante’s decision to have them in Dante's Inferno. Some of the other sins Dante chose also exemplified his strong Catholic faith. For example, the people who fall in Limbo did not believe in God and in the Catholic religion, this means they were not saved and would therefore end up in Hell (Brantl 208). Dante, just like all catholics, believed that going against God was a sin. In Dante's Inferno, there are punishments for people who go against the catholic religion and the Lord as well as betray them. Dante’s religion also influenced his choices for whom he put in hell and where. According to Dante, no madder how good of a person you are, if you didn't believe in God and Christianity, you were sent to hell. Hawkins says that “…Limbo, the first circle of hell. It is beautiful, refined, civil, and dead. Knowledge may well be perfection, but it is the knowledge of God, the beatific vision, that is the journey’s true end” (107).