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9.23.2014

Angelic life and Greek myth

I just came across one little connection between the Greek gods and goddesses and angels as they are described in Scripture. The gods and goddesses were known to walk among humans and it was generally said that one may be engaging one of the gods without realizing it. Of course there is the similar statement in the Bible: Heb 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

The connection between real angels and the description of the Olympian gods and goddesses I think is like the connection between real life Russian aristocracy in the 1800s and the characters depicted in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

That's pretty darn close, but we wouldn't think that Anna Karenina actually existed as a real human being. The description of her life and times is real though. It matches the reality.

Take that analogy to the Olympian gods and goddesses, or Greek mythology in general. Or maybe just limit yourself to the Homeric epics to keep it clean and contained. They weren't (aren't) real angels, but the depiction could very well be very darn close.

Seers and poets in higher states could have seen such angelic life and depicted it in various ways over time.

I think, also, that in what they depicted they conflated vague collective memories of Biblical revelation and combined, for instance, some of God (the Trinity) with the creation (angelic life), in various ways. Making Zeus, for instance, have some characteristics of God. But also maybe that could be seen this way too: the angelic world may very well be a hierarchy and perhaps Zeus would just be an angel of a higher order, responsible for more of this natural world, maybe the solar system itself, so he comes across as being all powerful, but compared to God he is part of the creation.

And of course there is impiety involved, to be sure, in many ways in this depiction of angelic life. Falsity too.

But overall it can be seen in this way.

Another connection: glorified bodies. Jesus says we will be like the angels. Not angels, but like the angels. This may refer to our glorified bodies? In some way? I know the context was marriage no longer being needed, but it seems a more general statement as well. So we can see what glorified bodies may be like in Greek myth.

Another connection: these Olympian gods and goddesses and lesser divinities were influences on human beings. All kinds of influences. And the early church saw angels in the same way. Messengers of God who also delivered influence. With their connection with God they couldn't not be influential.

But we're not supposed to worship angels, the Bible is clear, and pagans worship angels in various ways, most often fallen angels. (And we might be influenced by fallen angels without realizing it, without discernment. Having the Holy Spirit and knowing the Bible would protect us from this.)

So remember, I am not saying the Olympian gods were real angels, I am saying they are descriptions of angels in the same way Anna Karenina is a description of a 19th century aristocratic Russian woman.


4 Comments:

Anonymous monax said...

So do you think the mythology of the Titans reflects what we know of the Nephilim?

How, in Genesis Six, the sons of God ('bene elohim') went into the daughters of men and bore children, the might ones, the Nephilim.

[The 'watchers' from The Book of Enoch helping to inform this view.]

(???)

September 27, 2014 at 1:19 PM  
Blogger c.t. said...

I don't know if I've ever thought about drawing comparisons that closely. I do remember recently reading a book on Greek mythology and being struck by how much the back story, the Titans and so forth, was more uniform and delineated in an organized way than I'd thought previously. Previously I'd just read Greek myth piece meal, other than the Homeric epics.

It could be though. Vague, through a glass darkly, collective memory. Pre-flood history is real and strange.

September 28, 2014 at 8:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This has nothing to do with this post, but I've been reading some of your blog posts.. what are your thoughts on persecution and the end times church? What has the Lord laid on your heart concerning these things?

October 3, 2014 at 9:53 PM  
Blogger c.t. said...

I just saw you comment, anonymous. I think when the Devil and his children assert dominion over the entire planet then God brings the hammer down on them. Communism as a Satanic front had one third of the planet at one point. What we see today is definitely a new push into territory the Devil has not held before, western Europe, the United States, etc. The English speaking nations in general. One thing is true: there is only a finite amount of real estate on this planet. When the Devil and his children assert their ownership of it all and actually attain it to some real degree, it seems that the end is truly here. Some thoughts.

October 7, 2014 at 4:54 PM  

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