GoodnewsEverybody.com European: Greece Outreach

Opa!! This is what you say when you are just excited with joy, which I learn last weekend (December 29th of 2007) at the Greek restaurant at the Mall of America. I had a professor who taught history at UMM that was from Greece. Also, my sister and aunt had the opportunity to vacation there last year of 2003. These are probably the only direct influence of Greece in my life so far.

I had the opportunity to eat at this Greek owned restaurant on the corner of Larpenteur Ave. and White Bear Ave. along the City of St. Paul & Maplewood border. It was good food!

Greek Mythology

When I hear or read anything about Greece, I think of Greek Mythology...
"Greek mythology consists, in part, of a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and other mythological creatures. These accounts were initially fashioned and disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; the Greek myths are known today primarily from Greek literature. The oldest known literary sources, the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on events surrounding the Trojan War. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices"

" 8 In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.

14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.

19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. ..

Greece and the Bible

You know the New Testament (2nd half of the Bible) was originally written in Greek. The First Half was originally written in Hebrew I decided to "search" about Greece and the Bible...

"Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
14But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting:"-Acts 14:12-14

Ancient Greece Resources, from Bible Online
"The Olympian Gods: Images and Texts Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athene, Demeter, Dionysos, Hades, Hephaistos, Hera, Hermes, Hestia, Persephone, Poseidon, Zeus [Classical Myth: The Ancient Sources] http://web.uvic.ca/grs/bowman/myth/gods.html

Related Sites:
GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND THE BIBLE , from 1335.com
"...The most well known Greek God-hero was the one known as Hercules (the Latinised form of the Greek "Heracles"), whose most distinguishing characteristic was immense physical strength. Interestingly enough, the "Encyclopedia of the Classical World, " states, " The tales of his heroic deeds lend to the supposition that Hercules was originally an historic figure." Who do we know in the Bible that exhibits a like characteristic? The answer, of course, is the Israelite hero known as Samson, whose life was detailed in the Bible in Judges chapters 13 through 16.
One important event in Hercules' life involved his escaping from the clutches of a symbolic woman, who is called "Pleasure." This corresponds directly to the troubles Samson got himself involved in with the harlots of Canaan.
But the most celebrated event in the life of Hercules involved the labours he was ordered to perform by God through the Oracle of Delphi. (Incidently, "12" was an important divine number in Hebrew religion.) What do you suppose was the very first labour Hercules had to perform? You might have guessed it! He had to slay a lion with his bare hands! Let's read a paragraph from the book, "God 's Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece " by W.H.D.Rouse:
"Heracles threw down his bow and arrows and leapt upon the lion's back ... while he put his hands round the lion's neck ... gripped the lion's throat with his two hands, and bending him backwards, throttled him. There lay the lion dead on the ground. " (p. 59). In our Bible, Judges 13:6 says that Samson actually tore the lion in two, but the ancient historian Flavius Josephus in his "Antiquities of the Jews " also tells us that Samson first strangled the lion, which is exactly as Hercules is said to have done. I don't even know if there ever were any lions in Greece. The Biblical Archaeologist Magazine somewhat tersely comments, "Lions, we may remark are not frequent in Greece." (59:1,p.17). In fact, the Greek myths explain this one away as the offspring of a monster! But whether there were lions in Greece is not important; Hercules needed to find one anyway. Why? Simply because the Biblical Samson inspired the Greek legend called Hercules, and provided the basis for his life! ...
Before closing this discussion on Greece and its ancient ties to Hebrew religion, it is interesting to mention that the Greek god-hero, "Adonis," also received his name from from the Semitic word, "Adon" or Lord. For example, one of the New Testament titles applied to Christ was "Adonay." ..
*see GoodnewsEverybody.com Religion: Judaism, Hebrews/Israelites, Torah, Bible-"Old" Testament, etc...
the bible and greek mythology By Verona Fair hubpages.com
"...Although placing this stigmatism on a long-dead culture may seem to be unimportant in much of the contemporary world, it is important because this long-dead culture represents the history of a large portion of the world. The Ancient Greek empire was much more vast than modern-day Greece. Just as many Americans would find it offensive to have their history as irrational and ignorant, it seems logical that Greeks might as well. Therefore, it is necessary to try and understand that both Ancient Greeks and Ancient Christians may have held similar beliefs about the world they were living in. The fact is that Greek myths contain unrealistic and unbelievable characters, events, and other elements, but upon comparison of Greek mythology stories with different Biblical accounts, it is apparent that some parallels between the two do exist, and that the Ancient Greeks view of the events of the early world are very similar to the views of both ancient and contemporary Christians.
The similarities begin with the creation stories, although these similarities are very minimal. In both the Christian creation story, Genesis, and in many accounts of the Ancient Greek creation story, the earth began with darkness and nothingness- a void, or Chaos, as known to the Greeks (Genesis 1:2; Tripp 159). This Chaos was the bearer meaning that he gave birth to of Ge; earth, Tartarus; underworld, Eros; love and sex, Erebus; darkness, and Nyx; night (Tripp 159). In the Christian creation story, God is the parallel to the Greek Chaos in that he invents the same things with the exception of an underworld; the creation of Adam and Eve and their later reproduction could be comparable to Eros as Chaos bore (Genesis 1:1-18). However, unlike Chaos, God is not a void of nothingness, but the beginning of all things. God also remains the ruler of the entire world in Biblical stories, while the Greek Chaos is displaced by several actual divine beings, the most important and permanent of those being Zeus (Tripp 606; Hesiod 2-3).
There is also a slight similarity in the separations or falls in mans relationships with God and Zeus, later chief god of the ancient Greeks. Although the offenses in each case were very different, both falls were the products of trickery, deceit, and temptation. In both cases, the temptation was in the form of food (Genesis 3:1-6; Tyrell and Brown 15). Probably the most important similarity in the two falls, however, is the negative role that Woman plays in each. In the Bible, woman actually leads man to the fall from God and as the punishment for that fall exile from the Garden of Eden, while Greek mythology cites that Woman was the punishment for the fall from Zeus (Genesis 3:6-24, Hesiod 4). In the ancient Greek culture, Woman was designed to make man miserable (Hesiod 4). Although she plays different roles, Woman eventually bears the blame for all human suffering and sorrow in both stories (Tyrell and Brown 17).
In both the Ancient Greek and Christian accounts of the early world, there exist stories of great floods that destroyed most of humankind (Genesis 7; Tripp 608). In the Bible's version of the flood, God becomes frustrated with the wickedness of the world and decides to destroy the earth with a flood, although it saddens him to do so (Genesis 6:5-7). However, God found Noah to be a good and just man, and he asked Noah to build an ark that would float upon the waters (Genesis 6:9-14). On the ark, Noah was to take his wife, three sons, their wives, and two of every living creature (Genesis 6:18-22). In this way God could be sure that the world would be repopulated. In the Greek flood story, Zeus becomes very angry with men and decides to destroy them as revenge for their impieties (Tripp 608). His intention is to destroy all of mankind. However, Prometheus, who tells his son, Deucalion, to build an ark so Deucalion and his wife could escape Zeus wrath, thwarts Zeus attempt. In this story Prometheus assures that mortal life will go on. Although the stories are different in some aspects, the parallels show that both the Ancient Greeks and followers of the Christian faith seem to agree that a great flood was a significant event in the early years of the world. As well, they both believe that someone survived this flood by building an ark and living there until the flood subsided. These people survived in order to continue human life. ...
*see GoodnewsEverybody.com Liberal Arts: Science-Astronomy, Biology, Creation, Environmentalism, Geology, Weather, etc...
Dionysus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"..In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, ..... parallels between Dionysus and the figure of the Christ in Christian .....

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