Provocations

By pbobby

At various times and in many different cultures we find an infinite array of stories, myths, fables and religions. From these and our early caretakers come our first visions of God. Then as we grow from additional teaching and personal life experiences, our vision of God becomes an ever changing, mysterious and complex concept. More than that, we begin to adopt a vision of God that becomes our very own even though others helped us in the development of it. I dare say that no two people have Gods that are precisely identical.

Out of the Darkness came the beginnings of Light. And those who had to learn to survive without the use of tools, science, or teachers had a yearning for something to bring some sense to their lives and some bit of hope in their hearts. They knew from experience the things to fear such as hunger, carnivores, storms, blizzards and foods that were poisonous. But they had no idea of life's meaning. They needed a protector, a teacher, mentor or a God. No sacred books or prophets had yet come their way. The land, the lakes, the Sun, the Moon and Stars were their only wonders along with the birth of babies. They saw a dangerous and mysterious world, as we still do. The Cosmos is still filled with an abundance of marvels with only a few of its secrets now opened to us by Science.

The bright celestial bodies were things they could see and wonder about. In Greek Mythology, the Sun became a boat in the sky where a god of great powers guided it on its journeys so symmetrical. The Moon became a sister of the Sun God. So the myths began, and stirred the imagination of many to go further with an explanation how life is.

Since plants nourished by the earth gave them most of their food, they saw our planet as their Mother Earth who fed them. In times of famine they saw this as the displeasure of Mother Earth or the Sun God. So they made sacrifices, chanted and danced to regain favor with Mother Earth.

Similar to all mythologies is the belief that all of them were for decades, maybe centuries shared by word of mouth until a written language permitted them to be codified. Some of the more talented writers wrote new versions of ancient myths. In many cases, these writings replaced the more ancient ones and became the bono fide myths.

Since pbobby's knowledge of worldwide myths is so minute, I will not try to read and condense them for our use here, or anywhere else.

What I want to do is to make some comparisons of Greek and Hebrew myths of Creation.

For the Greeks, the creation came out of darkness and chaos into light and order. No God was initially credited with the making of all that is. It was in their observations and imaginations following the creation that they attempted to explain who did it. Not knowing, they created their many gods and gave them special names and powers.

Before the written description of the Biblical version of creation, the writer had already come to believe in One God, Yahweh, whose name was so holy that it could only be whispered with a breathy Yahweh. Yahweh was planted deep in his heart. So the creation story began with "In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth."

So, "What is the difference?" Not much to pbobby. I do not say this lightly or with any desire to insult anyone's belief system. It's just that God is just as much a mystery to me as the world of the ancients was to them.

There is a myth of the great battles between the Old Gods and the new Gods. When they warred, the whole earth shook. Jupiter, an old God was in power when Cronus decided to challenge him. Cronus recruited most of the Titans into his army. Jupiter had the good fortune to have all his brothers and sisters, the hundred-handed monsters, the Hecatoncheiries and the Cyclopes to fight with him. The battle raged as each tried to defend and at the same time destroy each other and the separate mountains upon which they lived. The Cyclopes forged the thunderbolt and lightning for Jupiter while the Hecatoncheiries provide him with earthquakes.

The war raged for ages. The Titans were finally defeated as the lightning caused the rivers to boil and the forests to burst into flames on their mountain.

Somewhere in the history of mankind there came into being a wonderful story of a Titan named Prometheus (Forethought), and his brother, Epimetheus (Afterthought). The Titans were both grander than human beings and of greater size. I have not been able to locate information as to who was the father of these two brothers.

A fourteen-year old boy named pbobby met Prometheus in a drama class. He played the part of Prometheus during his battle of wills with Jupiter. He suffered the horror of having part of his body torn away every morning by that giant Eagle, heard the strong voice of the Chief God, Jupiter demanding that Prometheus desert those pitiful people to whom he had given fire, training, teaching and love. As pbobby remembers it, the dialogue was about fifteen minutes.

Prometheus and Epimetheus refused from the beginning to take up arms against Jupiter and thus escaped imprisonment. In fact, Jupiter perceived the foresight (prophetic power) of Prometheus and greatly relied upon him for counsel. There on Mount Olympus Jupiter and Prometheus ultimately disagreed about what should be done with the many humans now on Earth. Jupiter had become disgusted with the way the humans were losing their former glory. So he swept them all off the face of the Earth and resolved to create a new race. For the creation of this new race, Jupiter asked Prometheus to assist him.

Prometheus then went down to a river, took clay and molded it into the likeness of the gods. Then he breathed into all the images the breath of life. So a new race was born.

But this new race was weaker and thrust into a world that required more of them than had been of men of former ages. The weather was fierce, and the ground bore no food unless they planted seed and hoped for a good crop. All around them were wild beasts, and it seemed to Prometheus that they were all going to die without some special help.

Prometheus suggested to Jupiter that these vulnerable people need fire to keep them warm, and make it possible for them to make tools and weapons. Jupiter threw a fit and said, "I cannot give fire to humans for then they might think themselves as equal to me."

Prometheus was heartbroken; so he snuck out to live with the humans. He gave up his Deity to go dwell on Earth and help mankind. He took fire with him and gave it to these needy, weak human beings and taught them how to make weapons to defend themselves and how to make tools, do crafts, and learn trades. He also taught them how to train animals for all sorts of tasks, even taught them how to make ships, tell time, write and how to cure illnesses.

So ordinary people prospered, which, of course made Jupiter extremely angry (an angry God?) He decided to sock it to Prometheus by sending him an alluring, unbelievably beautiful woman named Pandora. Jupiter also sent with her a large sealed vessel or box of evils, troubles, worries and diseases for a dowry.

Prometheus with his great gift of foresight rejected Pandora and her dowry. Then he warned his brother, Epimetheus, but to no avail. Epimetheus received her as his wife, and together they opened the box from whence came all the evils that, still to this day, are the scourge of our world. They resealed it too late; only hope remained sealed inside.

But Jupiter still wanted revenge for the sins of Prometheus. So he sent two giants and Vulcan (the God of fire) to kidnap Prometheus and to bind him to a high mountain crag. They did, and everyday a fierce eagle or vulture came to eat part of Prometheus body, which grew back by morning. Jupiter regularly railed upon Prometheus to renounce his devotion to mankind; Prometheus never gave in. He looked over into the future and saw that one day Jupiter would be overthrown by the True God. This god he believed would become ruler of the universe. (A Messiah with a twist - an evil, vain God overthrown by a loving, forgiving God.)

Since Jupiter could not have the loyalty of all the people, he decided to kill them all again with a great flood that he fashioned with his thunder and lightning. Prometheus once again was aware with his gift of foresight what Jupiter was going to do. Somehow he was able to get a warning to his son, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha of the flood to come. The rains came in cloudbursts until only a few mountain tops were visible. Deucalion and Pyrrha had take refuge on Mount Parnassus. Only this pair was saved because of their faith in what Prometheus had told them in advance. And, for some strange reason, Jupiter took pity on this blameless pair, sparing them from death.

When the waters receded, Deucalion and Pyrrha hunted for a temple of the gods. They found such a temple and a mysterious voice told them to go and repeople the Earth with the bones of your mother. Deucalion interpreted this to mean stones rather than bones. So with their heads veiled, they walked along throwing stones as they went. The stones thrown by Deucalion became men, and the stones thrown by Pyrrha became women. According to the legends of old, these people and their children and their children's children, generation after generation, are all the ancestors of all the people that have inhabited the Earth since that time.

Deucalion became their King and teacher of the useful arts that were to equip them for survival to this very day.

It is in the book of Genesis NRSV* that we learn much about the Hebrew story of how they believe all life came to be. "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the Earth, the Earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light." God named the Light day and the darkness night. This was the first day of creation.

The second day God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. … And it was so. God called the dome Sky

On the third day God let dry land appear. He called it Earth. And He said, "let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and the fruit trees of every kind on earth … and it was so.

Paraphrasing now: God made the Sun and the Moon on the fourth day. Then He made all the creatures of the sea and the sky on the fourth day.

Then, He made the animals and all the other species of the earth except Mankind on the fifth day.

Then on the sixth day, God said let us make humankind in our image, and let them have dominion over all other inhabitants of the earth. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God created He them; male and female created them. … God saw everything He had made, and indeed saw that it was very good.

Another account in Genesis of how God created man, is related in the story of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden. You know the story. All was beautiful and at peace with no toil of any kind required except to till the garden. Then God put Adam in a deep sleep, took one of his ribs and made woman so Adam would not be alone. Often God would visit and talk with this universally known couple. He told them they could eat anything in the garden whenever they wanted except for the Fruit of a sacred tree. If you do you shall die. That sounded like heaven or a paradise to them.

All was well and wonderful for them both for no one knows how long. Then a serpent or evil spirit approached Eve with the idea of taking just one bite of the fruit from this special tree. That evil one also told her that God had lied to them about eating the fruit from this tree that was the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The serpent said "you shall not die if you eat the fruit from this tree!"

I know you remember that Eve succumbed to the temptation and ate of the fruit from the forbidden tree. It tasted wonderful, so she took some of the fruit to Adam and persuaded him to eat also. Suddenly, they knew they were naked but still alive. That evening when God called to talk with them, they hid. Of course Eve blamed the serpent, and Adam blamed Eve. So God put a curse upon the serpent for his meddling, telling him that from then on he would have to crawl on his belly. God further told the serpent that he his offsprings and Eve's would be great enemies for forever.

God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden for life, and put a cherubim at the gate and a flaming and turning sword to guard the way to the tree of life. So they were cast away to the East of Eden to try to survive in the wild with the promise that they would return to the dust from whence they came. Childbirth would be excruciating for Eve, and Adam was to have a tough job with gardening in the wild.

Adam and Eve's first child was named Cain, and their second child was named Abel. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. As time went by Cain brought an offering of his fruits of the ground, while Abel brought an offering from the firstlings of his flock for praise to God..

God had regard for Abel's offering but not for Cain's offering. (I have never found a suitable answer to why one offering was found to be good and the other not.) Cain was devastated and became angry. God told Cain to do well and he would be accepted, and if he did not sin was lurking at his door and that he must learn to master it.

In his anger, Cain took Abel out into a field and killed him. God punished him by making him a wanderer. He told God he feared that someone would kill him. So God put a mark on Cain so no one would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of God and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Genesis 4.17 We read that Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore E'noch. (I'm not sure where his wife came from or what her name was.)

Then Adam and Eve had a third son whom they named Seth. Eve considered him a gift to replace Abel. The descendants of Cain and Seth are then listed along with their age at death. It is interesting to read that Seth lived to be 912 years while Adam lived to the age of 930. Methuselah lived the longest of those named; he made it to the age of 969.

God was not pleased when the sons of God married women who were fair. Ahah! this may be the answer to from whence came Cain's wife. Genesis 6.4 reads, "The nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward." The sons of God married these daughters of humans, who bore them children. "These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown."

In time God saw the wickedness of humankind was great with inclinations toward evil in their thoughts and hearts, He was sorry that he had ever made man. So He decided to blot out the human beings and all forms of life He had created.

But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord. So God asked Noah to build an ark with cypress wood three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. The best I have been able to learn is that a cubit is about eighteen inches in length. So if these rudimentary and ancient units of measure are correct, the ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall.

God promised Noah that he could bring aboard himself, his wife, his sons and his sons' wives, along with a pair (male and female) of every species on Earth. God said "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the Earth ."The covenant was that God would never again bring a flood to destroy the earth.

Some pbobby comments are shown below:

The Greeks had to make up their own Gods while the Hebrews believed that God had always been even before time and the creation.

The Greeks had a multitude of gods to be in charge of this and that while the Hebrews believed that Yahweh was eternal and the only God. Everything was within His control.

Both the Greeks and the Hebrews saw their gods and God as Entities to be fearful of.

Both granted their gods and God to have feelings from the pleasant to the angriest.

Both told tales of their gods and God sending floods to kill all living things.

Both the gods of the Greeks and the God of the Hebrews always, in their fits of anger, found someone to have mercy upon and spare them from such calamities.

Both gods and God had great fear that man might learn enough to be equal to them.

They both believed in Messiah's. The Greeks had Prometheus and the Hebrews who still wait for the arrival of their Messiah.

I hope that, through all my prattle and mumbling, I may have stirred within all who have read this, the will to intensify his/her search for God and a personal relationship with Him.

*New Revised Standard Version