"Of Gods and Men" is a
research paper I wrote for my
humanities class not too long ago. The thesis of the thing is essentially that
Greek religion – that is to say, the
mystery religions of
Greece that were adopted by the
Hellenists – heavily influenced the development (if not the invention) of
Christianity. I for one find the subject extremely interesting (hence my noding of it): that long list of
gods,
goddesses, and
demigods many of us are forced to learn about in elementary school may not be so far removed from the
Jesus Christ many of us are forced to learn about in
Church. . .
I noded the paper, and here is the
Of Gods and Men Table of Contents. But before jumping in, here are some
highlights and then some
caveats.
Two points that I researched and then discussed in this paper are particularly intriguing to me:
Firstly, most of us think of
Greek religion as being the worship of that crazy mishmash of
gods taught in elementary school. As I studied the subject of
mystery religions, I was surprised to find that it wasn't like that at all; rather,
cults formed around a single
god and the worshippers engaged in esoteric rituals surrounding that god for the purpose of. . .well, nobody really knows, exactly.
Dionysus had a
cult,
Demeter had a cult,
Orpheus had a cult, and so on. In most of the cults, the members engaged in the acting out some kind of story in which the
cult's
god was the protagonist. Other than that, however, the rituals and creeds varied widely: in the cult of
Orpheus, one was to be pure and unsullied. In the cult of
Dionysus, one was to periodically get utterly soused in the worship of the god (being drunk was construed as possession by
Dionysus). The reason that a discussion of the
mystery cults was a major component of my paper was because the A)
Jews just before the rise of
Christianity were heavily exposed to the
mystery cults and B) many of the rituals in the
mystery cults are intriguing similar to rituals in
Christianity (so similar, in fact, that some have gone as far as to claim that
Christianity started out as a
mystery religion!). Even if you aren't interested in the subject of
Greek religion's relationship to
Christianity,
the bits in my paper about the rites and creeds
mystery cults are extremely interesting and might make for some neat reading.
Another thing that I discovered in researching my paper that I found to be extremely interesting were the existance certain uncertainties in
Judaism and
Greek mystery religion of the era just before Jesus. The uncertainties in
Greek religion are the polar opposite to those in
Judaism, and
Christianity answers the problem by kind of combining the two.
The section in my paper on this, too, might offer some quick, interesting reading. . .
Finally, some caveats and admonitions I feel obligated to offer. For one, I wrote and researched this over a five-day period. My school's library and my local library are both pathetic, I didn't have time to visit one of the big libraries that are a bit farther away, and though I have many books on certain aspects of this topic, I hardly have enough; therefore, some parts of this paper don't contain as much information as I would have liked. Secondly, before I started writing it, I decided that I should use a very simple style for quick and easy consumption, rather than using the more poetic style I tend to use when writing my essays and fictions. I regret this last decision immensely. This, coupled with the fact that the introduction
sucks eggs (so much so that I am embarrassed to
node it), have caused me to resolve to fully rewrite and revise the thing at a later date.
Right, then.
Of Gods and Men Table of Contents.