Download Compare and Contrast Judaism and Christianity with Greek Mythology

Compare and Contrast: Christianity with Greek Mythology
It should be noted that in the Christian Bible, there appears two stories of creation. In Greek mythology there are two
versions of creation as well. One stems from the writings of Homer, the other from a poet named Hesiod. Also, one
commonality is that both in Christianity and in the Greek myths, the gods are viewed as being in the form of man.
In the beginning…
What
Documentation
Before the world
First Story of
Creation
Christian Bible
There was God.
Creation of the Earth
God Creates the earth.
Second Story of
Creation
Christian Bible
Other gods and
goddesses
Olympian gods
Deity’s home
Creation of man
Heaven
God creates man and
woman in his image.
Fall from grace
Adam and Eve eating
from the tree of life.
A disobeying of God.
Woman
Eve disobeys God and brings sin to the world.
Children of
God/gods/goddesses
Jesus, the son of God with a mortal mother,
Mary. Jesus possesses extraordinary powers.
Taken, after death, to live for eternity with his
father God.
Fate v. Free Will
Man has free will.
Afterlife
Heaven, ruled by God, is reward.
Hell, ruled by Satan, is punishment.
God creates man in his
image ¨The Lord God
formed man out of the
clay of the ground and
blew into his nostrils
the breathe of life.
Adam and Eve eating
from the tree of life.
Hesiod
Homer
Assortment of writings
There was the god
Chaos – a supernatural
presence (not
disorder).
Iliad and Odyssey
There was the god
Oceanus (Pronounced
O-key-on-us) a spirit
in the form of an
endless river.
Tethys (the first
mother/Earth).
A goddess name Gaia
(Mother Earth) –
Mated with Uranus
(heavens).
Including Rhea and
Cronus, parents of
Zeus, and the Titans.
Zeus and his brothers
and sisters.
Mount Olympus
Zeus creates different
The god Prometheus
races of men (gold,
creates the first man
silver, bronze, and
out of mud and
iron) Gold people lived breathes life into him.
a perfect existence.
Gods must be in
The age of the golden
human form because
people ended without
human form is
explanation. Without
beautiful. Gods were
disobeying god.
seen as “humans plus”.
Silver people did not
worship the gods
sufficiently.
Men of bronze
exterminate
themselves through
constant warfare.
People of today are
said to be men of iron.
Woman was sent to earth as an affliction to
punish man because the god Prometheus tried to
trick Zeus and stole fire for man. Zeus gives
man Pandora, a woman. Pandora opens a jar
that she should not have and brings all evil to the
world.
Hercules, the son of Zeus and a mortal mother.
Hercules possesses extraordinary powers. Taken,
after death, to live with his father on Mount
Olympus.
Three “Fates” that
determine life. Fate is
a power above the
gods. Humans could
control some of their
own destiny although
the gods had a lot of
control as well.
Olympus, ruled by Zeus, is reward. No person
is admitted here.
The House of Hades, or underworld, is where a
dead person’s soul passes to. Ruled by the god
Hades, this is neither a punishment nor reward.
Those that had offended the gods were sent to a
harsher place known as Tartarus.