Ancient literature Archives - Page 5 of 9

What Does the Genesis Creation Story Mean?

The first three chapters of the Book of Genesis have been studied, interpreted, reinterpreted, and misunderstood by people of diverse religious convictions for around 2,500 years. The stories recounted in these chapters have had an enormous impact on world religions, mythologies, literatures, and cultures. Most people think that they understand these stories. Nonetheless misconceptions abound—not just about what the text means, but also about who wrote it, what it actually says, what sources the text is based on, and how the text has historically been interpreted.

In this article, I want to take a deep dive into the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, debunk some popular misconceptions, and hopefully do my part to help others understand these stories that have become so influential. This is going to be a bit of a long read, but, by the end of it, hopefully, you’ll know pretty much everything you wanted to know about the Genesis creation stories.

No, Ancient Greek Slaves Did Not Like Being Enslaved

It seems like it should be obvious that slaves in ancient Greece did not like being enslaved. Unfortunately, things that seem like they should be obvious are often things that many people don’t find obvious at all. There is a disturbingly widespread claim that slaves in ancient Greece were happy to be enslaved and that they preferred slavery over freedom.

This claim recently received attention among classicists due to a description for a lecture by an esteemed classics professor for The Great Courses Daily, which begins with the shocking assertion “Slavery was the ideal condition for some people in ancient Greece.”

The claim has been around for a very long time, however. It has been widely disseminated through books and other media and, despite the valiant efforts of some classicists to point out that ancient slavery was cruel and unjust, many people continue to regard it as benign or at worst a necessary evil.

Who Was Agnodice Really?

The ancient Greek legend of Agnodice is one that has captivated modern audiences. Agnodice is said to have been the first female doctor, who disguised herself as a man because it was forbidden for women to practice medicine. In this article, we will examine the full story of Agnodice, the ancient sources behind it, and the question of whether or not she really existed.

The Amazing Origin of the Story of Achilles’s Heel

We all know the story of “Achilles’s heel.” The story you probably learned in school goes like this: When Achilles was a baby, his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx to make him immortal and impervious to all wounds—except she held him by his heel, meaning his heel was the only part of him that was vulnerable. Many years later, near the end of the Trojan War, the Trojan prince Paris shot him in the heel with an arrow guided by the god Apollon and killed him.

This story is the source of our English phrase “Achilles’s heel,” which is often used to refer to a single fatal weakness in something that is otherwise seen as invincible. It may come as a surprise to some people that this story is not actually found in the Iliad or in any other work of classical Greek literature from before the Roman Era. In fact, in the Iliad, Achilles isn’t even invulnerable at all!

The Strangest Books in the Bible

The Bible is a collection of various ancient texts that are considered by Christians to be the inspired Word of God. The number of books in the Bible varies depending on which branch of Christianity you happen to belong to. The standard Protestant Bible only has sixty-six books, the standard Roman Catholic Bible has seventy-three books, and the standard Eastern Orthodox Bible has seventy-eight books.

Many of the texts that are included in the Bible seem rather strange—at least when you read them for the first time. There are some books in the Bible that are a bit peculiar in the sense that they don’t fit in well with the other books in the Bible. Then there are other books in the Bible that just seem downright bizarre—at least until you decipher what they’re talking about.

In this article, I want to talk about five of the most unusual books in the Bible. These are books that are striking either because they are so different from the others or because they employ such bizarre imagery.

How Do We Know Ancient Texts Are Really Ancient?

There seems to be a lot of people who think that, because we do not have the original manuscripts of ancient texts, that is somehow deeply suspicious. While it is certainly true that there are some places in some texts where we are not completely sure what the original text said, in the vast majority of cases, it is possible to reconstruct exactly or at least almost exactly what the original text said. Even when the exact original wording of a text is unclear, we usually have a pretty good idea of what the original author wrote.

Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus Really?

In popular culture, Rameses II (ruled 1279 – 1213 BC) is almost always portrayed as the pharaoh of the Exodus. He is most famously portrayed as such in the 1956 epic film The Ten Commandments, but he has also appeared in this role more recently in the 1998 DreamWorks animated musical drama film The Prince of Egypt, in the 2013 History Channel miniseries The Bible, and in the 2014 epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings.

It may come as a surprise to many people, then, that the Book of Exodus never actually gives the name of the pharaoh who supposedly tried to keep the Israelites from leaving. Instead, throughout the book, the pharaoh is merely referred to by the Hebrew word פַּרְעֹה (par‘ōh), which is the source of our English word pharaoh. How, then, did we all come to think of Rameses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus? And, more importantly, who was the real pharaoh of the Exodus? Let’s delve back into the mists of antiquity and find out the truth.

Yes, Kratos Is a Real Deity in Greek Mythology

I have never played any of the games in the video game series God of War. I don’t really have any interest in video games and, even if I did have an interest in them, I would never have time to play them. Nonetheless, as a Hellenist, I like to pay attention to how Greek mythology is portrayed in modern popular culture and I find it interesting that Kratos, the main character in the God of War series, is actually very loosely based on a real figure in Greek mythology.

In Greek mythology, Kratos is the divine personification of strength, the son of the Titan Pallas and the Okeanid nymphe Styx. Ironically, in ancient Greek sources, Kratos is portrayed as a dumb, overly violent thug who is unquestioningly loyal to Zeus and whose job is to enforce Zeus’s authority over all the other deities; whereas I’ve read that, in the video game series God of War, Kratos is apparently portrayed as a renegade demigod who kills all the major deities in the Greek pantheon, including Zeus.

Did Hades Abduct Persephone or Did She Go with Him Willingly?

In many sanitized modern adaptations of the story of Hades and Persephone, Persephone is portrayed as going with Hades to the Underworld willingly. This is the version of the story that is found in many books about Greek mythology intended for children and in the award-winning music Hadestown. This is not, however, how the story is portrayed in ancient Greek sources.

The ancient Greek and Roman accounts of Persephone universally agree that Hades abducted Persephone against her will and raped her. Both literary and artistic representations of the event unambiguously portray it as a forcible abduction. Ancient Greek and Roman poems give graphic descriptions of Persephone being brutally snatched and carried off, crying and screaming in desperation.

I don’t necessarily see the modern sanitization of the story of Hades and Persephone as a problem strictly speaking, but I do think that it is important to keep in mind that the versions of the story that were told in ancient times were much darker than the versions many people are telling today.

What Was the First Novel?

There seems to be a lot of confusion about when the novel as a literary form developed. Many people think that the novel arose at some point during the Early Modern Period (lasted c. 1450 – c. 1750). Many works dating to this period, such as Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, and Le Morte d’Arthur are often cited as “the first novel.” The popular perception, however, is incorrect.

The novel as a literary form definitely dates at least as far back as the second century BC and probably dates to long before that. Not a single one of the works usually cited as “the first novel” is even close to being old enough to actually be “the first novel.”

The fact is, we don’t know exactly what the first novel was, but, since we have record of works that can only be described as novels dating as far back as at least the second century BC, anything written within the past 2,200 years can’t possibly be “the first novel.”