The questions are posed: what is the meaning of the Hebrew God as compared to the meaning of god(s) in the Greek world, and what is the significance of the difference? In this interpretation I will assume that the word “meaning” means “significance” or “nature” – as meaning generally associates with personal judgment and is fundamentally impossible to summarize.
The Hebrew God initially was respected in a henotheistic fashion, being recognized as the most powerful or important god amongst many[1] but with Hezekiah’s centralization of the cult at Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE[2] the other idols were banished and the Tanakh was from that point on written to describe a solitary God, the only god, the creator of the universe and all that ever was[3]. The Hebrew God essentially manifests as a ruthless, unreasoning and murderous tyrant[4] who instills in his people a legacy of conquest by declaring that a large swathe of the Levant[5] was to be divinely granted to them, lands which at the time were populated by many other peoples, nations which the Tanakh contends were destroyed by the Jews in ascension of their manifest destiny.
The Hebrew God is customarily referred to as being omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and omnibenevolent (all loving) although this may very well be a contemporary perception as there are numerous internal contradictions to these claims within the Bible itself[6][7][8]. Of particular absurdity is the latter claim that God is all loving, considering that it has been estimated by some scholars that he was personally responsible for at least 33,041,220 deaths in the Tanakh[9].
God is obsessed with sumptuary laws and the use and nature of our genitals, destroying those who do not obey seemingly random or nonsensical commandants. In Exodus 4:24-26 for example, God decides to kill Moses because he had not yet cut off the skin from his son’s penis and in Numbers 11:1 God sets the people on fire who had decided to eat meat, as he commanded them to only eat “mana.”
Later on in the history of the Jewish people, as the Assyrians expelled them from Jerusalem and the Bible was modified to explain this apparent injustice, God became a source of salvation and redemption[10] involved in a cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil, fated to return to redeem the righteous on “judgment day,” the end of times. This latter incarnation of God, a mysterious force that promises redemption to those who act righteously and unknowable barbarism to those who act poorly in the cosmic afterlife, is the more-or-less contemporary Hebrew God.
The conception of god(s) in the Greek world was one of greater polytheism with local polis-level examples of henotheism, centering around the 13 major gods Zeus (king of the gods), Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Demeter, and Hestia. Unlike the God of the Hebrews the Greek gods tended to exhibit human qualities, especially as expressed in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey: making mistakes, feuding, dying, battling each other, falling into love, showing empathy, taking part in family structures, forming relationships, having sex, laughing, crying, valuing comedy and picking sides in wars and politics. Â The gods mostly behaved, especially as depicted by Homer, as being spoiled socialites, all too willing to meddle in the affairs of the common man just for their own amusement or satisfaction, and having little regard for the sanctity of life through their careless indulgences. These Gods love mortals, as Aphrodite did with Adonis or Zeus with Leda, or might outright destroy a mortal who angered them, such as Dionysus did to King Pentheus of Thebes for mocking his religious craft[11]. But the gods were not all too human, for they could exhibit magical powers, such as teleportation, elemental mastery, incredible strength, transmutation and illusion, to name a few.
The Greek gods could also be a source of great ideological inspiration and majesty, inspiring the virtue philosophies of Stoicism, Cynicism and Platonism by venerating the wisdom, courage, temperance and prudence of gods such as Zeus or Athena[12]. In this sense the gods served as exemplary role models but not law givers, inspiring the people to act in a righteous way. While not inspiring the people as lead characters in didactic moral stories and dramas, the gods served as a source of entertainment in the epics, contrasting with the strength, incorruptibility and virtue of the hero.
While the gods were powerful, they did not possess unlimited power, as it was implied that even Zeus, king of the gods, could be inhibited or even killed by the combined efforts of other gods, only having true mastery over their individual portfolio of powers, ex. Hades had absolute domain of the underworld, Zeus over lightning and storm.
Ultimately the significant difference between the Hebrew God and the Greek gods was that that the absolute moral direction and unceasing tyranny of the former is surely missing in all of the latter. While the Hebrew God sought to bring about a cosmic order (at least late in the history of the Tanakh) between the forces of good and evil, moral absolutes, steering a divine people into a particular code of conduct by top-down commands and punishment, the Greek gods were players in the world who stood as role models to inspire the people on how to act by example in poetry and in the theatre. Fundamentally Greek mythology did not demand an especially divisive worldview, as the Hebrew God did, as it did not have a conception of sin, or of judging people on the merits of their perceived transgressions. While the Greek gods could be related to, or be perceived as extraordinary humans, the Hebrew God is an unknowable sociopath of capricious insanity which at one moment preaches love and in the next eradicates entire cities of people without pause or reason. Ultimately the nature of the Hebrew God can be lent to the environment to which it was created: from the culture of a primitive hill tribe torn between the more literate and cosmopolitan imperial forces of Assyria and Egypt. The Greeks, another cosmopolitan and cultured people (by relative standards) would come to create gods which fancied wisdom, creativity, love, poetry, courage, beauty, song, dance and merriment, aspects which they thought were the touchstones of humanity. The Jews, too prone to violence and indecency, were unable to raise themselves from their barbaric infancy and instead resigned to be ruled by a madman.
[1] Exodus 20:3, 5
[2] Hezekiah’s Reforms and
the Revolt against Assyria. The Foundation for Biblical Archaeology. http://www.tfba.org/articlespreview.php?articleid=10
[3] Isaiah 43:10
[4] Cruelty and Violence in the Bible. Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html
[5] Ezekiel 47:13-20
[6] Can God do anything? Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/cando.html
[7] Does God know and see everything? Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/knows.html
[8] Does God love everyone? Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/god_hates.html
[9] How many has God killed? Dwindling in Unbelief. http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-many-has-god-killed-complete-list.html
[10] Who Wrote the Bible?. First broadcast 25 December 2004 by Channel 4. Directed by Polly Morland and written by Robert Beckford.
[11] Dionysus – Wine God. About.com: Ancient/Classical History. http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/dionysusmyth/a/Dionysus.htm
[12] The Ethics of Athena. The Encyclopedia of the Goddess Athena. http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Ethics/index.htm
2 replies on “Hebrew God vs Greek Pantheon”
“in Numbers 11:1 God sets the people on fire who had decided to eat meat, as he commanded them to only eat “mana.—
— Contextually inaccurate. The myth follows that the hebrew God had led the people out of Egypt in a string of extraordinary feats through his servant Moses. This is the book of Exodus. The hebrew God sent a pillar of fire to lead them through the desert to the “promised land” which was inhabited by Caananites along with various other nomadic tribes. The Israelite people were notoriously fickle, the old testament is littered with various examples of this. In the previous chapters of the book of numbers there are various instances where the Israelites had been disobedient or out of line with their socio-religious rites and rituals of moral cleanliness. This was extremely culturally significant for the Hebrews, and especially the Israelites who had been present with Moses after ascending Mount Sinai and authoring the ten commandments. However the Israelites still neglect their puritanical duties (at least from a textual standpoint), and as a result they are said to wander the desert for many years, and it is their complaining that angers the God causing him to incinerate them for their irreverence. This is in the very verse you quoted so I am not entirely sure why you misrepresented it.
“inspiring the virtue philosophies of Stoicism, Cynicism and Platonism by venerating the wisdom, courage, temperance and prudence of gods such as Zeus or Athena[12]. In this sense the gods served as exemplary role models but not law givers, inspiring the people to act in a righteous way”
— Haven’t you read the odyssey? Zeus is a total jealous dick. What about Ares? who blankets his bed with the skin of men. virtue? prudence? These are definitely not things that the Greek pantheon is famous for.
“Ultimately the significant difference between the Hebrew God and the Greek gods was that that the absolute moral direction and unceasing tyranny of the former is surely missing in all of the latter”
— Your conclusions are awfully biased and heavy-handed. This would not be accepted in a scholarly setting because it would be considered a logical fault on your part. Your examples and arguments ought to speak for themselves as opposed to using uncharitable language as if to sway the reader. Hate the Judeo-Christian God if it is by your desire, but do so based on accurate textual representations of the things you are claiming to know.
Alicia:
First off, I wrote this 4 years ago as an early undergraduate. I wrote it in such an inflammatory tone to entertain myself and to irritate my professor. That being said, much of it is accurate. I do cite all my claims.
What I said about the virtue religions is correct if you study historiography of ancient history and classics. The Zeus and gods of the Iliad were cruel pranksters who toyed with humanity, that being said, the gods eventually were perceived to be sources of wisdom, serenity, majesty and cardinal virtue by the Hellenistic period and beyond. You see a gradual transforming of the gods from the Odyssey (where the gods stop fighting) to the Aeneid (where the gods have the same sort of moral perfection as the Christian God), to the interpretations of Stoicism. The concept of the Christian god is essentially a mirror of Zeus from early antiquity – with some strange Hebrew taboo, brutality and bronze age superstitions throw in for good measure. The Christian writers were heavily influenced by Stoicism and the Stoic conception of God.