God's Word...don't myth it!

Mythology is, according to an old dictionary, “a system of fables or fabulous opinions and doctrines respecting the deities which heathen nations have supposed to preside over the world or to influence the affairs of it.”* . But where did those fables originate?

There are apparent parallels between Norse mythology and the Old Testament, but the connection betwixt Greek mythology and the heroes of scripture are plain for all to see.  Perhaps the most well known of all Greek god-heroes was Hercules, a being of immense physical strength.

Steve Reeves as Hercules 1957

The “Encyclopaedia of the Classical World,” states, “The tales of his heroic deeds lend to the supposition that Hercules was originally an historic figure.” Who in the Bible might be a “role model” for Hercules? The Israelite hero Samson, whose life is detailed in the Bible in Judges, Chapters 13-16 fulfills that office perfectly.

One pivotal event in Hercules’ life involved his escaping from the clutches of an emblematic woman, who is called “Pleasure.” This corresponds directly to the troubles Samson got himself involved in with the harlots of Canaan. 



One of Hercules many feats of great strength is a duplicate of Sampson’s killing of the lion in Judges 14:5-6 

Hercules or Samson?

Then Samson and his father and mother went down to Timnah and came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion as he would have torn a kid, and he had nothing in his hand; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. Judges 14:5-6 Amplified Bible

What the Bible does not fully record, but the ancient Jewish historian, Josephus in his monumental work, “Antiquities of the Jews” does, is the manner of the killing of the lion. Sampson, according to this widely accepted historian, throttled the beast prior to tearing it into pieces…which is exactly how Hercules killed his lion, a wild beast that never even lived in ancient Greece. Yet another of Hercules 12 labors involved his live capture of a wild animal, which he brought home and threw at the feet of Eurystheus. In Judges 15:4, Samson also captured live wild animals, which he released in the cornfields of the Philistines. 

The story of the “Noah’s Flood” also has a parallel in Greek mythology, where Deucalion and Pyrrha built a wooden “chest” to save them. Historian Olive Beaupre Miller, in “A Picturesque Tale of Progress” says, “The similarity of these flood stories [Greek and Hebrew] is interesting. Here, as in the Bible, the flood is sent to destroy mortals because of the evil in the world; the chest goes aground on a mountain top and the survivors at once offer sacrifice.” (see Genesis 8:20-22) It is also interesting to note that the Greek god-hero, “Adonis,” name arises from a Semitic word meaning “Adon” or Lord. One of God’s tiles is “Adonai” 

Greek "creation stories" are very similar to the Biblical accounts, Chaos is the Greek equivalent to God, and this being even created similar things, and in similar order to God. 

At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. Aristophanes, Birds, line 685 
 

Pandora's Box, or Adam and Eve's sin?

 There is also some similarity in the separation or the falls in man's relationships with God and Zeus, later chief god of the ancient Greeks. Although the offenses in each case were very different, both falls were the products of trickery, deceit, and temptation. In both cases, the temptation was in the form of food (Genesis 3:1-6). Most people have heard of Pandora's Box, actually a large jar that contained all the evils of the world. Pandora was the first woman, and despite being warned not to do so, she opened the "box" and unleashed the evil therein.... sound familiar?

Probably the most important similarity in the two falls, however, is the negative role that Woman plays in each. In the Bible, woman actually leads man to the fall from God and as the punishment for that fall, exile from the Garden of Eden, while Greek mythology cites that Woman was the punishment for the fall from Zeus (Genesis 3:6-24). In the ancient Greek culture, Woman was designed to make man miserable. Although she plays different roles, womankind eventually bears the blame for all human suffering and sorrow in both stories.

The traditional view of the synthesis of these stories is that the Bible writers "borrowed" these stories from the oral traditions of the ancient Greeks and other peoples and turned them into biblical versions of the same events. However it's easily provable that some of the Old Testament was written hundreds of years before Greece became a nation. The Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible) were written by Moses about 900 B.C.

The Bible does not shy away from the "existence" of pagan gods, and numerous times the ancient Israelites were specifically warned not to worship them!

In giving the law to the Israelites, the Lord commanded them to on no account worship the gods of the other nations; but we read of many instances where they deliberately disregarded this injunction, and were in consequence punished until they returned to Him, the only true God.

Jeremiah records a case in point in chapter 44, verses 15-19,25--"As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee, but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven," 

Judges 2:11-13 is the record of  another falling away of the Israelites: "And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord unto anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth."  

*Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. 

Books cited: 

Homer. Iliad: Book Twenty.
Classics 135-001: Greek and Roman Mythology

Tyrell, William Blake and Frieda S. Brown. Hesiod's Myth of the Birth of the Cosmos.
Tripp, Edward. The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology.