Generations of Gods: Greek V. Hebrew

Joseph Campbell, in the filmed interview series, The Power of Myth, speaks of myth as a metaphor through which humankind explains the divine and infinite things of our world. As with any culture, ancient Greek and Hebrew nations were shaped by their respective "metaphors." In particular, their stories depicting the nature of their gods or God have the greatest influence on what their cultures looked like and how their citizens interacted with one another.

The nature of divine figures in Greek and Hebrew mythology are different primarily because of their monotheistic and polytheistic natures. While Hebrew tradition lends faith to a single, all powerful God, there are many Greek gods, and they are generational. There is no concept of an eternal God in Greek mythology, instead, they are simply immortal. One god or goddess can give birth to many other gods or goddesses that are still divine, making way for a plethora of gods and goddesses that, through their conduct, create their own society that the Greeks chose to imitate.

All of the elements of this society greatly influenced the Greek culture's religion, governmental system, moral values, and perception of civil rights. Greece was a democracy where all men could have a part in what was done if they chose to. This mimicked their ideology of how the gods interacted with each other. "A brilliant mosaic of nobility, splendor, and amoral passion, the Greek Pantheon mirrors the values and contrarieties of the patriarchal society that fashioned it as a viable image of our essentially paradoxical universe." (Harris and Platzner 177)

Greek gods are more similar to a hierarchy of power than an all-ruling force for humankind. The gods are also theoretically imperfect by all modern Judeo-Christian conventions that we, as Americans, generally ascribe to, and because of this, they are far more humanized that the God of Hebrew tradition.