Myths in the Early Greek Culture - Research Paper Example

Introduction The Greek culture began in Mycenaean Greece and has progressed over thousands of years. In ancientperiods, the Greece is regarded as the birthplace of democracy and Western culture. Greece is a country which is heavily influenced by its location and considered as country of diverse cultures and boundless interests. The major composites of Greek culture are music, religion, language and traditions. The ancient Greek has been pioneered in various fields which rely on methodical thoughts which comprisesof history, geography, physics and biology. The mythology of Greek cultures is being embodied in Greek figurative arts and big collection of narratives which as votive gifts and vase-paintings. The prime disagreements of the Greek myth were between divine and human. The beginning of the universe is believed to be effectively clarified through creation myths. According to Greeks, the mental qualifications of gods are in utmost order than that of common men. In the religion of Greek, the Gods are regarded as powerful and immortal that is mostly in the image of people of Greece. Aristotle presented in Metaphysics that God is as pure as actuality and are most perfect being. The Greek myth provides effective knowledge about the genealogical and epic poetry of creation of sequences of stories that conventional the family relations between dissimilar or heroes stories or clustered around the any heroic events. The prime purpose of the report is to present vibrant information and examine set of myths from the perspective of early Greek culture. Furthermore, the paper also confers on the lessons learned about disapproval between divine and human. Discussion The mythology of Greek is viewed as the form of knowledge and myths that are concerned with the nature of the world, heroes and gods. Moreover, the mythology also deals with the significance and origins of the ritual practices and cult of Greek. The unsystematic and huge corpus of Greek mythology contains importations from Egypt, Babylonia, Palestine, Crete and Phrygia. The evolution of the Greek culture is being accommodated over the changed mythology of Greek. The ancient Greek mythology includes dazzling range of heroes, demigods, deities and monsters. These astounding arrays of figures reserved a dominion that goes beyond the landscape of Greek to the places of gods. Over the period of time, the Greek mythology has come in to prominence and became important part of the European culture. Furthermore, the many stories of the mythology of Greek culture are known all over the world. The myths of Greek culture provide several explanations about difference between human and divine. In the mythology of Greek, the creation of gods leads to the formation of the world. The best introduction on the creation of the world is provides in the Theogony of Hesiod. The Greeks believed that Gods identified that no limitation of space and time can help transport themselves as an incredible distances that cannot be perceived by many human beings. The power of the god is so everlasting that they possess authority to render themselves by making them invisible. They also have the power transform themselves in to human beings. The gods wants betterment of the people and punish people who are doing any misdeeds by transforming them in to stone, animals or trees. It was believed that most of the weapons of the gods are normally used by mankind. These weapons include shields, helmets and spears. From the study of Greek mythology, there have been studies of several curious topics which can be perceived by normal people as uncountable philosophies. There are several set of myths of Greek culture which offers effective information to distinguish between divine and human. The existence of Zeus is one of the myths of Greek culture (UPENN 1) Zeus is viewed as the ruler of the Olympian and god of the sky. Zeus is also regarded as the leader of earth and dominant deity of the universe. The Greek human beings viewed Zeus as the exemplification of the law of nature, god of the sky and father of men and gods. Human also believed that Zeus is the god of structured time and symbolizes the laws of harmonious and unchanging order. Being the father of earth and men, Zeus takes prime interest towards the well-being of the human beings. For many people, Zeus is the god of creation of world and mankind. Every human being has an utmost respect for the king of the gods. People having problems with their father think Zeus as the perfect father. The relation between human and divine were presented by the Greek psychology as dissimilar. Divine beings are superior to the human. Human has to obey the rules and regulations of divine. In the honor of Zeus and Hera, there is one hymn for each of them. Both of the hymns which are written regarding the king of gods and wife lacked the detail and are comparatively lesser. In classical mythology of Greek, a Demi-god is described as supernatural or divine being. In ancient times, the word demigod is rarely used and does not have any proper definition of the existence of the divine being. Over the period of time, the myth of demigod came in to prominence and provided vivid information about the existence of the supernatural being. Anciently, the word has different meaning. The archaic Greek poets named Hesiod and homer stated dead heroes as half god. The epics of Homer have been major influencing in shaping the culture of culture. This is the reason why Homer is regarded as the teacher of Greece. On the other hand, Hesiod another Greek poet also has been influential in Greek culture. Most the modern scholars, refers Hesiod and Homer, as the major source for farming techniques and Greek mythology. According to the earliest record, Hesiod and Homer does not meant to say that half god had one parent who was mortal and one parent who was divine. According to Theodora Prince, the term heroes are demonstrated by power, strength and good family. This Greek myth states that God and human being are both different side of a compass. The myth of Deity is different that than of myth of Demi-god. According to the religious beliefs, Deity is described as a supernatural being that is thought to be sacred, divine or holy. Every religion has one supreme deity, who is followed by every human being. The Greek mythology tries to present that god is the creator of universe and have the power of provide justice to nullify any misdeed. The Mythology, Gods and Goddesses by Scott Littleton defines the supernatural being Deity as a being who has power which is greater than that of ordination human being. Scott Littleton also states that Deity can carry human being in to whole new level of consciousness. According to the myth, Deity is thought to have personality and possesses desires, consciousness, emotions and desires which is more superior to that of humans. Moreover, Deity also has the power to transform in to any concrete form and also regarded as immortal. The modes of worship, myths and theories of Deities are largely based on religion. It is thought that some of the deities are inaccessible and invisible to humans. This myth of the Greek tries to define that the perception of human beings on Deity is powerful, invisible and dominant force for the betterment of the human beings. The deities are described in polytheism as the equivalent to humans. The boundary between divine and human is not complete. The perception of people regarding demigod and deities is that they are god and needed to be worshipped. Human believe that they require help of supernatural being for their benefit. Throughout the Greek culture, the ideals of human and Greek religion are shown that they are conflict between each other. The Greek scholar William Zak states that, to what extent human beings would respect the Gods of the Greek (Hunter 1). According to Greek mythology, Asclepius is described as the god healing. The people of the Greece believe that Asclepius can heal them at the time of danger. Both human and divine are linked with each other. It is the Greek myths which separate the thinking of god and divine. Human believesthat demigod is supernatural deities that manage the affairs of the afterlife, heaven and earth. Moreover, myth is described as core element which enables people to understand the purpose of living and comprehend the existence of human world. Human believes that this historical fact of the divine creature arises out of the deeds, achievement and real-life adventures. Daemon is another godlike supernatural creature, which is described in Greek mythology as natural spirits. Moreover, Daemons are nature and benevolent spirits which has the nature of being both deities and mortals (SDU 1). These are similar to spirit guides, chthonic and ghosts. According to the myth of Hesiod, the powerful and great figureafter death is known as daemon. According to the people of Greek, the daemons are viewed as the dangerous figure which remain invisible and can also form in to human creature. The Homeric Hymns are an assemblage of 33 anonymous Greek poems. Furthermore, this are composed in the Epic style to celebrate different gods. The ancient Hymns were written later than Hesiod. The hymns vary in length. Some of the hymns are in excess of 500 line and some of them are so brief that it is written on four or five lines. The narrative elements are lacking in brief line. While in case of extended line, the explanation is detailed. The longer lines comprises of praise, extensive narrative and invocation. It has also been found out that the longer lines are accumulated and shown signs of been gather from the disparate resources. This collection of spiritual oriented poems came in to prominence over the period of time. The designation of hymn is earned because the collection of poems is based on glorification, invocation and praise. Additionally, the blessing of the end is in the end of the poems. There poems helps to discover the relationship between humanity and gods. The hymns of Zeus and Hera suggested that they are motivating, defining and powerful characters. One of the main purposes of the hymn is to suggest that the will of power is subjected towards the gods which is regarded as superior than their own power. The lessons learned from the Greek myths are moral and ancient culture of Greece. Epic stories of ancient legends and spiritual beings are being effectively presented by the poets of Greek. Furthermore, the explanation of myth provides brilliant evidence about different between divine and human. Like most of the prehistoric culture, the Greek cultures were polytheistic. This resembles the fact that most of the gods at the time of ancient Greek acted like humans. Hesiod, Greek poet wrote about the goddesses of Earth which emerged from nothing for the betterment of the culture and mankind. It has been found out from the myth of Zeus, demigod, deities and Daemons that gods and supernatural beings always intervene to help humans and achieve goals of the earth. One the other hand, human does not have the capability and courage to solve their problems. Humans do not have right and power to intervene towards the work of Gods. The lack of perfection and self-belief act as a drawback for humans. According to the myth of Zeus, humans only seek to gather. On the other hand, divine seeks to distribute. The power of God can be determined from the discussion of myths. The notion of forgiveness is only determined by God. The underline moral lesson learned from the myths is that the obedience and honorable behavior of the human is rewarded by divine and dishonored humans had to pay high price. Myths can help to teach lesson and explain the presence of unknown. According to Greek mythology, the creation of human beings is dependent on Zeus. If any bad things happened then human beings would believe that something has been wrong from their side and Zeus might not be happy, and if any good things happen then human beings would things are right from their side and the god Zeus is happy. This certain things provide effective presentation about the perception of human and divide. There is a significant influence of opposition between divine and human towards the structure of the world. Ethically and morally world has been structured through the evolution of myths.In the world of laws and regulations, the structure of the world is influenced morally, socially, ethically and physically. But in case of ancient myths, moral and ethical are the two factors which created huge impact on the development of the structure of world. But in today’s world, the argument about moral behavior of human beings is considered as the presence of God. The appeal about the moral behavior of human is based on real-world reflections as good reputation, psychological well-being, promotion of public well and attaining the goals (Edwords 1). The belief of human on doing something right is very acute in the moral conduct. The historical story about myths has been influential in the development of moral values of human beings. The belief of Greek is modified by the influence of neighbor civilization and introduction of new philosophies. The characteristics of legends and Greek gods are unchanged in the structure of world. The cultural activities of human beings are justified by myths. Human believe that myths has helped to conform to principles of wrong and right behavior. The badness or goodness of human character and actions is improved by antagonism between divine and human. The development of myths delivered a compact foundation of moral system which is based on humanistic. The viewpoint of anthropomorphic is the development of self-esteem. Some of the theologians believe that god is there punish occurrence of unethical behavior. There is an existence of belief of human on myths of god. Likewise, the ancient myth of gods also has ethical impact towards the structure of world. In most of the culture, the collected heritage of myths is significant towards the growth of human culture (Sarnoff 80). The impact of myths towards the ethical behavior of human beings is enormous. Ancient myths are basically chronicle stories which are viewed by believer as guidance of behavior. The story of god may be fictitious and there is not reasonable truth behind the stories. Some of the myths may be true and perceived by human beings as the path to follow. But it provides knowledge and rules for people that are needed to be followed to flourish in life. God always want their followers to follow right path and succeed in their life with any misdeed. The ethical behavior of human can in heavily influenced by the believer of gods and myths. The models provided by myths guides the behavior of human beings ethically. The belief which is set from the introduction of myths and gods has helped human beings in the world to know things that are needed to be performed ethically. An ethical human is viewed as the people who accept the principle and carefully perform good actions. The ethical essence of the responsibility of human is decided by the grace of god. The wisdom of god could not be cleared by the autonomy of the humanity. Conclusion This can be concluded that the myth of Greek tries to present vivid explanation about the origin of the world. Myths have justified the activities of culture and presented effective guidelines for living of human beings. The mythology of Greek is centered on the legends that have passed by with the word of mouth. Therefore, there are many versions of Greek myths which were based on relationship between divine and human. Important set of myths has been presented in the paper to provide detailed information about disagreement between human and divine. Epic stories were created by Greek poets such as Hesiod and Homer which are based on the deeds and heroics of ancient Greek legends. The myth of daemon is the godlike creature with can transform in to human beings. These nature spirits and ghosts were regarded as the power figure that is feared by humans. Myth of demigod is the classical mythology of supernatural being that has attained divine position. They are regarded by human as the half god. Human do not have the supremacy and are feeble to intervene the work of god. The god of thunder and Sky, Zeus is viewed by human as the creator of the universe. Both morally and ethically, myth has impact on the structure of the world. Works Cited Edwords, Fred. The Human basis of laws and ethics. 1985. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. < http://americanhumanist.org/humanism/The_Human_Basis_of_Laws_and_Ethics>. Hunter, Adam. Human vs. Divine law in Greek tragedy. 2005. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. . Sarnoff, A. Charles. Symbols in structure and function. New York: Xlibris, 2004. Print. SDU. Other Gods. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. < http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/scaffold/gg/othergod.html>. UPENN. Zeus. 2009. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. . Read More