The Bible and Mythology part 3

For the final post of 2009 it seems only right that we should head into the underworld.

Hades was the brother of Zeus in Greek mythology and Lord of the Underworld, ruling over the dead. In the tradition of tyrants Hades yearned for more power and more subjects – looking favourably on those who would send him more dead and not being willing to let any of his subjects leave.

"Hades is not to be soothed, neither overcome, wherefore he is most hated by mortals of all gods."
Homer, Iliad 9.158

His special helmet rendered him invisible and he liked to keep dogs – three-headed ones.

By the Christian era Hades became the name not just of the god, but of the whole underworld as a place.

In the New Testament we find references to Hades, but significantly it is used only to indicate the grave or death – not an entire underworld civilization. The only place where this is referred to is in Jesus parable (made up story) of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16).

So again the Bible takes commonly held ideas and uses them to bring people to God. Peter must have felt a thousand feet tall when Jesus said this to him:

‘And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell [hades] shall not prevail against it.’
Matthew 16 v 18

(Part 1) (Part 2)

All things bright and beautiful?

Jean Henri Fabre describes a bee-eating wasp, the Philanthus, who has killed a honeybee. If the bee is heavy with honey, the wasp squeezes its crop...

"so as to make her disgorge the delicious syrup, which she drinks by licking the tongue which her unfortunate victim, in her death-agony, sticks out of her mouth at full length... At the moment of some such horrible banquet, I have seen the Wasp, with her prey, seized by the Mantis: the bandit was rifled by another bandit. And here is an awful detail: while the Mantis held her transfixed under the points of the double saw and was already munching her belly, the Wasp continued to lick the honey of her Bee, unable to relinquish the delicious food even amid the terrors of death. Let us hasten to cast a veil over these horrors"

Quoted from 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' by Annie Dillard

The Bible & Mythology part 2

In Paul's speech from Athens (Acts 17) he makes use of a number of references to Greek mythology:
1) He uses one of their altars to introduce them to Yahweh - the Unknown God v23
2) He picks up on the idea of 'the ether', the medium that the Greeks believed sustained them, and replaces it with God - 'in him we live and move and have our being' v28. This is actually a quote from the poet Epimenides (600BC).
3) Quoting other poets (Aratus and Cleanthes) he even lifts a line from a Hymn to Zeus! 'We are his offspring.' (v28)!

This repeats the pattern seen in part 1 where the Bible uses existing myths and beliefs as a base for teaching people about God.

God the Potter

One of the side-effects of William Paley's famous 'Watchmaker' analogy of creation is that it seems to have tram-lined our thinking of what it means for God to be our Creator. It conjures the picture of God bending over a bench fiddling with the various parts of each creature before releasing them into the world.

Science should cause us to change our view on this and instead see God as a potter, that is someone who both started the wheel in motion and continues to mould and shape His masterpiece.

The interesting thing is that this is exactly how the Bible portrays God:

But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Jeremiah 64 v 8

The Bible & Mythology part 1

This is the god Marduk, one of the chief players in middle-eastern mythology and a character that illustrates how the Bible uses mythology to bring people to God.

In his epic struggle with Tiamat (the dragon in the background) the great beast tries to swallow Marduk only for the hero to emerge, splitting the belly of the beast in two.

A dramatic tale but what's the point? Well for me it helps us to understand why Jonah had such an impact on the people of Assyria. They had been used to hearing tales of their god emerging from the belly of a beast and so it must have been amazing to see Jonah spewed up onto the sand - a testimony to the divine origin of his message.

God's message takes people from whatever understanding they have and draws them to know Him, the true and living God.

The evolution of religion

A recent essay in the journal Science discusses the evolution of religion.

There are two strands to these kinds of studies. The first is to look for archaeological evidence for symbolic thought (like these carvings), or burial practices that indicate a belief in an afterlife. The second is more psychological, and considers what kind of thought processes are required for religious belief to exist and ask how they could have evolved (i.e. what benefits would there have been for survival and reproduction).

The article admits that the data available is really sketchy but one thing I found interesting was the reference to a study of children showing that they tend towards teleological explanations i.e. we seem built to look for an ultimate purpose.

The children were asked whether rocks are pointy because a) they are made of small bits of material or b) to prevent animals from sitting on them. The youngsters preferred the second option.

More questions than answers (what’s new!) but whether by natural selection or otherwise we’re built to seek a higher meaning to life.

The amber flyglass

Amber is fossilised tree resin. It provides as with an intriguing alternative to the fossil record, especially where insects are concerned, because it can seemingly freeze creatures in time

In this paper a new kind of fly has been discovered. As predicted by evolutionary theory it has some similarities to modern-day flies BUT it also has striking differences. It is so different that it has been categorised as being the first example of a new family.

Around 100 million years ago Cascoplecia insolitis was buzzing around the skies, getting in the eyes of dinosaurs and the like. It shows the unique feature of having miniature eyes at the located at the end of a small protuberance (see arrow above). These are alongside the main compound eyes.

The fact that this novelty hasn’t survived indicates that it was an adaptation to specific circumstances that finally became a dead end.

(Incidentally, the name apparently means ‘old’ and ‘strange’!)