But other gods were also worshipped in these cities. The Difference Between Mythology and Religion If we see ancient Greek religion as representative of some of the social functions which religion was created to serve, though, then the behavior and attitudes of Christians in America begin to make sense because they simply stand in a long line of using religion for the purpose of political, national, and ethnic identity. The same was thought of eating and drinking. Ancient Greek religious practice, essentially conservative in nature, was based on time-honored observances, many rooted in the Bronze Age (30001050 B.C. Some of my main historical interests include ancient religion, mythology, and folklore; gender and sexuality; ethnicity; and interactions between Greek cultures and cultures they viewed as foreign. Please select which sections you would like to print: Edward Olson Professor of Greek, of Philosophy, and of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, University of Chicago. In fact many of their competitions included both. For the first academic researchers into myth, most, if not all, of the myths they studied were in fact not true. In the Hellenistic period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece (146 BC), Greek religion developed in various ways, including expanding over at least some of Alexander's conquests. In Christianity for example they have Jesus that died for our sins, but that's everything, and that is said for other popular alive religions too. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Still, in Greece and elsewhere, there is evidence that pagan and Christian communities remained essentially segregated from each other, with little mutual cultural influence. And, they were actually happy to undertake the responsibilities. Its effect was most marked on the Romans, who identified their deities with those of the Greeks. Some priestly functions, like the care for a particular local festival, could be given by tradition to a certain family. Religion, however, is even more complicated. Given mytholog y is almost always associated with a certain religion such as Greek mythology with Ancient Greek religion. Greek religion as it is currently understood probably resulted from the mingling of religious beliefs and practices between the incoming Greek-speaking peoples who arrived from the north during the 2nd millennium bce and the indigenous inhabitants whom they called Pelasgi. Religion and Mythology - The Spiritual Life (This idea isnt exactly true in all ways, but it is an integral part of the United States national mythology.). Demeter: an ancient Greek goddess. [pageneeded] Greco-Roman philosophical schools incorporated elements of Judaism and Early Christianity, and mystery religions like Christianity and Mithraism also became increasingly popular. In Hellenistic times (32330 bce) Callimachus, a 3rd-century-bce poet and scholar in Alexandria, recorded many obscure myths; his contemporary, the mythographer Euhemerus, suggested that the gods were originally human, a view known as Euhemerism. The fullest and most important source of myths about the origin of the gods is the Theogony of Hesiod, which also includes folktales and etiological myths. Various religious festivals were held in ancient Greece. Traits. Although it may be common to speak of a Greek "religion," in fact the Greeks themselves didn't use such a term and might not have recognized it had someone else attempted to apply it to their practices. Did the Ancient Greeks Really Believe in Their Myths? Greek religious concepts may also have absorbed the beliefs and practices of earlier, nearby cultures, such as Minoan religion,[36] and other influences came from the Near East, especially via Cyprus.

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