June 2010

Greek Culture is Hebrew 
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, from line 755: 
Io: What! Shall Zeus one day be hurled from his own dominion? 
Prometheus: Thou wouldst rejoice, I trow, to see that happen. 
Io: How should I not, since 'tis at the hand of Zeus I suffer ill? 
Prometheus: Then thou mayest assure thyself that these things are so. 
Greek Culture is Hebrew 
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, from line 755: 
Io: What! Shall Zeus one day be hurled from his own dominion? 
Prometheus: Thou wouldst rejoice, I trow, to see that happen. 
Io: How should I not, since 'tis at the hand of Zeus I suffer ill? 
Prometheus: Then thou mayest assure thyself that these things are so. 
Io: By whom shall he be despoiled of the sceptre of his sovereignty? 
Prometheus: By himself and his own empty-headed purposes. 
Io: In what wise? Oh tell me, if there be no harm in telling. 
Prometheus: He shall make a marriage that shall one day cause him ruth. 
Io: With one divine of birth or with a mortal? If it may be told, speak out. 
Prometheus: Why ask with whom? Of this I may not speak. 
Io: Is it by his consort that he shall be dethroned? 
Prometheus: Aye, since she shall bear a son mightier than his sire.

So here we see the Greek idea of that same Hebrew Messiah, minus one important point: the Greeks thought that Zeus would be replaced by his own son, while the Israelites believed that Yahweh would be His Own Son, who would then rule all nations. One difference is that the Greeks insisted upon a humanized God, a product of their pagan insistences. Now many might point to this, as well as to many other stories, and claim that the Bible had a pagan origin. The truth is that Isaiah wrote 150 years before Aeschylus, and that paganism had a mostly Biblical origin!