What’s a god?
The notion of god is not and may never come to be simply illustrated amongst the masses. That is, until the day in which rule is set under one religion, mankind may be deemed to forever float, lost in translation, about time. Various sources that provide descriptions of god, including those of the Hebrew bible, risk leading many to doubt not only who god is and the overall existence of a god but what it means to be a god as well. Consequently, such topic discussions may be the leading cause behind the birth of Ancient Greece’s cultured philosophies, Hellenism. This study of Greek deity majorly influences literature and can be found in works such as The Iliad Of Homer and The Epic of Gilgamesh. Through the use of comparison to these supreme beings, we learn from Genesis’s literary character of god not about who god is per say but rather, if there is a god, what god is or even expected of. Through bible study, one learns the idea of god to be the one and only. No human being is to ever come close to the same level as god; an unreachable level where he will forever stand alone. Genesis supports such an insinuation in which god destroys the construction of some large tower a few men build in an attempt to reach heaven. This blatant disrespect to one of god’s only Ten Commandments suggests reason behind why god is so angered on a personal level by these egotistical actions. Such detail about god may be reasonably inferred when comparing them to the stories of the Grecian Deity; the existence of multiple gods as oppose to one absolute power.
The overall belief on Greek mythology truly tarnishes the meaning of the word ’god’ itself. That is, such super humans are described as gods when they are found to sin like humans. For instance, Zeus, the king of the gods, himself is found to commit adultery against his wife, Hera. The Hebrew god is the lawmaker while the deities are the ones breaking the rules just as much as mankind. Though, as the Hebrew god, Greek gods still make it their business to assert this level of power so that no human tries to stand beside them; they establish their purpose as to inspire skill, whether good or bad. For example, in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh fails to reach such an unattainable goal of immortality and comes to realize the reason behind such failure is due to the fact that, as a human being, he does not have the ability to exceed the potential of mankind in such a manner. Unlike the Greek gods though, such hands on clarity is not made when the Hebrew god attempts to set the record straight with mankind. Rather, god uses physical objects to advocate spiritual purpose. Unlike the image of God in the bible, the Greek deities are found to exemplify human-like characteristics. Such limitations can be found in The Iliad of Homer in which, with little to no shame at all, the gods depict notions of sex, love, war, death, depression, joy and even the act of making mistakes. One may even reasonably infer that it might very well be in their nature, showing the reader that these gods may be labeled as gods but are little to no where nearly as absolute as god himself since they are created in the image of man. In fact, like a human, Dionysus is so angry when King Pentheus slanders his practice in religion in which he cannot help but act out his emotions and simply annihilates him with the snap of a finger. Here, every detail of every action is meticulously illustrated to the reader. On the contrary, the Hebrew god does not possess any limits such as the Greek gods but rather lacks the definition as both a concrete being and entity.
Those that are familiar with the bible can recall that when reading one is inclined to view god as a describable creature because the text often illustrates god through the use of human characteristics. In fact, the bible reads that god talks to man and yet nobody stops to ask how such detail is even possible if god is above the rule of verbal