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The Twelve Olympians, Orphism, Greco-Buddhism, Orthodox Christianity

Dionysus The story of Dionysus, son of the Greek Olympian God Zeus, has been seen by several writers as containing parallels to the story of Jesus. Professor Harris writes in his book Understanding the Bible that "the myth of Dionysus foreshadows some later Christian theological interpretations of Jesus' cosmic role. Although Jesus is a historical figure and Dionysus purely mythological, Dionysus's story contains events and themes, such as his divine parentage, violent death, descent into the Underworld, and subsequent resurrection to immortal life in heaven, where he sits near his father's throne, that Christians ultimately made part of Jesus' story. Like Asclepius, Heracles, Perseus, and other heroes of the Greco Roman era, Dionysus has a divine father and human mother. The only Olympian born to a mortal woman, he is also the only major deity to endure rejection, suffering, and death before ascending to heaven to join his immortal parent. The son of Zeus and Semele, a princess of Thebes, Dionysus was known as the "twice born." Dionysus also parallels the life of Jesus as he and Demeter gave humanity two gifts to come into communion with the divine: grain (or bread) to sustain life and wine to make life bearable. The Athenian Euripides, a playwright from 485-406 BCE, writes in his The Bacchae: Next came the son of the virgin. Dionysus. bringing the counterpart to bread. wine and the blessings of life's flowing juices. His blood, the blood of grape, lightens the burden of our mortal misery... it is his blood we pour out to offer Thanks to the Gods. And through him. we are blessed Professor Harris alludes that "long before Jesus linked wine and bread as part of the Christian liturgy (Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:17-20) the two tokens of divine favor were associated in the Dionysian tradition. In the Bacchae (worshippers of Bacchus, another name for Dionysus), the Athenian playwright Euripides (c. 485-406 BCE) has the prophet Tiresias observe that Demeter and Dionysus, respectively, gave humanity two indispensable gifts: grain or bread to sustain life and wine to make life bearable. Tiresias urges his hearers to see in Dionysus's gift of wine a beverage the brings into communion with the divine. One particular wine ritual of the Dyonisian myth followers involved priests and guests. The priests would leave three empty pots in a building for all citizens to see. Pausanias states in his Description of Greece, "The doors of the building are sealed by the priests themselves and by any others who may so be inclined. On the morrow they are allowed to examine the seals, and on going into the building they find the pots filled with wine." According to Professor Luther H. Martin in his Hellenistic Religions, this wine tradition and that of the emblem liknon, or the process of purifying wheat from chaff via agency of the spirit, was adopted by the earliest Christians. "This Dionysian wine ritual was incorporated into Christian imagery by the Gospel of John. According to this gospel, the first public act of Jesus was to transform jars of water into wine- the typical Dionysian epiphany miracle. By employing this well-known Dionysian convention, the Gospel at its outset establishes the presence of Jesus as a divine epiphany...the Dionysian liknon represented the possibility of an ecstatic purification by the breath of the spirit as initiates transcended the conditions of everydayness. This image of separating wheat from the chaff through the agency of spirit was also employed by the early Christians (Matt 3:11-12; Luke 3:16-17)." The list scholars have compiled for parallels of Jesus and Dionysus include: •Birth to a divine parent •Narrow escape from attempts to kill him as an infant •Some "missing" formative years •Sudden appearance as a young adult manifesting miraculous gifts •Struggle with evil forces •Return to his place of origin, commonly resulting in rejection •Gift of wine and bread for communion •His betrayal, suffering, and death •His resurrection to divine status leading to the establishment of a cult honoring his name.

Faithless - Bombs!

Orphism's Eschatology The epigraphical sources demonstrate that the "Orphic" mythology about Dionysus' death and resurrection was associated with beliefs in a blessed afterlife. Bone tablets found in Olbia (5th cent. BC) carry short and enigmatic inscriptions like: "Life. Death. Life. Truth. Dio(nysus). Orphics." The function of these bone tablets is unknown. Gold leaves found in graves from Thurii, Hipponium, Thessaly and Crete (4th cent. BC) give instructions to the dead. When he comes to Hades, he must take care not to drink of Lethe ("Forgetfulness"), but of the pool of Mnemosyne ("Memory"), and he must say to the guards: "I am the son of Earth and Starry Heaven. I am thirsty, please give me something to drink from the fountain of Mnemosyne." =============================================== Next will be about the Argonauts.