Religion and Alexander

Discuss the culture of Alexander's world and his image in art

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John

Religion and Alexander

Post by John »

In Alexander's travels, he used to interpret the top god of other people's religions as the Zeus he worshipped. So I have to ask, Was the god Moses saw in Egypt the same "Zeus" that Hercules saw? After all, the time and place seem to be about the same (on a mountain around Egypt during the reign of Ramses II). The only difference was they came away with different interpretations of what they saw. Homer says Hercules saw a ram's head. Hmmm.
John
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marcus
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Re: Religion and Alexander

Post by marcus »

This is a difficult one to answer, I think. I don't have access to the relevant books at the moment (the problem with having to work!), but I seem to recall that it wasn't an 'interpretation' as such - ie. Zeus Ammon was *not* 'perceived' to be Olympian Zeus. I know this isn't much help, because I cannot support this statement, nor can I provide more detail... but it might at least encourage this thread to grow <g>
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John

Re: Religion and Alexander

Post by John »

Marcus,
The story goes (though I can't give the exact citation right now, either) that Hercules requested Zeus to reveal himself to him, but the closest Zeus would go was to put a ram's head in front of him; so that's as close as Hercules ever came to seeing the "real" Zeus.
John
John

Re: Religion and Alexander

Post by John »

- I think I got that ram's head story from Diodorus Siculus, somewhere in his first five books, which he devoted to the "histories" of the gods, and Diodorus got it from one of the now lost "Homeric hymns." For some reason, Perseus didn't put Diodorus books 1-5 online, so you might have to got to a good library to find it.
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Re: Religion and Alexander

Post by marcus »

John,
This is obviously a reference to Ammon, though, isn't it? I'm not sure (and I'm *really* not sure - not just tactfully disagreeing with you) how far we can see a synthesis with Jehovah who appeared to Moses in Egypt. It's an interesting question, whether the geographical location of mythical (or semi-mythical) encounters with gods indicates anything in the way of synthesis of those gods. The question of Ammon / Zeus / Jehovah is even more difficult because Zeus came from a wildly polytheistic culture while Jehovah was anything but! As for Ammon, everything I've read suggests that this was totally different, culturally, being a much older, (animistic even, perhaps?) deity of the Libyans, that for some reason became very popular with the Greeks...
I don't know... I'm making it all up now <g>
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John

Re: Religion and Alexander

Post by John »

Marcus,
If I'm not real coherent right now, it's because I just endured an outing with a female Tazmanian devil on a shopping spree. OK.
* Didn't Alexander consider Zeus-Ammon to be one and the same god?
* You're almost making my point for me by naming Moses' god as Jehovah. That sure sounds alot like the Roman name for Zeus (Jove).
This may sound crazy, but I'm willing to bet that Hercules and Moses were actually contemporaries, and had some sort of competition as to who was closest to the big guy. Also, Moses claimed that he freed the Jews from their bondage; Hercules was famous for the same kind of thing; he was said to have freed Prometheus from his bondage, which was said to anger Zeus, since he thought he had Prometheus chained for a good reason - teaching man how to use fire. Interestingly, wasn't it the Jew Einstein who taught man how to use the atomic fire? OK. Now I think my reach has overtaken my grasp. I think I'll go see what loot the she-devil has plundered.
John
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Re: Religion and Alexander

Post by marcus »

I hadn't thought about the Jove / Jehovah (or even Yaweh) connection. I was about to make a point about Indo-European linguistics, but then remembered that Hebrew is a Semitic language... but there might be something in it.
Then you started to go on about Einstein and Prometheus... and I reckon the rigours of your shopping trip got the better of you <g>.
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Re: Religion and Alexander

Post by John »

Marcus,
Granted, my Prometheus ramblings were "out there." I can only take condolence from the image of Alexander and his army out there in Afghanistan trying to find the cave where Zeus had had Prometheus chained. Did they REALLY take those myths literally?
John
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