Common themes found in the New Testament texts and other Greco-Roman and ancient Near Eastern stories

[davidmartin]

this is all very interesting especially the classic quotes in corinthians and acts
but.... too much information!

there needs to be a concordance to easily look up which passages have classic parallels otherwise it's impossible to get a clear picture

[nightshadetwine]

this is all very interesting especially the classic quotes in corinthians and acts
but.... too much information!

there needs to be a concordance to easily look up which passages have classic parallels otherwise it's impossible to get a clear picture

Yeah, I know. I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it. I figured I would just quote from sources and people can just read through it. I just really wanted to get information out there about this topic. I don't think there's a book that actually covers everything I've found. Maybe people could do a word search if they're looking for a particular passage or story. I mainly just wanted to make a post that collects sources on this topic. You could also always ask me about specific passages. Do you have any suggestions that could maybe make it easier to search through?

[nightshadetwine]

More on the novels containing some of the same themes as the texts of the NT. Journeys of suffering and the loss of status (becoming a slave or a lower form of being like a donkey in the case of Lucius) that lead to rebirth/resurrection and salvation, themes of "descent" and "ascent", Platonic and Stoic philosophical concepts, etc. are also found in the NT texts. The Novels reused themes from earlier myths and literature to create a new story. Same goes for the authors of NT texts.

Ideal Themes in the Greek and Roman Novel (Routledge, 2021), Jean Alvares:

Greco-Roman philosophy was both a series of doctrines and sometimes a countercultural lifestyle, one opposed to the pursuit of wealth, power, fame, as Longinus stresses (Subl. 7.1; Connor 4). D & C, Aithiopika, L & K and even the Metamorphoses are informed with philosophical elements that offer impressions of deeper issues being addressed while reflecting cultural realities, often in ironized form... Particularly popular were various forms of Platonism, especially the Phaedrus and the Symposium. Such philosophical idealism posits an ideal realm (e.g., the Beautiful and Good) that can be communed with, as love (Platonic and otherwise) and increasingly rarifed desire propel humans toward their original perfection, a philosophical justification for the emergence of the ideal. A philosophic debate over love’s nature was a standard topic of progymnasmata. Longus’ frame narrator promises to teach love’s nature, and his subsequent novel contains various theosophic elements concerning love. The center of Longus’ Plato-inspired Eros-philosophy is a saving vision of the beautiful, recalling the Symposium and Agathon’s praise of Eros (Repath, “Platonic Love”; Morgan, Daphnis 179 ff.)...

Platonically infected Stoicism is another influence. Thus, Xenophon of Ephesus stresses Stoic notions of the soul’s freedom to overcome temptations and tortures, especially regarding Habrocomes. Iambulus’ account of the Islands of the Sun refelcted Stoic theories on living the simple, ordered life according to nature (Möllendorff) and, with its description of ideal climate and worship of the Sun and Moon, also influenced Heliodorus’ conception of Meroe (Futre Pinheiro, “Utopia”). Neopythagorean, Platonic and Stoic-Cynic views of the ideal King as embodying a ruling, universal logos likewise earlier influenced Chariton (Ruiz Montero, “Caritón” 139–41). I show later how a greater valuation of women and erotic relationships was offered by Stoic and later Platonic philosophers, such as Musonius Rufus and particularly Plutarch in his Eroticus, Advice to the Bride and Groom and Consolation to His Wife...

Greco-Roman myths were always capable of literary revision. “Homer’s” epics altered older traditions, and tragedians (Euripides) and philosophers (Plato) fashioned variants on old myths or created new ones. Attic potters created a series of labors for Theseus to match those of Heracles. Such revisions proliferated in the Hellenistic and Roman eras, a process prompted by contacts with new cultures and, perhaps, a greater openness to forms of literary innovation (Bowersock, “Fiction” 1–28)... Especially important here is Vergil’s Aeneid, which revises the myths of Homer and the matter of Troy, Jason and Medea and even Plato’s Republic to create a grandly positive (although tragedy marred) history of Aeneas and the Roman state.

Our novels revise customary themes and narratives of Greco-Roman myth and literature to give happier and sometimes more world-significant outcomes to the protagonists’ erotic adventures. This extends the contrast between the darkly tragic Iliad and the Odyssey and its folktale-derived Odysseus, whose career suggests that for the resourceful and lucky, happy endings are possible. Heliodorus’ Charikleia and Theagenes replay the foundational Ethiopian myth of Andromeda and Perseus. The career of Theagenes adds a positive conclusion to tragic histories of his doomed ancestors, Achilles and Neoptolemus. The couple’s god-directed travels revise the wandering myths of Odysseus, Jason and Medea, and Aeneas and the Trojans...

To the extent our ideal novels can be imaginatively experienced as history, they offer a space for an idealized history that might have been and might yet be. Clearly, there was a spectrum of approaches to historiography, from a nearly modern respect for hard facts and reasoning from those facts to history as another form of (melo)dramatic entertainment. Further, note that Jacoby, when outlining the theoretical framework for his collection of historiographical fragments, argued that the collection should include “virtually all forms of nonfction prose writing, not just what we should narrowly call history, but also mythography, ethnography, chronography, biography, literary history and geography” (“Über” 80–123). For Veyne, much of Greek history-writing is not about recovering precise facts, but about creating a plausible story, and our erotic novels often have enough verisimilitude to achieve this task. Long ago Schwartz posited that the Greek novel arose from Hellenistic dramatic history (Fünf Vorträge). Consider how much solid historical information was known about Alexander the Great, yet within a few centuries Alexander’s mythos would gain adventures that surpass those of most Greek mythological figures. Consider, too, the Cyropaedia of Xenophon of Athens, which radically rewrites Cyrus’ life and career to provide an example of ideal government. As the Greek novelists rewrote mythic narratives to give happier outcomes to erotic love affairs, some novelists (e.g., Chariton, Heliodorus and the authors of the Metiochus or Ninus romances) created a type of alternative historical narrative which not only depicted a moment of ideal amatory achievement, but sometimes a moment of political and social superiority. I will show that Chariton’s Callirhoe is set in a known historical period with some historically real (or realistic) characters and situations, although major errors occur; such detail and Chariton’s occasional historiographical pose make Callirhoe the most fitting candidate as a positive alternate history illustrating potentials in the Greek past that could be activated in Chariton’s present. In contrast, the more comic and sardonic novels of Apuleius (whose Lucius idealizes Roman power) and Achilles Tatius seem set in the present or near past, and function not to give examples of utopian potential, but more to mock the insufficiencies of the current era...

Plato suggested that increasingly rarified forms of desire raise the lover upward to the ultimate Idea of Beauty, the telos of love. Plato, in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, makes Eros a particularly human entity, one who leads to the vision of the Idea of the Good. In the Phaedrus, desire for the vision of the beautiful helps the soul regain its lost wings, a moment when the lover looks upon the deepest truths and thus feels godlike; our amatory novels are filled with allusions to such mystic revelations...

I will first offer three consecutive chapters on the more ideal novels, Callirhoe, Daphnis and Chloe (D & C) and the Aithiopika, and then two chapters on the less ideal ironic-sardonic Leukippe and Kleitophon (L & K) and Metamorphoses. I frame my consideration of these ideal novels dialectically. Callirhoe is the most grounded in historiography, and its plot concerns major world-historical events centered on the marvelous child and near-avatar of the divine Callirhoe, while lacking explicit divine interventions...

Chariton’s Callirhoe is probably the earliest of the extant Greco-Roman novels, although by then the genre seems to have reached a certain maturity. Callirhoe resembles a historical novel, whose historical dimensions have been detailed. Chariton, as did later writers of the Second Sophistic, utilizes a wide expanse of Greek (perhaps even Latin) literary traditions, but with considerable freedom, artistry and even playfulness. Callirhoe’s reader may be uncertain about which interpretive paradigm to employ, as the novel alternates between the poles of hard history and mythical epic. Chaereas becomes a paradigmatic Greek literary protagonist by embodying a wide range of characters from Greek literature and myth, evoking the comic Chaereas as well as Alexander the Great, Nireus, Hippolytus, Hector, Odysseus, Protesilaus, Agamemnon, Theseus, Diomedes, Xenophon of Athens, Alcibiades, Achilles and other characters...

Callirhoe, as it narrates the protagonists’ comings of age, presents Frye’s elements of the descent into a lower world, the protagonists’ adventures there and the ascent from that world. The descent/underworld journey begins with Callirhoe’s false death and capture by pirates, while Chaereas’ begins with his leap into the sea while attempting suicide (3.5). Chaereas learns of Callirhoe’s abduction and goes off to recover her (his quest objective); symbolically, Callirhoe has been taken to deadlands, and Chaereas travels there, too, a motif reinforced by his false death, funeral and cenotaph. Both Chaereas and Callirhoe cross waters to enter a vast land, a virtual underworld, where their innocence, identity and life are challenged. Their loss of identity occurs in their changes of status, first into slaves... Symbolically, the protagonists’ travels to Babylon represent a journey into the lower depths of this underworld to confront its very lord, from whom Chaereas must rescue Callirhoe... During the funeral, the supposedly dead Callirhoe looks like sleeping Ariadne (1.6.2); later, Chaereas, discovering Callirhoe’s empty tomb, thought that a god had taken her, as Zeus took Semele or Dionysos took Ariadne (3.3.4–5); the similarity of “Dionysius” to “Dionysos” is uncanny (Scourfeld, “Chaereas” 301)...

As noted, Callirhoe appears as an apotheosis of a goddess, especially of Aphrodite, corresponding to the pattern of a “god among mortals.” Indeed, Callirhoe is more often compared to a goddess than heroines in the other ideal novels, while Chaereas lacks such comparisons (Temmerman 47). When Callirhoe frst appears in public, she is compared to a vision of Artemis that manifests itself to hunters in the wild, and many present immediately perform proskynēsis (1.1.16). Dionysius, when he frst encounters Callirhoe at Aphrodite’s shrine, assumes she is that goddess (2.3.6–7)... Accordingly, the announcement of Callirhoe’s death (1.5.1) is likened to the fall of a city, and she, like a notable political fgure, is given a state funeral attended by all segments of the population (1.6.3–4). When it is discovered that she is alive, all Syracuse joins the search for her, and upon her recovery, the city now restored, rejoices. As discussed earlier, elements of Burkert’s “Withdrawal-Devastation-Return of a God” and Sowa’s “Rape of the Goddess” patterns also appear, with many details similar to elements of the myths of Demeter and Kore and their mysteries, providing idealizing undertones of a profound myth about the conquest of baleful powers and the creation of a new form of life with substantial benefits to humanity... The protagonists’ sufferings and travels also connect to the “wanderings caused by angry god” pattern. Callirhoe sees herself as being persecuted by Aphrodite—the common mythic fate of mortals who receive (however unwillingly) honors normally received by gods... The quest archetype connects to patterns of initiation ritual, and Callirhoe delineates Chaereas’ transition from ephebe to full adulthood...

As noted, Hellenistic historians had played loose with historical facts and added material, such as scenes evoking dramas or elaborate ekphrases, aimed at entertainment—items which Chariton employs less than some Hellenistic writers... For Veyne, much of Greek history-writing is not about recovering precise facts, but creating a plausible story, and Chariton’s text has enough verisimilitude to achieve this task...

The central archetypes are the protagonist’s coming of age/quest/initiation, his descent, Ascent and Assumption and his becoming consort of the goddess. Lucius’ quest is a search for true knowledge, a home in the world and a type of rebirth and transition with many missteps, as Jason and Aeneas make (Harrison, “From” 55). Note that he is reborn in Isis at Corinth, his birthplace, but soon leaves for Rome. As a result of his incorrect valuation of magic, his inability to heed strong warnings its dangers, and his affair with the possibly duplicitous Fotis, Lucius suffers that loss of self-common to underworld journeys. This quest/journey pattern is deeply informed by the complex of myths (including Euripides’ play) concerning Hippolytus... Lucius is on a parodic search for wisdom. Greek literature and philosophy offered two models for wisdom—Odysseus and Socrates—whose evocations Apuleius’ narrative combines in connection with Vergil’s Aeneas and stories of Jason which Homer and Vergil drew upon. There are additional evocations of the legends of Theseus and Hippolytus. Odysseus represents experience and cunning, whereas Socrates denotes wisdom gained through hard, nontraditional thinking. The wandering, suffering Odysseus is a common model for the ideal novel’s traveling protagonists...

Lucius’ transformation into an ass (that animal hated by Isis [11.6]) recalls that profound loss of self-characteristic of underworld travels. He becomes the ultimate slave to whom anything can be done, with literally no ability to talk back. Odysseus’ disguise as a beggar made him the ideal spy to learn (often through dangerous direct experience) the decency of others. Lucius’ ass disguise will enable this and more. Odysseus’ time in the Deadlands allowed him to better grasp his old life by seeing his connection with fgures of his past as a prelude to the successful restoration of his identity and home. As noted, Lucius, having disappeared, is presumed dead. The question is, what will Lucius learn in this virtual Deadland as a prelude to the restoration of his human form and status?...

The Cupid and Psyche fable is a virtual figure for the whole novel, and Psyche’s adventures furnish a commentary on Lucius’ own career... The underworld descent is a hero’s capstone experience, often a prelude to divinization; our originally simple Psyche will become a god, as Hercules did and as Aeneas will (Aen. 6.129–31)... Psyche suffers in a virtual Hades, and likewise Lucius’ whole ass-life is a kind of false death. Psyche is saved by the intercession of a Cupid she can fnally see, and then is assumed into an Olympian heaven after a wedding with eschatological overtones. Lucius is saved by Isis encountered during an epiphany, then is assumed into the worldly heaven of Rome...

After this ceremony, Lucius, resting at the feet of goddess’ image, unable to leave, reveals his desperate brokenness (11.18). His time at the compound recalls those episodes in modern cults where a potential convert is surrounded and provided a new, positive community that reinforces his beliefs. His virtual underworld journey is not quite over yet; Psyche made a near fatal mistake while exiting the underworld, as did Orpheus. Lucius’ proper exit can only be accomplished by leaving this hell-world to enter the servitium of Isis... Finally, Isis indicates that Lucius is ready for initiation, a profoundly symbolic ritual of death and rebirth, the salvation story capstone where Lucius worships the gods face to face. Lucius undergoes another metamorphoses, with a new elaborate, upright stance as opposed to that of the prone quadruped (O’Sullivan 196–216). This ceremony replaces the marriage which often occurs at the end of the hero’s journey (Lateiner, “Marriage” 326). And, in his elaborate costume, called significantly the Olympic stole, Lucius appears an incarnation of Sol-Apollo, which recalls Psyche’s translation to Olympus itself.

"The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult", Adela Yarbro Collins in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism (Brill, 1999):

Hurtado refers to "Christ hymns" and cites as the major examples John 1:1-18, Colossians 1:15-20, and Philippians 2:6-11... The earliest of these three compositions is likely to be Philippians 2:6-11... This composition is certainly dependent upon Jewish tradition. But features of Greek, Hellenistic and Roman religion are also crucial for its interpretation... Thus we, as historical critics, should take seriously the likelihood that non-Jewish Hellenistic and Roman traditions, as well as Jewish traditions, shaped the religious experiences, ideas and writings of especially the Greek-speaking Jewish followers in the period immediately following his death. It is plausible to me that such groups adapted non-Jewish religious traditions deliberately and consciously as a way of formulating a culturally meaningful system of belief and life. Some may find it more likely that such people did not borrow ideas and forms consciously, but simply made use unreflectively of the ways of thinking and speaking that were widespread in the cultural situation at the time.

The plot or Gestalt of the hymn (or poem) in Philippians 2, taken as a whole, on the one hand, expresses a strikingly novel perspective in the context of the history of religions. On the other hand, certain features of both Jewish and non-Jewish tradition illuminate the meaning of this innovative composition in its cultural context. Scholars have debated whether it involves a "three-stage" or a "two-stage Christology". The plot and logic of the text clearly imply three stages of being. At first he is "in the form of God", then he "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave", and finally "God highly exalted him". Being "in the form of God" implies existence as a heavenly being who shares in the divine glory. The precise mode of existence or activity is left unspecified. In the cultural context of the first century C.E., this gap could be filled by imagining a principal angel; a hypostasis of God, such as the Logos or Wisdom; or, less likely, the noetic Adam, still possessing the glory of God as the image of God. The second stage, emptying himself and taking the form of a slave, implies the voluntary giving up of the divine glory, a change in being as well as in status. A heavenly being becomes human, a "Lord" becomes a "slave". This phase involves humbling himself and obedience unto death. The high exaltation of the third and final stage means a restoration of the mode of existence as a heavenly being. It is now explicit that this mode of being involves also the status of "Lord" over all creation (verses 9 and 10) as the chief agent of God...

The transition from the first to the second mode of being implies that a heavenly being is transformed into a human being. It is not a matter of the partial manifestation of a heavenly entity in a human being. The latter idea occurs in the Wisdom of Solomon in the statement that "in every generation [Wisdom] passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets". Enoch may be identified with the heavenly Son of Man in 1 Enoch 71, but the idea that the heavenly Son of Man became human as Enoch and then returned to heaven is not expressed. On the other hand, the motif according to which a god takes on human form is common in Greek literature. After Odysseus has returned to Ithaca disguised as a beggar, and when he is mistreated by Antinoos, one of the suitors of Penelope, another suitor rebukes his competitor saying:

"A poor show, that - hitting this famished tramp - bad business, if he happened to be a god. You know they go in foreign guise, the gods do, looking like strangers, turning up in towns and settlements to keep an eye on manners, good and bad."

This passage reflects the common belief that gods walked the earth in human form. More strikingly and concretely, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells how Demeter, because of her grief and anger over the abduction of her daughter, "went to the towns and rich fields of men, disfiguring herself for a long while". The queen among goddesses disguised herself as an old woman, a stranger, ex-changing her divine name, Demeter, for a human one, Dosos. When she reveals her identity to her human employer, she is once again transformed to the divine state of being... Apollodorus preserves a tradition that Zeus, wishing to test the behavior of the sons of Lycaon, came to them in the likeness of a poor man. These and related Greek traditions constitute an important precedent to the idea expressed in the first part of the hymn in Philippians 2, that a heavenly being is transformed into a human being and that this change involves the laying aside of glory and the taking on of a humble appearance and status. These traditions are closer to the passage in Philippians than the Jewish traditions in the ways that I have stated...

An analogy to the shift from the second to the third stage form of existence in the hymn may be found in Jewish tradition in Gen 5:24, which hints that Enoch was exalted from earth to heaven. This idea seems to be presupposed in the passage mentioned earlier, 1 Enoch 71, in which the patriarch is apparently identified with the heavenly Son of Man. Another analogy is the ascension of Elijah in a heavenly chariot by a whirlwind in 2 Kings 3:11. These traditions are similar to Philippians 2 in that a human being is exalted from the earth to heaven, but are different with respect to the fact that Enoch and Elijah did not die. According to Deuteronomy 34:5-6, Moses died and was buried in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Bethpeor, but no one knows the exact place of burial. According to Josephus, Moses did not actually die, but was taken up into heaven... Here also the motif of exaltation following upon death, the pattern expressed in Philippians 2, is lacking.

Such a motif is found, however, in Greek religion. Herakles was the best known of the Greek heroes, although he was not a typical hero at all. The popular tales about him were known everywhere, and thus his cult extended throughout the Greek world and beyond. He was the son of Zeus, but mortal. Suffering dreadful torment, he immolated himself on a pyre and then ascended through the flames to the gods. He was remembered as a benefactor of humanity and was frequently invoked as an omnipresent helper. He is also the prototype of the ruler who, by virtue of his divine legitimation acts for the benefit of humankind, is rewarded by being taken into the company of the gods after his death. He is also the model for the ordinary person who can hope for the life among the gods as a reward for an upright life of drudgery. The complex of traditions about Herakles thus provide a striking analogy to the second and third stages of the Philippian poem: a human being suffers for the good of humankind and is, therefore, given a divine nature and status...

Thus the motif of the worship of Christ in the poem of Philippians 2 has literary parallels in Jewish literature of the second Temple period, but there is very little evidence that there was actual, communal worship of a Son of Man figure based on Daniel 7 or the Similitudes of Enoch. The strongest parallels to the worship of an exalted human being after death are found once again in Greek and Roman religion.

"The Death of Tragedy: The Form of God in Euripides’s Bacchae and Paul’s Carmen Christi", Michael Cover in Harvard Theological Review (2018):

Scholarship on Phil 2:6–11 has long wrestled with the question of “interpretive staging.” While acknowledging that Jewish sapiential and apocalyptic literature as well as Roman apotheosis narratives provide important matrices for the hymn, the following study pinpoints a third backdrop against which Paul’s dramatic christology would have been heard in Philippi: Euripidean tragedy. Echoes of Dionysus’s opening monologue from Euripides’s Bacchae in the carmen Christi suggest that Roman hearers of Paul’s letter likely understood Christ’s kenotic metamorphosis as a species of Dionysian revelation. This interpretive recognition accomplishes a new integration of the hymn’s Jewish and imperial-cultic transcripts. Jesus’s Bacchic portraiture supports a theology of Christ’s pre-existence, while simultaneously establishing him as a Dionysian antithesis to the imperial Apollonian kyrios Caesar... Dionysus's prologue in the beginning of Euripides's Bacchae serves as a critical intertext, which would have been heard by some of Philippians’ recipients:

"I have come to this Theban land, a child of Zeus, Dionysus, whom Cadmus's korē brought forth once, Semele, prodded by firebearing lightning. My form I've altered, from God to mortal, my parousia here by the streams of Dirce and Ismenus's waters."

Although gods often introduce Euripides's plays, Dionysus's direct address to the audience at the outset of the Bacchae is unique. As E. R. Dodds remarks, unlike Euripides's “other prologizing gods,” Dionysus “will not vanish... but will mingle unrecognized, in human form, with the actors in the human drama.” None of these other gods, moreover, explicitly takes on human form and risks suffering.

Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2014), M. David Litwa:

In the Bacchae, Dionysus exercised his power from an initial chosen position of weakness and inferiority. He appeared as an effeminate Lydian teenager and allowed himself to be chained and mocked (Eur., Bacc. 434-518). Just so, Jesus allowed himself to be bound and ridiculed, while giving ample demonstration of his power (e.g., by the earthquake, eclipse, and the rending of the temple veil coincident with his death; Matt. 27:45-56, par.). By a simple self-identification, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus was able to knock down all those who came to arrest him (18:6)... Origen immediately turns to the beneficial aspect of Jesus’ death. By defeating the devil, Jesus’ demise proved “beneficial to all”(2.23). Jesus’ silent passivity during the trial, for Origen, does not disprove his deity. Rather, Jesus is an example of one who died “willingly for religion” and—like Dionysus in the Bacchae—showed how to “despise people” who laugh and mock at piety.

[nightshadetwine]

Gods taking on a disguise or lower status and blindness as a metaphor for lacking spiritual sight:

The Transfiguration: an Exercise in Markan Accommodation (Yale University, 2004), Candida Moss:

A variety of Greek myths recount how the gods often walked amongst humans in disguise and it is certainly possible that, for those readers of the gospel well-versed in these traditions, Greek epiphanies formed a natural backdrop for the Markan transfiguration than the story about Moses. Oft-times this earthly socializing was intended to test the morality and piety of humanity, as in Apollodorus’ Library he recalls how,

"Zeus desirous of putting their impiety to the proof, came to them in the likeness of a poor man … [and, following their human sacrifice] in disgust upset the table at the place which is still called Trapezus and blasted Lycaon and his sons by thunderbolts."...

The popularity of the notion that deities disguised themselves as the impoverished of society in order to try the virtue of humans is further attested in The Odyssey where Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, is struck by Antinoos. A more prudent suitor reprimands Antinoos’ impetuosity, saying:

"A poor show, that—hitting this famished tramp— bad business, if he happened to be a god. You know they go in foreign guise, the gods do, Looking like strangers, turning up In towns and settlements to keep an eye On manners, good or bad."...

A particularly striking example of deities disguising themselves for a time and wandering amongst men in human form is that of Demeter. Following the loss of her daughter Persephone the distraught goddess transforms herself into the form of a spinster and wanders the earth in disguise:

"She avoided the gathering of the gods on high Olympus, and went to the towns and rich fields of men, disfiguring her form a long while. And no one of men or deep-bosomed women knew her when they saw her, until she came to the house of wise Celsus who then was lord of fragrant Eleusis … And she was like an ancient woman who is cut off from childbearing and the gifts of garland-loving Aphrodite."

The metamorphosis of Demeter from illustrious deity to lowly spinster goes undetected by humans who do not recognize her because ‘the gods [in human form] are not easily discerned by mortals’. Demeter’s true identity is only revealed because she is angered by the misplaced accusations of a mortal woman.

The goddess’s transformation is described as a dazzling enlightenment similar to that of Jesus in Mark... Despite the ease with which the gods were able to conceal their true identities whilst in human form there were still a number of telltale signs by which the observant individual could apprehend the truth about the identity of the figure in front of them. Often these identity markers concern movement and stature... Even Demeter, in the form of the old woman Doso, cannot prevent some of her divine glory from breaking through the barriers of human appearance... These examples certainly cast the mind of the reader of Mark back to previous events when the form and abilities of Jesus seemed otherworldly. Occasions, such as Mark 6:45-52, when Jesus walked on water, may now be read as hinting at the concealed identity of the Markan Jesus. More commonly in Greek myths, the true identity of the deity is apparent only to a few present...

Dennis R. Macdonald has recently suggested that the author of the gospel of Mark used Homer’s Odyssey as a prototype for his gospel. He argues that the figure of Jesus in Mark mimics that of Odysseus in the epic and subsequently that the transfiguration resembles Od. 16.172-303 where Telemachus mistakes Odysseus for a god. Macdonald is correct to highlight the similarity between Hellenistic epiphanies and the Markan transfiguration scene; however, it does not appear that the evangelist followed this account specifically. In fact, with the exception of the command to secrecy, all the elements of Mark 9:2-10 which Macdonald views as Homeric parallels are characteristic of Hellenistic epiphanies in general... It is more likely that the author was familiar with Greek religion simply by word of mouth, as one living in a culturally pluralistic society. In many of the accounts of divine epiphanies there is an implicit link between epiphany and cultic practice. Demeter intervenes in the cutting down of sacred trees at her shrine, Zeus objects to human sacrifice at Trapezeus, and mortals offer to institute shrines to the disclosed deity. More explicitly, Herodotus describes a number of occasions where festivals are linked to the appearance of a deity:

"there appeared in Egypt that Apis whom the Greeks call Epaphus; at which revelation straightway the Egyptians donned their fairest garments and kept high festival... The rulers told him that a god, who had been wont to reveal himself at long intervals of time, had now appeared to them; and that all Egypt rejoiced and made holiday whenever he appeared."..

Another indication that gospel narratives were interpreted in light of Greek myths can be seen in the writings of the philosopher Celsus, who maintained that what the Christians offered as a new revelation was an imitation of ancient myths well known throughout the Hellenistic world: "In truth there is nothing at all unusual about what the Christians believe, except that they believe it to the exclusion of more comprehensive truths about God." Early Church apologists, most notably Justin Martyr, felt compelled to account for the similarities between the figure of Jesus and Greek deities, in particular Dionysus, through the introduction of the doctrine of ‘diabolical mimicry’ centuries before the birth of Jesus...

Is Jesus Athene or Odysseus?: Investigating the Unrecognisability and Metamorphosis of Jesus in his Post-Resurrection Appearances (Mohr Siebeck, 2019) Max Whitaker:

Gods appear in disguise, then, so that mortals encountering them are not harmed, so that some form of direct communication between the human world and the divine world is made possible, and to aid humans directly. The disguise also acts as a sign that the gods are involved in this action, and so to indicate to the audience that the event and the character the god interacts with are central to the plot... When the gods appear to humans “undisguised” this takes place in one of two ways: either the god is an unveiled awesome power which is fatal for mortals to encounter, or else they are a much more glorious version of a human, but obviously divine. In other instances the gods could appear in a disguised form, never recognised by the characters with whom they interacted. This could be to directly help an individual, and to act as a sign to the audience that this was a character of significance, and an event of significance. There are, however, other instances where the god is recognised for who he or she really is... As will be seen below, the same god can appear in some instances entirely unrecognisable, and in other instances recognised via signs of divinity, within the same literary work...

One of the ways in which a god acts as a messenger is by commissioning the hero to a role of significance, such as prophet, king or missionary. Istvan Czachesz explores the way commission narratives are used in the ancient world, including the Acts of the Apostles. Commission narratives often result in the hero’s life being altered in a dramatic manner (for example, Saul is changed from a farmer’s son, looking for his lost stock, into the king of a land; another Saul is changed from a persecutor of Jesus’ followers, into Jesus’ missionary)...

In order for a commission story to work, the hero must be (at some stage in the story if not immediately) aware of the identity of the one speaking to him. In order for the commission to be of any significance to the hero, the god can no longer be in disguise, although he or she may have been in disguise at the initial meeting...

Some commission stories, however, do contain an element of disguise. Czachesz identifies the key features in what he describes as the “commission form”: 1. An introduction which sets the scene. 2. A confrontation where the “sender” confronts the hero in some way. 3. A reaction to holiness (fear, covering the face, falling down). 4. The commission itself where the sender tells the hero what he is to do. 5. Protest or reluctance, such as the hero declaring his unworthiness. 6. Reassurance from the sender. 7. Description of the task. 8. Inauguration, possibly involving ceremonial acts. 9. Conclusion, and the hero beginning the commissioned task. Several of the appearances of Jesus in the apocryphal Acts have many of the above features, as will be seen in Chapter Seven...

Hospitality is closely tied to divine visitation scenes – possibly more so than it is to hero recognition scenes. A recurring theme in the Odyssey is gods visiting in disguise and being (or not being) given a hospitable welcome. This idea, that all strangers and beggars are from Zeus, is repeated elsewhere in the Odyssey, and elsewhere such as in the Argonautica where Zeus is mentioned as the strangers’ god... The categories of “entertaining gods” (theoxeny) and “god as messenger” are not mutually exclusive. Telemachus entertains Athene as a guest, and is then provided with information and issued instructions. In fact it is the providing of hospitality to the disguised god which shows that Telemachus, unlike the suitors, is worthy of receiving the help of the god. Odysseus is also received by the swineherd and shown hospitality in the same way as a visiting god would be, supporting the hypothesis that Odysseus’ disguise, at this time, is meant to be seen as similar to that of the gods...

In the Hymn to Demeter the god (Demeter) takes on the form of a mortal woman to retreat from the world of the gods, and in disguise (79) is shown hospitality by a human family, first by the daughters, but later by the mother. This story also fits into more than one category – the goddess issues a command to the woman (to build a cultic centre for her) before vanishing, so as well as receiving and rewarding hospitality, she also acts as a messenger.

(79) “For the gods are not easily discerned by mortals” HH 2 111. Note that the goddess is disguised as an old woman which is reminiscent of Odysseus’ disguise as an old man...

In The Bacchae, as in the Hymn to Dionysus, Dionysus appears in disguise, and again the lack of hospitality theme plays a central role. The first lines of Euripides’ Bacchae reveal that Dionysus walked upon the earth in Hellas in the form of a man, specifically a priest of his own cult. Pentheus seeks to destroy the cult, and thus sends soldiers to capture the disguised Dionysus.(85) Like Odysseus (and Athene), Dionysus creates a false identity and uses a fictional history to validate his physical “disguise.” Dionysus mocks the fact that Pentheus cannot see that the very god he inquires about is standing right before his eyes, saying that it is his impurity which stops him from seeing...

(85) Euripides, Bacch. 355. The shackles fall from the hands of Dionysus’ devotees (444f) and doors of jails are opened by supernatural forces. (A similar event happens in Acts 12:7f when Peter is aided by an angel who makes his shackles fall away and leads him out of the jail)...

The theme of hospitality also occurs in Ovid’s Metamorphoses which relates the story of Philemon and Baucis: Jupiter and Mercury visit an elderly and impoverished couple in the disguise of poor mortals, and are shown elaborate hospitality by them, after having been rejected by their wealthy neighbours. The gods then cause a great flood, from which only Philemon and Baucis are saved, displaying both a reward for the hospitable, and a punishment for the inhospitable.(89)

(89) Ovid, Metam. 8.631–720. The elderly couple is also given the further reward of having their house turned into a temple to Jupiter and Mercury, and also granted a form of immortality by being transformed into trees which are intertwined together when they die. Note that Acts 14:8–13 bears some similarities to this story (and to the cult creation stories of Dionysus and Demeter already mentioned). Paul and Barnabas are mistaken for the same gods (Zeus and Hermes i.e. Jupiter and Mercury) and it takes place in a similar region (and a region known to have had a cult to the Zeus–Hermes pair of gods)...

In this section it will be demonstrated that the readers of Jesus stories could reasonably be expected to have been familiar with the themes and narrative structures of the Greco-Roman stories considered in the previous chapters. This will be argued in two mutually supportive ways: first, that Jesus stories contain a portion of material which has much in common with folk literature. Since it has been demonstrated that the key elements of Greco-Roman disguised hero stories and disguised god stories exist in folk literature, an awareness of folk literature would allow stories which have the same structure and purpose as Greco-Roman stories to be understood even if the Greco-Roman stories themselves were not known to the audience. Secondly, this section will show that it is reasonable to assume that the writers and audiences of Jesus stories were familiar with at least some of the Greco-Roman stories which contained metamorphosis, and disguised or unrecognisable gods and heroes.

One example from Acts shows that at least Luke was familiar with some of the themes discussed in the previous chapters. Acts 14:8–18 contains a false god-recognition story, where people falsely identify Paul and Barnabas as Zeus and Hermes, saying specifically that the people believed that the gods had come in the likeness of humans. The background to this story is the myth of Hermes and Zeus being welcomed by Baucis and Philemon, in which the visitors actually are gods in human form. The reference to this story shows that Luke was aware of the same tradition which Ovid drew upon, and that he was aware of the tradition that the gods were known to appear in human form...

The stories surrounding Jesus contain material possessing many features in common with traditional folk literature, both in the canonical Gospels and in the later Christian stories about him. The infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke display a marked correspondence with themes which are common in folk traditions. For instance, the birth of an important person being preceded by a star, comet, or a shooting star, is a motif in folk literature. Luke hints at this idea by mentioning a bright light, and Matthew explicitly mentions a star. It has already been noted in Chapter Two that the life of the folk hero can include an unusual conception and possibly illegitimate birth, claims of divine lineage, abandonment or an attempt on his life as a child, going to a foreign place, becoming the ruler after returning to his land from which he was once banished, and an extraordinary death. Jesus’ life story contains all of these elements...

The transfiguration then, when compared to Greco-Roman literature resonates most with a divine visitor story, and this is how this story would have most likely been understood by readers or hearers familiar with Greco-Roman tradition and literature. Collins says that the parallels are so striking that it “appears to have drawn upon the Hellenistic and Roman genres of epiphany and metamorphosis, but in a way that adapts them to the biblical tradition, especially to that of the theophany on Sinai.” The authors may have drawn their imagery from Jewish or Greco-Roman sources, or a mixture of both. For the purposes of this study, what the transfiguration accounts demonstrate is that the writers of the synoptic Gospels were familiar with the key themes of metamorphosis, disguise, and recognition, which exist in both folk literature and written narratives.

The Dionysian Gospel: The Fourth Gospel and Euripides (Fortress Press, 2017) Dennis MacDonald:

John sounds themes that would have instantly been recognized as proper to the Greek god Dionysos (the Roman Bacchus), not least as he was depicted in Euripides's play The Bacchae. A divine figure, the offspring of a divine father and human mother, takes on flesh to live among mortals but is rejected by his own. He miraculously provides wine and offers it as a sacred gift to his devotees, women prominent among them, dies a violent death—and returns to life...

The verdict comes down against Jesus in 8:59, as we shall see. The parallels between these exchanges and Bacch. 460-506 are stunning... Pentheus asks "from where" the stranger derived these rites (465); Jesus states that the Pharisees do not know where he came from (8:14b). Dionysus states that he derived his rites from "Dionysus, the son of Zeus" at which the king scoffs, "So is there some Zeus there who sires new gods?" (465-67). Jesus tells the Pharisees that he came from his Father (8:18-19). What links Jesus's interrogation with Dionysus's most closely is that both state that the god is present but is invisible to the wicked accusers. In the Bacchae the god, disguised as a mortal priest, claims that Dionysus is present. Pentheus, however, cannot see him because of his hubris. Similarly in john, Jesus states that God joins him in giving testimony in his defense, but the Pharisees cannot see him because they are sinful and of this world. Mimesis alone can account for this strange and shared motif...

Here is a summary of the similarities between the two episodes:

Bacchae: Pentheus interrogates the priest/god in disguise.
John 8:12-19: The Pharisees interrogate Jesus, who claims to be the light of the world.

Bacchae: Pentheus asks "from where" the stranger brought the new cult.
John 8:12-19: The Pharisees do not know ''from where" Jesus came.

Bacchae: Dionysus states that the sacred rites come from "the son of Zeus."
John 8:12-19: Jesus states that he comes from his father.

Bacchae: "You do not know what life you live, or what you are doing, or what you are."
John 8:12-19: "You do not know where I came from."

Bacchae: [Dionysus:] Even now he is near and sees what I am suffering. / [Pentheus:] Where is he? He is not visible to my eyes. / [Dionysus:] He is here with me; because you are impious, you do not see him.
John 8:12-19: [Jesus:] "I am not alone- I and [with me] the Father who sent me." [Pharisees:] ''Where is your Father?" [Jesus:] "You know neither me nor the Father; if you had known me, you also would have known my Father."

Bacchae: Pentheus remains defiant and decides to kill the god by stoning or decapitation.
John 8:12-19: The Pharisees remain defiant and try to stone Jesus.

Attridge: "The characters who interact with Jesus in the pages of the Fourth Gospel bear a strong resemblance to Pentheus in the Bacchae. They resist the presence of the divine in their midst; they deny truths that the audience knows"...

Here authorities again play the role of Pentheus. Compare the following:

Bacch. 352-56: [Pentheus:] "Scurry about the area and track down the effeminate stranger who introduces a new disease among the women and ruins their marriage beds. If you seize him, bring him here chained, so that by a judgment of stoning he may die."
John 11:57: The chief priests and the Pharisees issued orders that if someone knew where he was, he should report it so that they might arrest him. [cf. 8:59: They took stones to throw at him.].

The hostility of "the chief priests and the Pharisees," however, was not shared by the crowds, who celebrated the raising of Lazarus by acclaiming Jesus as a king... Similarly in the Bacchae, Pentheus is furious that throngs of Theban women left their homes to worship the god in the wild (216-20). Better that the priest (i.e., Dionysus in disguise) be eliminated than that the city be troubled...

The man born blind is John's Tiresias. According to one version of the Tiresias legend, because he once offended Hera, she blinded him. To compensate him for his loss of sight, Zeus granted him clairvoyance. Athenian tragedians, including Euripides, found his ironically clear vision of the truth a valuable virtue for the stage. Furthermore, several aspects of 9:1-33 suggest the influence of the Bacchae, most obviously the metaphorical blindness of Pentheus and the Pharisees when compared to the acceptance of the god by Tiresias and the cured blind man. Though blind, Tiresias can see and asks Pentheus to open his eyes to what is happening in Thebes: "Can't you see?" (Bacch. 319).

Furthermore, in both the Bacchae and John one finds miracles as demonstrations of divine identity and controversies concerning the origins of the miracle worker. Dionysus's inciting of mania and miracles demonstrated that he was the son of Zeus; Jesus's healing powers demonstrated that he came from God. In both cases the preternatural feats are scorned with insults against those who received the god. jesus proves through his healing powers that he is not crazed

Clement of Alexandria contrasted the blindness of Tiresias in this section of the Bacchae with the sight that Christ offers the blind. In the following quotation Christ himself invites Euripides' blind man to convert.

[Peter Kirby]

this is all very interesting especially the classic quotes in corinthians and acts
but.... too much information!

there needs to be a concordance to easily look up which passages have classic parallels otherwise it's impossible to get a clear picture

Yeah, I know. I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it. I figured I would just quote from sources and people can just read through it. I just really wanted to get information out there about this topic. I don't think there's a book that actually covers everything I've found. Maybe people could do a word search if they're looking for a particular passage or story. I mainly just wanted to make a post that collects sources on this topic. You could also always ask me about specific passages. Do you have any suggestions that could maybe make it easier to search through?

One idea is to create an index or table of contents that links into the individual posts (each post involving no more than one topic).

Another idea is to create summaries of each topic that link into the supporting material for each topic.

Both techniques are used in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11433