(November 24, 2011 at 10:14 am)Epimethean Wrote: Strictly speaking (on a mythological level), inaccurate.You are right, but the mythological level you have in mind is the outer one, the one placed on top of many older levels which are not readily available.
An example: goddess Athena is said to have killed the giant Pallas. According to an older myth she killed and skinned her father who attempted to rape her.
In order to reach the deeper layers of Greek mythology you have to read the older near Eastern texts.
they beheld the cedar mountain, abode of the gods
The epic of Gilgamesh (V,I,6)
There is a code in mythology which was known to all ancient people. The key to this code is provided by the oldest texts of humanity the Pyramid texts:
R.O.Faulkner translating
when the sky was separated from the earth
when the gods ascended to the sky
James Allen translating
when the sky was parted from the land
and the gods went off to the sky (Utterance 519 $1208)
There is no particle “and” in the Egyptian language and thus it is Faulkner’s translation which is the literal one.
“The sky was parted from the earth” means “humans expelled gods”
Zeus lived on earth as any other archaic god.
Plato did not think of Zeus living… above the peaks of Olympos or he wouldn’t have to fight Homer and prohibit the teaching of his epic poems.
What is really funny here is that the orthodox Homer is the one who wrote:
The gods are sitting on the clouds. (π 263)
The gods are heavenly (ρ 484)
The gods live in the endless sky (ζ 243)
The gods know everything.(δ 468)
Gods knew nothing. According to Homer Zeus had no idea of what his wife was planning. The sentence “The gods are sitting on the clouds” is a piece of news. The people are informed of the new dwelling of the gods.
In spite of this. In spite of the assistance Homer offered to the philosophers, they fought him and they came out the victors.
That is why you think that Zeus palace was located above the clouds, because we were taught that the philosophers’ allegoric interpretation of the myths counts and not the actual myths.
