Why were the greek gods such assholes?

Why were the greek gods such assholes?

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Because it makes a better story. A plague is more tolerable if it was brought on by one of Apollo's particularly wet farts instead of just chance, gives people somewhere to direct their emotions.

Because it makes sense.
Jesus makes zero sense

Because people are assholes.

Is this the best book for a comprehensive overview of greek myth
I know a lot of classics courses have this on the reading list but is that just tradition or is it still the best option to go with?

It's the first book in the "Start with the greeks" chart.

That's great but those meme charts aren't perfect, it's probably on there for the same reason as it's on so many uni reading lists, tradition
I just don't see how a book written in the 40s can be the best overview of all the greek myths and legends given how much has probably been found since then

You really don't need to read this one. Start with the Presocratics and then read Ovid's Metamorphosis and you'll know have a decent beginning. Ovid covers the most important myths.

>Start with the Presocratics
I was told to skip the presocratics, because there's only fragments and incomplete works, and you can't even get a collection of what there is all in one place in English

I prefer Robert Graves and Bulfinch's Mythology personally but I still think Hamilton is worth a read because she covers some mythological aspects differently that I found fascinating.

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what has been found?

Well maybe "found" is the wrong word, but I imagine that research and scholarship throughout the last half century and also comparative research looking at other related cultures might make the information presented back then a little out of date
For example, it's now understood that the cult of Aphrodite was introduced to Greece by the phoenicians. The figure they worshipped in turn was derived from a mesoptamian figure.
Then again, I'm only really looking for basic background information so this doesn't really matter to me..

what about edith's take did you find fascinating?

Because they're personifications of various natural forces and concepts like emergent order, disorder, and happenstance that we're all subject to. Is a lightning storm moral?

>implying Jesus wasn't an asshole

they weren't. gods are perfect by their nature, therefore everything they did was just.

One of them was an asshole. Probably the one who was killed on a cross, but I’m talking about the ideal

but is pious pious cause god loves pious???

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Bulfinch readily admits to making the myths more pg to better appeal to a Christian audience

Greek gods were not perfect, they were petty squabbling assholes who played with humans like they were toys

It’s a good start and definitely worth reading, if only for the fact that almost every English speaker in the modern era who is knowledgeable in the classics started with Hamilton

You don't need to read Hamilton it's just short overviews of each God with little context. You should read theogony and maybe metamorphosis. Homeric hymns might be good too.

According to legend there was this writer who asked the Gods for something (unspecified). The Olympian Gods refused his request. He decided to get even with the Gods by collecting every stupid story, every childish fairy tale, every story that made the Gods do evil and publishing these impious tales in a book. This book was then widely used as a source material by other and later authors.
Another explanation is that evil demons at war with the Gods Who are truly Divine and thus All-Good, All-Wise and All-Loving had wicked mortals spread these stories around to get humankind to cease worshipping Them.

The Robert Graves book is legitimately great even from an academic point of view, he compiled all versions of the stories and tried to weld them together. I remember reading it as a kid and being impressed by the footnotes by how ambitious the book was.

Ok Ovid.

Haha Zing !

The Abrahamic God was too. It's a shift in mentality of the world as a whole. In the past, power was righteousness. Gods are powerful beings that do their own thing, imagine believing you have the right to demand a creature beyond you remain beholden to your petty whims. Btw this only applies to legitimate power, being deceptive and otherwise illegitimate is just a trick, you don't have a powerful nature. Ancients did hold a distinction.