Transcript IntroductiontoClassi..

Main points from pages 2-23
Mythology tells us how ancient people
thought and felt about the world around
them.
When the myths were developed, people had
a stronger tie with nature.
There was not a real difference between what
was real and what was imagined.
Their imaginations were more developed
than ours are today.
Since people didn’t know about science,
and they didn’t know how to explain the
bad things that happened in their lives,
they saw horrors everywhere.
Because of this, people wanted to protect
themselves, but they knew they needed
help. So, they invented gods with
magical powers.
The first record of ancient Greece was the
book called the Iliad, written by Homer.
(page 16) Mythologies older than the Greeks
had gods/goddesses with human and
animal characteristics…like Egyptian
mythology.
Greeks thought differently. Their
gods/goddesses looked totally human, only
better.
Since Greek gods/goddesses looked and
acted human, the people could relate to
them better.
In Greek mythology, the events were said
to have taken place in real places there
on earth.
Mythology is not always the same as
religion.
Mythology is a collection of stories that
were used to explain things.
SOME mythologies include
gods/goddesses that were worshipped,
but not all mythologies did this.
We will study mythologies from
around the world in this class,
including Christian mythology.
We can do this at school because I’m
not teaching you to worship any
certain way. That’s your own
personal business.
Ovid: Most of what we know came
from his writings.
Homer: His writings are the oldest
(the Iliad and the Odyssey). They
were written before Christianity
even started (Christianity is a very
young religion).
Hesiod: He wrote down the Greek
myth about the creation of the
world (the Theogony).
Virgil: He wrote about Roman
mythology in the Aeneid.