Greek Mythology 3500 BC to AD 2014
3:rd Feb. 2014 | University of Birmingham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCaDjvcaWpo
2:05 "but we all know they didn't, or not like that"
Do we? Does the genre assignment actually prove it?
6:00 First Olympiad may certainly be singled out as a convenient starting point for history with dates, as opposed to what could be called "legendary" time spans.
But the dates are not a guarantee what we get is really factual in history, their absence is a risk of anachronisms (I am sure Dido was one in the Aeneid, I find it possible some scenes about Troy are so - btw, we do have "Troies ptoliethron epersen" in the opening of the Odyssey, so Troy does exist, equalling Ilios). But not a guarantee of them, not a guarantee of other error.
17:30 We do not have the actual text of Mahabharata from pre-Greek times in India. The texts we have may go back to those times - or have been added to by Greek presence.
Alexander certainly brought Homer to India in some shape or portion.
Unless you believe Alexander getting there is a myth ... and even so, it would seem Greco-Bactrians invaded India:
The Indo-Greek Kingdom, or Graeco-Indian Kingdom, also known historically as the Yavana Kingdom (Yavanarajya),[4] was a Hellenistic-era Greek kingdom covering various parts of Afghanistan and the northwest regions of the Indian subcontinent, (virtually all of modern Pakistan).[5][6][7][8][9][10] This kingdom was in existence from ca. 200 BC to ca. 1 BC.
During its existence the kingdom was ruled over by 30 successive kings. Menander I, being the most well known amongst the Indo-Greek kings, is often referred to simply as “Menander,” despite the fact that there was indeed another Indo-Greek King known as Menander II. Menander I's capital was at Sagala in the Punjab (present-day Sialkot).[11]
The kingdom was founded when the Graeco-Bactrian king Demetrius (and later Eucratides) invaded India from Bactria in 200 BC.[12] The Greeks in the Indian Subcontinent were eventually divided from the Graeco-Bactrians centered on Bactria (now the border between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan), and the Indo-Greeks in the present-day north-western Indian Subcontinent.
This is before the Turkmenistan content list for the Mahabharata.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Greek_Kingdom
18:19 Before you start out with Indo-European diffusion, how about digging up evidence of Mahabharata content matching the Iliad or Odyssey (sanskrit texts in devanagari or other - not yet extant - or at least pictorial) from before the Greek presence in India?
18:52 By analogy of your reasoning, we must conclude Northerners are an Ancient Near East people displaced up there.
Earth is (despite what Thor's mother could have been) the carcass of a monster. Check - Ymir, Tiamat
Earth is a kind of disk set on some vertical object that is gnawed or ensnared by snakes. Check - netherworld pillars in Babylonian art with Yggdrasil, gnawn by Nidhögg
The noblest god of pure light is slain by his brother and becomes ruler of some blessed in the netherworld and shall come back. Check - Baldr, Osiris.
The ruler of the gods identifies in some fashion with an allseeing bird of prey. Check - Horus, the ravens of Odin.
These traditions are absent from Greece or from Finland and Balto-Slavic countries.
The other option is, as you mentioned, travel. And both Saxo and Snorri mention Odin as an immigrant conman. Snorri credits him with telling these things, and he poses - well before 1453 or even Turks taking Kosovo - the "Troy" from which he came as being in "Tyrkland" - back then it would however already encompass East Turkey. How about, a real origin in Esoteric Edessa (East of Anatolia) is exchanged for one in more royal Troy (same general region from an Icelandic pov, and now also in Tyrkland)?
22:53 Indians, Greeks, Celts have story telling poets. So do West Africans. Griots are the Bards of Mali and nearby countries.
And as metrical patterns were mentioned, there are indeed similarities between the sloka and the hexameter .... BUT we have no written sloka prior to the Greek presence in India.
24:35 Before you take any "extremely troubled people" I think I would single out Hercules and Achilles as the probably worst cases, next after which comes Theseus.
Let's take their so called myths as history.
- Hercules thought he was the son of Zeus, was extremely strong and apt to sudden bursts of madness and rage. Who played Zeus to him? The real God? No. Leaves Satan.
- Same for Theseus with Poseidon, where there certainly was some kind of "meeting" with the "divine" father, the last of these leading up to him getting Hippolytus killed by the "father's" magical agency on the "son's" wish. Did God do this? No. Leaves Satan.
- Achilleus' mother had left him when he was very small, after being caught doing suspicious magical rites. She was considered a goddess by the father, but sounds like a witch to me.
Would people growing up in an atmosphere of Alistair Crowley become "extremely troubled people"? I think so. Satan was around when Hercules was born too.
26:09 When we come to a catalog of sins against humanity, take a look at the Oracle of Delphi. Or other manifestations of Apollo.
Bad counsel, as self fulfilling prophecy, given to Laios and to his son Oidipous.
Bad counsel, as orders to kill a daughter or a mother, given to Agamemnon and Orestes.
A plague worked on Greeks, and Homer's name in Iliad A for that "deity" on that occasion is echoed in Apocalypse (Revelation) 9:11.
Both Apollon, all five cases, and Apollyon, add up to 666. Not to that same number below 1000, but to 2666 and to 4666. And Hebrews (the author of the Apocalypse was one) have a cultural tendency to leave out thousands. Their year recently (2007?) 5777 was colloquially often referred to as 777. So, how would a Hebrew refer to 2666 or to 4666.
Yeah, I would say that Apollyon was culpable of more than one crime against humanity, and it's good news that St. Paul exorcised a girl in Thyatira from him or his likes!
27:55 Dumézil was more than once just repeating the works of a Swede. And more than once adding to them. Not sure which of these two I am thinking of, they are the two I read:
L’Idéologie tripartite des Indo-Européens
Heur et Malheur du guerrier, aspects de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens
But denying historicity to a text received previously as a basically historical type of text, and this because accepting comparatistic approaches already in vogue in Uppsala ... the compared Hindu gods have no older written text sources than the historical (or otherwise) existence of the corresponding Roman kings (I - IV).
28:46 Like, real life sins are all so creative, so highly individual, that a coincidence in sins proves literary dependence (on each other or earlier third source) ???
29:21 Yeah, no Hercules could hail from Cain in manners, so, if a Hindu hero also killed a best friend, also not hailing from Cain, the heros must be similar due to literary borrowing ... N O T.
32:42 Greek mythology is by its nature tragic.
Yeah, with people who seem to have taken Satan as their "invisible friend," would you expect much other? Recall what I said about Crowley .... (with Ulysses' "Athena" I get a sense it could be a guardian angel, at times, since he actually came home and finally could enjoy it).
33:35 "people in Thebes told a story and ... set it in Thebes"
Perhaps because it happened in Thebes?
Insert Satan or Apollyon or Pythonic spirit for "Apollo" and you are set for the type of ride we observe.
Oidipous was - after hearing a priest mention that the Sibyl in Aeneid VI was a very realistic Voodoo medium - the point where I ceased to consider Greek "mythology" as a very attractive (though inferior to Tolkien) fantasy genre. An atheist wouldn't have, but I am a Christian.
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