One of the main differences between Genesis 1 and Theogony is the fact that the Greeks worshipped many gods while Hebrews worshipped one God.
That one God Hebrews worshipped, cared for not only his people, but for every human being in general. He gave them necessary needs in life, was always with his people as well as support them. Those who are loyal to him will be blessed in life while the ones who don’t won’t get that blessing. Their God had no beginning for he was always there.
On the other hand, the gods that the Greeks worshipped had a different beginning. Chaos, a god, suddenly appeared and gave “birth” to Earth, or Gaia. Different gods created different things, basically everything that we see today. When gods created mortal beings (us humans) only some of them liked them. For example Zeus, god of all gods/son of Cronos (god of time), disliked humans. Every being God, mortals, immortals all came from something and somewhere even the main god itself. Every god had their own job to do in life and unlike the God Hebrews worshipped, the Greek gods were physically born while the Hebrew God didn’t begin he was just there.
Another difference was that the Greeks families practiced their religious ceremonies in secret and only worshipped one god meaning that every Greek family had to only worship one kind of god while the Hebrews served their God together. Every activity every festival that the Hebrews had, to celebrate their God, they would do it together.
A similar thing that the Greeks and Hebrews had in common was the oracles/ prophecy. For Greeks Oracles were things used to communicate with gods as for Hebrews they had prophets who told a prophecy in which things were to happen in the future. Prophecy was given by God himself and the one to deliver it would usually be a prophet or someone that god chooses. Both the Oracles and Prophets were the Gods/God speaking through mortals/humans.
As for the worldview, Hebrews believed that committing a sin meant a sentence to hell for life. God created a place called hell for those who didn’t follow his laws and ethics and simply committed many sins. For Hebrews and even Christians in today’s day, the weight and guilt of sin that they have committed impacted their everyday life. As for Theogony, the Greeks never had to worry if they have committed a sin or not because it wasn’t their concern and they didn’t believe that certain things were considered to be a sin. They could do whatever they want without worrying about some huge punishment they would get after they died. They do, however, believed that if they broke the laws in their civilization that there would be a punishment waiting for them. So to put it shortly, their morality and spiritually worldview is very different.
Thanks for reading this essay. I hope some of you have gotten something important from it. It’s really important to understand what each civilization’s ideas and thoughts were on the morality and ethics. I’ll post more soon and have a great rest of your day!
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