Greek Gods In The Odyssey

In general, when people think of God or gods, there tends to be a reverential connotation that goes along with the title, there’s a certain sacredness to the idea and conception of a deity. When the abrahamic God of the Torah is brought into light, he is suppose to characterized as this omniscient, infallible being that’s almost too great for humans to conceptualize, but what is fascinating about the Torah, is we find that God is anthropomorphized in a way that characterizes him as this imperfect force that resembles the Greek gods, particularly Dionysus in the Bacchae. Both of the deities have contradictory traits that encapsulates the complexities of being human while simultaneously establishing themselves as wrathful forces of nature.

God consistently goes along the spectrum of human emotion as “He feels delight,”, Jer. 9:24; “he rejoices with joy and exultation,” (Zeph. 3:17). “shows favor,” (Isa. 60:10) and in that same light “he rebukes,” (Isa. 17:13) “he hates,” (Deut. 12:31) “he rejects”, (Jer. 14:19) “he abhors,” (Ps. 106:40) “he feels disgust,” (Lev. 20:23) “is provoked to anger”, (Jer. 7:18) and claims that "I am a jealous God," (Ex. 20:5). It’s strange how an all powerful God is subject to these irrational behaviors and human emotions that cause him to react because he “feels” some type of way. Not only does he just feel some type of way, but often humans make can “get to him”. He is “provoked” to anger, he’s not angry because he’s an angry God, but like humans he comes off as unstable as he’s not in control of his emotions contributing to the complexities that go on within this being. As a just and powerful God, the expectation is that he’ll do the right thing despite how he may feel, but right before he punishes the people of Israel with a disaster it tends to be preceded by a human emotion. That’s not to say that he shouldn’t be reprimanding his chosen people, but his actions are dictated by his emotions. In 2 Samuel 24 David makes, what seems to be an almost democratic choice and sends out a census amongst his men that were of fighting age, and because this displeased God, “The Lord sent a

Because of his jealousy, Dionysus finds himself unjustly punishing humans. After the mortal, Pentheus disagrees with Dionysus’ chaotic lifestyle, the god saw fit to punish him. Dionysus convinces Pentheus to make a complete fool of himself to teach him a lesson as any deity may do, but instead of stopping at utter embarrassment, he’s caught spying on these women causing them to rip his head off while under Dionysus’ trance. “Cadmus:your reprisals are too severe! Dionysus: Yes, because I am a god, and you insulted me. Cadmus: Gods should not resemble men in their anger!”(Eur. Bac.347): Euripides acknowledges that as a God there is suppose to be a higher state of being that comes with their divinity, but Dionysus being so heavily anthropomorphised in the story bred that human pettiness which led to Pentheus’s tragic death. Dionysus received the characterization of anger and pettiness on the emotional spectrum. Simply put, Dionysus was a human for all intents and purposes for the