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Ancient Boeotian bell-krater showing Zeus impregnating Danaë in the form of a shower of gold (c. 450-425 BC), a story which has been compared to the Christian account of the virgin birth of Jesus [180] [181] [182] Another comparable story from Greek mythology describes the conception of the hero Perseus.
As Christianity spread throughout the Hellenic world, an increasing number of church leaders were educated in Greek philosophy. The dominant philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world then were Stoicism , Platonism , Epicureanism , and, to a lesser extent, the skeptic traditions of Pyrrhonism and Academic Skepticism .
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to ... in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to ...
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the 18th century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity mixed with disdain, which had prevailed for centuries", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained. [1]
A given mythology is almost always associated with a certain religion such as Greek mythology with Ancient Greek religion. Disconnected from its religious system, a myth may lose its immediate relevance to the community and evolve—away from sacred importance—into a legend or folktale .
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained. [74]
Many species existed in Greek mythology. Chief among these were the gods and humans, though the Titans (who predated the Olympian gods) also frequently appeared in Greek myths. Lesser species included the half-man-half-horse centaurs, the nature-based nymphs (tree nymphs were dryads, sea nymphs were Nereids) and the half-man, half-goat satyrs.
An example is John Milton's Paradise Lost, an "epic elaboration of the Judeo-Christian mythology" and also a "veritable encyclopedia of myths from the Greek and Roman tradition". [ 166 ] According to Cynthia Stewart, during the Reformation, the Protestant reformers used "the founding myths of Christianity" to critique the church of their time.