can anyone when recommend a good book that covers all the greek myths? they’re starting to confuse me…!
‘The Greek Myths - Complete Edition’ by Robert Graves is quite good in my opinion.
I think the most confusing thing about Greek myth is the genealogy. I remember there was an entire book that was just about the genealogies, but I forgot the title…
Also, I wonder if there are any books that teaches ancient greek through the mythologies… that would be fun…
Bulfinch’s Mythology is pretty well reputed, but it does not focus only on Greek.
I would have to second the recommendation for Bullfinch’s. For many people this is THE standard myth text.
It’s also on the web: http://www.bulfinch.org/
Ingrid, in the possession of an abridged but nicely illustrated version of Robert Graves’ Greek myths.
I third the Bullfinch recommendation…it’s one of my favorites. (I was going to post the link, but I see Ingrid already did.)
I love the site because it’s easy to navigate. (Oh-and because I love mythology! 
)
bulfinch’s (qualified) suggestion that some greek myths might be derived from the scriptures is a bit hilarious. i’ve read somewhere that the greeks might have got the idea for a myth about the battle between the gods and the giants from the exposed smashed jawbones of dinosaurs on some greek islands, which can still be found today. i think it was in national geo. the greeks might have got the idea of “slain giants” from these bones, the same way that other cultures have their “slain dragons” myths from the dinosaur bones.
also the tie between the gods and olympus specifically might have come from the fact that, even today still, on mount olympus there are campfire-sized fires burning continuously, and if you blow them out they re-ignite spontaneously. maybe the really early greeks thought that there were invisible olympians living on the hill, and the myths of the gods developed from there. cheers, chad. 
Not entirely hilarious. I don’t know how much the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, etc., religious texts were available to Bulfinch when he was writing. The Archaic Greek religious world, at least in it’s literary representation, shows a lot of near-eastern influence. So perhaps Bulfinch saw parentage where they are instead siblings. Martin West has an entire book on this, The East Face of Helicon.
Certainly Homer is crammed full of near-eastern stories, and even turns of phrase. Terms like “shepherd of the people” are used by Homer, and then disappear from Greek until the Greek world adopts a near-eastern religion, Christianity.
Yes, look how I saw the story of adam and eve in the encouter of odysseus and nausicaa. killing of god on the tree is also found in both north myth and egypto-persian myths.
is the phrase “shepherd of the people” near-eastern? it sounds like it might be related to the egyptian culture… the symbol of the pharaoh was the shepherd’s crook and flail, and i think he (or she) was called shepherd of the people. egypt and greece of course had strong connections, particularly through crete. these connections are quite interesting, but i think conclusions about parentage in these cases are a bit suspect…
you know, Egypt is near eastern.
or is it not considered so?
i am not sure about the shepherd of the people nick for the pharaohs (by the way, the female pharaohs are outnumbered. no need for the “or she”)
the idea of shepherd is likely to orginate in a nomadic culture.
Modern Egypt is considered part of the Near (or Middle) East, but not Ancient Egypt. Don’t worry, Egypt hasn’t moved over the past couple of thousand years, it’s just that modern Egyptian culture is similar enough to that of other societies in the region to make it meaningful to group them together and Ancient Egyptian culture wasn’t.
Linguists have the nice German term Sprachbund to describe a region where people speaking different languages interact, which leads to interesting similarities in possibly unrelated languages.
I wonder if there’s the term Kulturbund, into which we can cram the ancient Near East and archaic Greece.
hi kalailan, hatshepsut and twosret were 2 women who were pharaohs, and so adopted the shepherd’s crook and flail: one to gently lead, one to discipline. hatshepsut in particular was a very impressive pharaoh, concentrating on the internal development of egypt, instead of war-mongering like thutmose iii, so i think “he or she” for pharaohs is justified, just like you might say he or she about e.g. english monarchs… cheers, chad.
in hebrew, because of the masculine/feminine vocativs, you have to choose between the two when talking to a crowd. the rule is: if there is one male, no matter how many females are about, masculine should be used. i know it is very chauvinistic, but hey, the ancient hebrews were a near eastern culture.
i know it is very chauvinistic, but hey, the ancient hebrews were a near eastern culture.
lol
however, we are conversing in english, not hebrew.
English would do that too if it weren’t for all the modern political correctness stuff 
I really wouldn’t mind the changes, but there should be some sort of convention to make up replacement words so we aren’t left with awkward, verbose circumlocution. Anyways, that masculine thing must go way back if it is in both IE languages and Semitic.
Lesbians and other assorted feminists have tried to introduce the word “ze” as a gender-nonspecific replacement for “he or she”. It hasn’t caught on, and I’m neither surprised nor disappointed. I’d rather read or hear the sexist but concise generic “he” than I would either the PC but verbose “he or she” or the bizarre “ze”.
Some things I’ve read say that the “Great Discovery” (that pregnancy is caused by sex), and the overthrow of goddess-worshipping matriarchal cultures by god-worshipping patriarchal ones, both happened about 3500BC. So, yeah, it probably goes way back.