Where did the idea of having to wash to "purify" yourself before God(s) or seeing God(s) being lethal to mortals come from? I know that the Greeks thought so, but they probably got it from the Jews, who might have gotten it from the Egyptians. So where did the Egyptians get it from?
How far back does this idea go? It seems really common, especially in the Mediterranean region, and near East.
Idk lad but if you stare at the sun your eyes hurt so it's probably like that.
>Where did the idea of having to wash to "purify" yourself before God(s) or seeing God(s) being lethal to mortals come from?
Defecation. Not even trolling.
But then why was it something only ordained for priests and such?
Mary Douglas wrote a God-tier book about this topic called Purity and Danger. It makes me a little uncomfortable where she extends her thesis elsewhere, but I can't deny this book's quality and originality.
Sounds like a Gnostic inheritance. Believing that matter is evil may have something to do with it.
it's just some stuff some sumerian men made up or summat like that
wouldn't worry about it too much thqhbqhq
It comes from eyewitnesses who saw others getting killed by the Gods for being too dirty or staring at the Gods..
Don't the Japanese also ritually wash to purify themselves (i.e. Shintoism)? I suspect this might just be a common human interpretation of how water works.
it comes from how human beings think about gods
gods = sacred
filthiness = profane
therefore you should probably wash
In the case of Zeus and Semele, I'm fairly certain Zeus only does his raping in the form of animals, piss, or people. He has sex with goddesses as a God, but his 'final form' so to speak is too violent and powerful for a mortal. It killed Semele, but made Dionysus fully divine rather than just kind of divine. Divinity or near-divinity in Greek myth have the capacity to kill the mortal-aspect of a human as long as they are in contact with them in some way.
In the case of Christianity, God is knowledge rather than lightning. The Logos is impossible to comprehend, terrifying, and overwhelming.
In regards to purification, that is a very old tradition that probably predates Egypt and every other known civilization. I would argue that it works in a similar fashion to the process of a god 'burning' or 'drowning' the morality of a human. They might come from a similar origin, where smoke/fire and water were both used to clean oneself.
Unfortunately, most funding goes to STEMshit instead of archaeology, so we probably won't ever find this origin.
An anthropologist might say that so-called 'animists' washed themselves in nature so to commune with it.
>Unfortunately, most funding goes to STEMshit instead of archaeology, so we probably won't ever find this origin.
I wish there was more success in convincing the relevant people to pool some of that STEM research into archaeological applications, such as that recent new application of MRIs (or something similar) to read fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls that where previously considered unreadable.
I think it's the idea of cleaning your Mind of all the phenomenal givens so their dissipation doesn't scare you to pieces.
Maybe it's just natural to ritualize something that everyone ought to do anyways
This kind of thing is buried far in prehistory. We will never know.
But we can still speculate based on what we do know about human psychology, comparative religion, mythology, folklore, etc.
Division of labor.
Yes, but why is seeing a God so lethal? I get that it is according to many myths, like God being knowledge and all that, but why? They could've just said "Oh yeah they're super powerful but it's actually a-ok for mortals to see them even if it's rare".
To the ancients the universe is deadly and it shouldn't be surprising that its masters can be even more dangerous.
As for the moderns, you have to realize that when a Kierkegaard speaks of Fear and Trembling he also means Fear, when an Otto speaks of Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans he also means Mysterium and Tremendum, and when an Otto again speaks of a Totally Other he also means Other.
The theology of the sacred - of separation and purity to approach What is separate and pure - is the way it is because it doesn't come from a non-theistic worldview, and it developed independently of questions such as: "Why doesn't theology conform to my 21st century post-theistic Weltanschauung, and the contingent, finite things I presently like?"
Because Zeus is lightning embodied. In the painting in the OP, he's holding his lightning bolt and the hawk is trying to restrain it or something to save Semele. Seeing him is like being struck by powerful lightning.
Experiencing God is like being overwhelmed in general. It is more difficult to explain because there is no obvious physical embodiment. One cannot drown in words or be burned by speech (at least not literally).
It honestly could have came from the fact that water extinguishes fire.
But it's not a universal thing. The early Hebrews believed in it too, so it's not exclusive to Zeus.
Contrast that to the Norse, who have mortals seeing Gods all the time and they're all fine. It's not lethal or overwhelming at all.
I'm using Zeus as an example because of OP's image.
I never said it was universal, it's an Eastern motif.
Anybody that says Judaism, Islam, or Christianity are Western religions is fucking delusional. Germanic religions are the most popular example of Western religions. Greece is barely Western. Their best buddies were the Asians across the Aegean, not the people north and west of them. They did nothing but look down on them, save maybe the near West and North, and even then only because they are trade buddies like the Asians.
>hurr christianity is western despite having more similarities with fucking japanese religions than with germanic religions (beyond eschatology)
>Unfortunately, most funding goes to STEMshit instead of archaeology, so we probably won't ever find this origin.
Dont give me these feels, user. :(