Greek Myth, Christian Myth: Lot's Wife, Orpheus' Wife

"The ancient Greeks told stories, which we call myths, to explain the mysteries of the world around them. As part of this mythology they worshiped many gods. They attributed both beneficial and harmful natural events to the actions of their gods. These gods controlled everything-sunrise, sunset, rainbows, the season, winds, storms, and earthquakes-and also took part in the drama of human life." --From "Z is for Zeus" by Helen L. Wilbur

In Greek Myth, Christian Myth we'll look into myths that are similar in both religions starting with harmful natural events attributed to an angry god.

We know ancient people did not know much of anything about science, but that they were curious about the world around them. Not having science to explain a natural disaster meant to them, that quite literally, a god was rather angry at the people who lived where the disaster happened.

Sodom and Gomorrah are an example from the Old Testament's God. Ancient people didn't know why the volcano was erupting, but thought that surely something so violent and life-threatening must be the work of an angry god (what else could it be without the explanation of science after all?). We now know it was simply the Earth being itself. People witnessing (or merely hearing about the event) would then attribute the event to their god to make reason of why the people of Sodom suffered loss of life, adding in storytelling flair such as the rescue of Lot.

Ah, Lot. In this same account of Sodom Lot's wife is magically turned to stone for disobeying God's command to not look back. This myth of the Bible is similar to the Greek myth of Orpheus and his wife:

In short, his wife dies so Orpheus travels to the Underworld to beg for her to be returned to life and charms Hades with his music. Hades agrees but on the condition that if they look back his wife will be lost in the Underworld forever. Well, he does look back as they're almost all the way out, leaving his wife doomed forever. For more see Death of Eurydice.

As for the story of Sodom and Lot, don't even get me started on the fact that Lot and God were not able to locate just a few righteous people in Sodom for which to spare the city. All those kids under the age of 4 must have been real hellions!

Most early Christian or Jewish writers probably knew of the story of Orpheus while they were writing (and editing) the Bible and it's likely to of influenced them. This is but one similarity of the Christian Bible with other world myths. In our next post we'll explore more.