Guest Writer
“If you’re new to our show, we take Geek pop culture….to let you know you are loved.”
Today, instead of Geek Pop Culture, we are going to talk about Greek Pop Culture, with a little Egyptian tossed in for good measure. While Israel was to have only one God, the people around them did not. In order to communicate with the known world, God inspired the writers to include some “pop culture” references, including referencing the mythology of the day.
Were you aware an Egyptian god wrote one of the three main portions of the Old Testament? Sermons mention different Egyptian gods’ possible connection to each of the ten plagues, but no one talks about the god mentioned in Exodus 7:1. Pharaoh was the walking embodiment of gods such as Ra and Horus and was worshiped as such. The Egyptians viewed Moses as the walking embodiment of the God of the Hebrews. The Egyptians saw Moses versus Pharaoh as a battle of the gods, similar to the battles of Horus and Set or the nightly battle of Ra, the sun god, and the serpent Apophis. Even the plagues look different through the eyes of mythology. We see the ninth plague as just darkness; for the Egyptians, it was a possible apocalypse. A fear for the Egyptians was that Apothis would swallow Ra and plunge the world into darkness. This fear caused the Egyptians not to move for three days (Exodus 10:23).
The Old Testament is not the only place where the gods are mentioned. Israel was part of the Roman Empire, and that included Greek culture with its pantheons. Mathew, Paul, and Peter all reference mythology in their books, but for our discussion today, we will focus on Luke’s writing to Theophilus, called Acts. The book has Paul traveling the known world and having several run-ins with the pantheons. He was mistaken for Hemes (Acts 14:12) and caused an uproar amongst those who sold Artemis silver images (Acts 19:23-40).
He even had dealings with minor deities. In Acts 16:16, Paul is being followed by a young lady with a “spirit of divination.” Luke specifically says this girl has the spirit of Python in her. For most of us, we think of the large snake. The Greeks thought of Python, a snake connected to Delphi, the site of a famous oracle. Imagine not having to travel the treacherous Mediterranean or the long route to Delphi to consult the spirits. No wonder the young lady’s masters were upset when the spirit left her. Another god appears when Paul is shipwrecked in the last two chapters of Acts. In some translations of Acts 28:4, “justice” is capitalized. That is because the people of Melita thought Paul had been brought to justice by the goddess of justice, Dike. Paul was able to show these people that God was greater than the gods.
The stories of the gods of Egypt and the Grecco/Roman gods have fascinated me since I was young, reading about them in a set of old World Book Encyclopedias. My rudimentary knowledge allowed me to view some passages with different eyes. In some cases, it has deepened my understanding about how different the God we worship is from the pantheons. It also encourages me to reach out to those who still worship gods, such as Self, Fame, Popularity, etc. Like Moses, Luke, and others before me, maybe I need to reach out using some “pop culture” to let them know there is a plan and purpose for their lives.
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