Main points from pages 2-23

Mythology tells us how ancient people thought and felt about the world around them.

When the myths were developed, people had a stronger tie with nature.

There was not a read difference between what was real and what was imagined.

Their imaginations were more developed than ours are today.

Since people didn’t know about science, and they didn’t know how to explain the bad things that happened in their lives, they saw horrors everywhere.

Because of this, people wanted to protect themselves, but they knew they needed help. So, they invented gods with magical powers.

The first record of ancient Greece was the book called the Iliad, written by Homer.

(page 16) Mythologies older than the Greeks had gods/goddesses with human and animal characteristics…like Egyptian mythology.

Greeks thought differently. Their gods/goddesses looked totally human, only better.

Since Greek gods/goddesses looked and acted human, the people could relate to them better.

In Greek mythology, the events were said to have taken place in real places there on earth.

Mythology is not always the same as religion.

Mythology is a collection of stories that were used to explain things.

SOME mythologies include gods/goddesses that were worshipped, but not all mythologies did this.

We will study mythologies from around the world in this class, including Christian mythology.

We can do this at school because I’m not teaching you to worship any certain way. That’s your own personal business.

Ovid: Most of what we know came from his writings.

Homer: His writings are the oldest (the Iliad and the Odyssey). They were written before Christianity even started (Christianity is a very young religion).

Hesiod: He wrote down the Greek myth about the creation of the world (the Theogony).

Virgil: He wrote about Roman mythology in the Aeneid.