[tied] Re: Apam Napat = Hephaistos or Dionysos?

From: markodegard@...
Message: 10570
Date: 2001-10-24

--I said--
My views are influenced by Graves (many of his hard-reasoned
conclusions are now simply obsolete), but I agree with him that an
attempt was made to make Theseus a competitor of Herakles; Theseus
lost out, a mere hero: Herakles was bodily assumed out of Hades into
Olympus and divinized (as was his mother). Herakles and Semele:Jesus
and Mary? You betcha.
--end I said--

Oops. Herakles' momma was Alkmene; she had a second (post-mortum a la
the Mormons) marriage to Rhadamanthys, and was effectively bodily
assumed into one of the Greek heavens.

Dionysius's momma was Semele. She really did get bodily assumed into
heaven (she actually died and went to Hades, but then, even her ghost
was reconstituted as a goddess in Olympus). And her name is cognate
with PIE 'earth' (but only by borrowing in Greek).

Well. I have no problems with comparing Jesus with Dionysius, or their
mothers with each other. Ditto with Herakles and Alkmene. Neither do
lots of right-on nuns of a certain age who taught me intercollegiately
at Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa.