Hathor

[Jay042]

It makes sense the Egyptian pantheon may not be too freindly towards the Judeo-Christan, with that business with Moses and all.

So what exactly would Moses' status in Heaven be now? Being the major Prophet of the Hebrews, wouldn't that give him some minor deity status, like Mary?

I don't know why, but I keep imagining Moses as this pompous windbag. Acting more holy and full of Fire and Brimestone than God ever bothers to be.

[Capn]

I don't know why, but I keep imagining Moses as this pompous windbag. Acting more holy and full of Fire and Brimestone than God ever bothers to be.

That's Charlton Heston for ya

[Metrobius]

Yes, he and Gabriel probably get on quite well.

In the beginning I excluded prophets and such-like from my idea of Who Was in The Pantheon, because if you let every demi-god and person who thought they'd seen a burning bush once get in, the place would soon be out of control and over-run.

This is why there's no Islamic Jesus, because he was only a prophet to them. So when Jibril etc. see the Christian deity Jesus, they recognise him as their prophet, but he has no responsibilities in their cosmology now he's dead.

Mary got in because the Roman Catholics make such a fuss over her she's got to be a goddess by now. If the Jews make enough fuss over Moses (as I seem to recall they did once in a South Park episode, and he appeared in the fire as a big triangularish talking shape...) maybe he deserves to be in there too.

But I'm not sure about the Jewish side of things. A Jewish chap (whose name I forget, grovel, grovel..) recently sent a good email to the Yahoogroup suggesting that the Jewish pantheon should be entirely separate again from the Christian one, and explained how God and the others would probably be, which sounded very funny and worth investigating.

But I'm kind of reluctant to split Jehovah/Yahweh/however he's spelt up again. I grew up with the idea that the God in the Old Testament was the same as the God in the New Testament, he just had a son and delegated reponsibility. And some of the people believed in Jesus, and they were Christians, and some didn't, and they stayed being Jews. Shalt have to think more on this. I certainly don't want to short-change the Jewish mythology in any way, because the whole point of Pantheon is that it's about highlighting the little traditional gods and their stories that have been consumed by Big Fat Boring Christianity.

In re Moses, he's probably wandering about somewhere in Heaven. Possibly he's in the bit where all the Blessed Souls go, but feels he's a bit more Holy than that and that God should let him out to help with the running of things. The angels must think he's a loony and spend a lot of their time foiling his escape attempts..
Either that or he has escaped, and does march about windbagging, as you said. I just don't know....

[Patchwork cat]

So... Shakespeare yes, Moses no.

[Metrobius]

Shakespeare's a joke, though, because people are so nutty about him. I haven't seen people dashing about praising Moses, just acknowledging that there was once this useful bloke called Moses that did stuff. But Shakespeare wasn't just a guy that did stuff, he was the Greatest Writer That Ever Lived.

[Patchwork cat]

*sings* Go down Shakespeare, way down in Englands land, tell old Elizabeth I to let my people goooo'...

[Metrobius]

You're determined to have Moses be a god, aren't you?

[Ciaan]

I don't know much about Judaism, either, but I know there's a whole lot of Jewish stuff that didn't make its way into Christianity, and so it seems to me that those people would still be hanging out as a Jewish belief-set entirely separate from the Christian one.

-ciaan
or just whatever is funnier for the story.

[Sundragyn]

Lilith! I want Lilith!

[Patchwork cat]

Nah, (that Moses thing was a joke!) just more Germanic pantheon pleez.

[Ripvanwormer]

You've got an interesting tight-rope to walk. Christianity has all sorts of sects and subfaiths, so should, for example, there be a separate Cathar God and a separate Mormon God and a separate Calvinist god? Christianity is itself originally a sect of Judaism, but Judaism has all sorts of sects of its own - should there be a separate Cabalistic G-d and a separate Reformed God and a Samaritan God and a Essene God and a God based on the Book of Enoch?

But if it's all the same God, and a bunch of mortals arguing about his nature, how much do you consolidate the other pantheons? Are Aphrodite, Astarte, Inanna, and Ishtar the same? How about Zeus and Jupiter? Zeus and Deus? Zurvan, Spenta Mainyu, and Ormahzd? Mitra and Mithras? Mitra and Mitra Daeva? Iblis and Azazel?

[Metrobius]

Yes, it's a big pain in the bottom.

Basically what I do is decide as I go along who's separate and who's not, which probably isn't very scholarly, but it does make for a story that doesn't make people's heads hurt..

The idea originally was that gods were a certain way, and it was (sort-of) the way the general consensus of mortal belief thought it was. That's still the idea (and the "certain way" gets decided by me as I go along..), although gods may change under the force of 'believer imperative', probably because they'd go mad if they didn't.

Realistically, because myths are so influenced by others and mixed up and transient, you can't say *anything* is true about gods, because the blasted creatures quite manifestly don't exist. The only solution is to give the gods their own reality which is based as closely as possible on the myths. But when it comes down to it, you have to say "All right, *this* goddess is the real one, and she has a few different names," or "This god is not the same as that one, they're two separate people."

As regards the Three Great Religions, I haven't got a religious background, only a very basic idea about Christianity gleaned from the Illustrated Children's Bible, scripture classes in primary school, and various attempts by friends to save my soul. So when I came to the end of school, I thought of Judaism as being pretty similar to Generic Christianity, except that they didn't have Jesus and all that He Died For Our Sins stuff. So when I made the God who is the father of Jesus, I assumed the Jews would just be worshipping him, while the Protestants pestered Jesus as well, and the Catholics prayed to Mary.
Islam I knew absolutely nothing about, so when I went to do Daughters of God, I went to the library and read bits of the Qu'ran, and books about the Qu'ran, and books about Islam, ie. I started from scratch.

But since I started out with my "Judaeo-Christian" God, I've had hopeful messages from those of the Jewish faith saying "When are you going to have a go at our version of the universe?" So the God I've created clearly doesn't match nicely with the God of the Jews. As I said before, my original idea was that the character I drew acted for both - when he's hanging around with Jesus he's the Christian God, and when he's off doing Jewish things, he's the Jewish God. That's the angle I'd still like to take, if possible. Perhaps he has some specifically Jewish people in his "other pantheon" who keep saying stuff like "When are you going to stop moonlighting with that Jesus bloke?"

I generally try to make the best-known version of the myth "the Truth". And the idea of The Pantheon is that it's from the gods' point of view, not their believers'. So it's possible that there are believers who are deluding themselves about the nature of their god, or that all of them are sort of generically right, but (because they haven't actually met God and shaken his hand) they're not *exactly* right, and the window dressing of ritual they pile on top of their basic belief is of no particular consequence to their gods.

As regards the gods you've listed.. In my universe: Aphrodite is separate, so is Astarte, I *think..* Inanna and Ishtar are the same person. Zeus and Jupiter are the same person. The others, I just don't know well enough to say. Except that Azazel's name I took from an apocryphal (I believe) book of the Bible where a bunch of angels got thrown out of Heaven for lusting after mortal women. So he's already a minor unimportant demon in my universe. Is he important elsewhere? I thought that was Azrael.

[Jay042]

Shakespeare's a joke, though, because people are so nutty about him. I haven't seen people dashing about praising Moses, just acknowledging that there was once this useful bloke called Moses that did stuff. But Shakespeare wasn't just a guy that did stuff, he was the Greatest Writer That Ever Lived.

In that vein, maybe Elvis has acquired deity status. I'd say he doesn't have fans as much as he has a cult anyway:)

[Ripvanwormer]

Except that Azazel's name I took from an apocryphal (I believe) book of the Bible where a bunch of angels got thrown out of Heaven for lusting after mortal women. So he's already a minor unimportant demon in my universe. Is he important elsewhere? I thought that was Azrael.

Oh, right. I forgot.

Well, most demons are linked to Satan, so sometimes Belial, Asmoday, Bileth, Bael, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles and so on will be seen sometimes as a subordinate of his, and sometimes as another name for the Devil or the King of Demons. Some sources (such as "Angels A to Z") say that Azazel became Iblis after he got kicked out of Heaven. Others say he's just a goat used in a sin-taking ceremony. It varies.

Anyway, looks like the answer is "no," which is what I expected since Azazel is Jewish in origin and Iblis is Muslim.

Your version of Azazel is from the Book of Enoch, which is probably the most well-known one. I guess so, anyway; I haven't taken a poll or anything.

[Ripvanwormer]

Oh, here's something interesting. Maurice Bouisson says that Azazel was an ancient Semitic god of the flocks later degraded to the level of demon. So he might be inflamed with jealousy for Jesus and Apollo.

[Metrobius]

In that vein, maybe Elvis has acquired deity status. I'd say he doesn't have fans as much as he has a cult anyway:)

Yes, Elvis is one too. I'm sure of it.

[Metrobius]

Oh, here's something interesting. Maurice Bouisson says that Azazel was an ancient Semitic god of the flocks later degraded to the level of demon. So he might be inflamed with jealousy for Jesus and Apollo.

I'll certainly keep that in mind.. We can always do with more sheep comics.

[Patchwork cat]

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2004 5:25 am Post subject:
Yes, it's a big pain in the bottom.

Basically what I do is decide as I go along who's separate and who's not, which probably isn't very scholarly, but it does make for a story that doesn't make people's heads hurt..

The idea originally was that gods were a certain way, and it was (sort-of) the way the general consensus of mortal belief thought it was. That's still the idea (and the "certain way" gets decided by me as I go along..), although gods may change under the force of 'believer imperative', probably because they'd go mad if they didn't.

Realistically, because myths are so influenced by others and mixed up and transient, you can't say *anything* is true about gods, because the blasted creatures quite manifestly don't exist. The only solution is to give the gods their own reality which is based as closely as possible on the myths. But when it comes down to it, you have to say "All right, *this* goddess is the real one, and she has a few different names," or "This god is not the same as that one, they're two separate people."

Sorry, are you saying that Gods don't exist because their existence is confusing? If that's the case I should give up on the world. Personally the one thing I do have in life is a belief in the Gods because they are useful for mapping the existence of things. (as you have sort of demonstrated in the forums.)
I just think they are like the Universe, damn inscrutable, mimicking our ideas and inclined to change when your back is turned. I just get on better with the more elemental ones, like the Asatru because I am pretty basic about things.
I like the way you approach the Pantheon, because it makes as much sense as anything else and you have the nerve to say something is this way, even if it doesn't always look that way classically. I reckon that's how it should be, certainly how it seems to have been to the classic story tellers.
Like the fight scene :)

[Ciaan]

Hee hee. Metrobius is still my favorite character.

-ciaan
yes, this post was spam. ohhh, gotta edit my sig now.

[Metrobius]

I say gods don't exist because no two people have exactly the same idea about what gods are. As a general rule, when things exist, you can scientifically define them (even if you can't hold them in your hand) eg. a wolf is a mammal that lives in North America and Eurasia and features in many myths of the local people, clouds are collections of water vapour in the sky which fall as rain in the right circumstances. There are always one or two facts about a thing you can demonstrate to be true. But the problem I have with gods is that no-one's ever seen them, and everyone has a different idea about what they are.

Either the gods can't be bothered with us, they're offensively snobby, or they don't exist.

So I made up a fantasy world where they do exist, where they interact with mortals the way I imagine they would in this world if they did exist.