The study seeks to investigate Greek culture of behavior and religious beliefs in order to show that Oedipus in the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles had sinned against the cannons of gods and embedded religious beliefs and practices and , therefore, his case was not a deterministic 'ways' of God, rather an act of crime and punishment.
I agree with your thesis that Oedipus Rex should be read not as Oedipus' being consigned to a deterministic fate by the gods but rather as Oedipus' being punished by the gods for sins, as hamartiai were understood by the contemporaneous Greek audience.
@Kirk, thanks for the insightful comments. Would you please refer me to some articles/ thesis on the idea of Greek understanding of religion or sin and punishment as we see in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?
Regards.
Oedipus is a story. He does not exist! It's a story to entertain people. And you don't get it that such things hardly exist in real life. Then you go and based on that story you make up 'complexes' and talk youself even deeper into lies. Based on that story you want what exactly? Research human mind? How can a made up story describing something which hardly exists lead to truth you can then generalize? Since when exactly does an exception lead to a general rule or law, especially based on a made up story?
The Greek mythology does not comes up with 'values', but it wants to astonish people with shocking stories about the 'troubles' of the higher world in which 'gods' live. It is more like gossip then trying to present people a moral system. Everything here is unknown fate. And if there is a moral, then the only moral is that not even a god can overcome the fate. Everyone is blind. Everyone falls because they cannot see. So what's the moral any other then not knowing?
You cannot compare this to the Jewish or Christian concept of sin, because sin means here that you know exactly what is bad, at least by hearing, but you do not follow. It is not some kind of hiddeness, that some unknown fate strikes you, but because you do not listen and act despite it was said. For example Israel allies with Babylon despite the prophets warned them that they are wicked people whom they cannot trust with a complete different culture and values. Noone listens. And Jerusalem gets destroyed. True story, based on the prophets experience and not 'fate'.
Yes, Oedipus was governed by fate, which do what he could he couldn't change. Nevertheless these are poetic, metaphoric concepts of the world in which human beings were playthings of the gods. The play provides us with a way of looking at life whereby destiny is endured with honour. But there is also a kind of freewill, as at some point an ancestor has committed a crime, usually incest.
Many Ancient Greeks did not believe in this, but did have a morality based on cause and effect, just as those who follow the Abrahamic Religions. In those religions there is predestination, as Yahweh knows what will happen, and sometimes doesn't give individuals' choice. In the Abrahamic religions god has no sense of responsibility, blaming everything on others. God, a being with little apparent ethics, is a being of will and does what he feels like.
The Ancient Greeks certainly had a sense of right and wrong expressed as manly virtues and civic duty, similar to Ancient Egyptians.
I disagree with Kirk. It is not sin as Christians etc understand it.
NO !!, because he did not know or was aware of what he was doing; what he suffered, according to Greek Mythology, was not a punishment, BUT A SELF PUNISHMENT, guided by the "SINO" or "FATUM" -classic protagonist of Greco-Latin mythologems- before the conscience, "a posteriori" of the infringed incest taboo, as a mere "toy" of the "gods" and without freedom to choose, as in all Classic Tragedy or, later, Romanticism.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Statistics
- Time Series