Athena and Eve. The Real Meaning of Greek Myth - Part 1
Athena and Eve
The Parthenon Code
Bearbeitung: Medical-Manager Wolfgang Timm
![The first couple
There is no Creator-God in the Greek religious system. The ancient Greek religious system is about getting away from the God of Genesis, and exalting man as the measure of all things. You may think to yourself that the Greeks are exalting gods, not man; but haven’t you ever wondered why the Greek gods looked exactly like humans? The answer is the obvious one: for the most part, the gods represented the Greeks’ (and our) human ancestors. Greek religion was thus a sophisticated form of ancestor worship. You have no doubt heard of the supposedly great philosopher, Sokrates. In Plato’s Euthydemus, he referred to Zeus, Athena, and Apollo as his ‘gods’ and his ‘lords and ancestors’. 1 Greek stories about their origins are varied and sometimes contradictory until their poets and artists settle upon Zeus and Hera as the couple from whom the other Olympian gods and mortal men are descended. This brother/sister and husband/wife pair, the king and queen of the gods, are a match for the Adam and Eve of Genesis. Figure 2 is Hans Holbein’s Adam and Eve. This couple is the beginning of the family of man, and the origin of the family of the Greek gods, Zeus and Hera. Figure 3 shows us Zeus and his wife Hera, sculpted on the east frieze of the Parthenon, c. 438 BC. With no Creator-God in the Greek religious system, the first couple advances to the forefront.

Figure 2. Hans Holbeins` Adam and Eve

Figure 3. Hera and Zeus
Hera, the queen of the gods, is the primal Eve
According to the Book of Genesis, Eve is the mother of all living humans, and the wife of Adam. Since God is the Father of both Adam and Eve, some consider them to be brother and sister as well. After they had both eaten the fruit, Adam named his wife Eve ("living" in Hebrew) and Genesis 3:20 explains why: "… for she becomes mother of all the living."† In a hymn of invocation, the 6th-century BC lyric poet, Alcaeus, refers to Hera as panton genethla, or "mother of all." 2 As the first mother, the Greeks worshipped Hera as goddess of childbirth; as the first wife, the Greeks worshipped her as the goddess of marriage.
We are told in Chapter 2 of Genesis that Eve was created full-grown out of Adam. Before she was known as Hera, the wife of Zeus had the name Dione. The name relates to the creation of Eve out of Adam, for Dione is the feminine form of Dios or Zeus. This suggests that the two, like Adam and Eve, were once a single entity.
The attribute most often associated with Hera in ancient art was the sceptre. She is often depicted as enthroned and holding it in her right hand. She is, and always will be, the queen of Olympus. As the sister/wife of Zeus, Hera is a deification of Eve, the motherless mother of all humanity. She holds the sceptre of rule by birth.
† Bible quotations taken from the Concordant Literal Translation.
Zeus, the king of the gods, is Adam
From the Judeo-Christian standpoint, the taking of the fruit by Eve and Adam at the serpent’s behest was shameful, a transgression of Yahweh’s commandment. From the Greek standpoint, however, the taking of the fruit was a triumphant and liberating act which brought to mankind the serpent’s enlightenment. To the Greeks, the serpent freed mankind from bondage to an oppressive God, and was therefore a saviour and illuminator of our race. The Greeks worshipped Zeus as both saviour and illuminator; they called him Zeus Phanaios which means one who appears as light and brings light. The light that he brought to the ancient Greeks was the serpent’s light that he received when he ate the fruit from the serpent’s tree.
In his Zeus and Hera, mythologist Carl Kerényi suggests that the name Zeus or Dios, at its deepest level, means "the actual decisive, dynamic moment of becoming light." 3 Thus, the very meaning of the names of the first couple, Dios and Dione, points to that time when they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and first embraced the enlightenment of the serpent. The natural force, lightning, depicts who Zeus is and what he brings to mankind perfectly. It should not surprise us, then, that the attribute most closely associated with Zeus in ancient art was the lightning bolt. On most of the vases on which he is depicted, Zeus holds the lightning bolt in his right hand. From the Greek viewpoint, there is no more "actual decisive, dynamic moment of becoming light" in human history than the time Adam and Eve received the serpent’s enlightenment, and no more appropriate symbol for it than the lightning bolt of Zeus.
On a Greek vase from c. 410 BC, a naked Zeus holds the sceptre of rule in his left hand and the lightning bolt in his right.4 He is the naked and unashamed king of Olympus. The fruit of the tree—the serpent’s enlightenment—has been passed to him. It is the true source of his power.
Zeus and Hera are the first couple described in Genesis
In his Works and Days, the poet Hesiod wrote of "how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source." 5 The first couple, Zeus and Hera, were that source. Hera is the single mother of all humanity, and Zeus is, according to Hesiod, "the father of men and gods." 6 The term "father Zeus" is a description of the king of the gods which appears over one hundred times in the ancient writings of Homer. 7 As the source of their history, Zeus and Hera became the gods of their history.
According to Genesis, Adam lived 930 years. The length of Eve’s life is not mentioned but there is no reason to think that it wasn’t about as long as Adam’s. That by itself would confer a godlike status on them.
And who came before them? No-one. It is only natural that the Greeks worshipped Adam and Eve as Zeus and Hera. Those without a belief in the Creator have only nature, themselves, and their progenitors to exalt.
The Greek tradition insists that Zeus and Hera were the first couple; the Judeo-Christian tradition insists Adam and Eve were the first couple. Two opposite spiritual standpoints share the same factual basis.
If the above is true, then the Greeks ought to have directly connected Zeus and Hera to a paradise, a serpent, and a fruit tree. They did, indeed, make such a direct connection.
The Garden of the Hesperides—Eden’s Greek counterpart
The Greeks remembered the original paradise. They called it the Garden of the Hesperides, and they associated Zeus and Hera with its enticing ease, and with a serpent-entwined apple tree.

Figure 4. The Garden of the Hesperides
The Hesperides, the spirit-beings associated with this tree, its apples, and its serpent, get their name from Hespere in Greek which means evening, and that signifies the west where the sun sets. This matches the Genesis account which describes civilization developing to the east of Eden. A return to Eden would mean travelling west. The Greeks put the Garden of the Hesperides, with its serpent-entwined apple tree, in the far west.
Some mythologists have mistaken the Hesperides for guardians of the tree, but they certainly are not. Their body language, their easy actions and their very names serve the purpose of establishing what kind of a garden this is: a wonderful, carefree place.
In Figure 4, we see the Garden of the Hesperides depicted on a water pot from c. 410 BC. The serpent entwines the apple tree with its golden fruit. The names of the figures are written on the vase. Two of the Hesperides, Chrysothemis (Golden Order) and Asterope (Star Face) stand to the immediate left of the tree. Chrysothemis moves toward the tree to pluck an apple. Asterope leans pleasantly against her with both arms. To the left of them, Hygeia (Health) sits on a hillock and holds a long sceptre, a symbol of rule, as she looks back towards the tree. To the right of the apple tree, Lipara (Shining Skin) holds apples in the fold of her garment, and raises her veil off her shoulder.
The names of the Hesperides describe what the garden is like. It’s a land of soft starlight, gold for the taking, perfect health, and wondrous beauty. Apollodorus gives four different names for the Hesperides: Aegle (Dazzling Light), Erythia (Red Land), Hesperia (Evening Star) and Arethusa (Water Fountain). 8 The sound of a water fountain is one of the most peaceful sounds. What an enchanting and delightful place! The Hebrew word for Eden means "to be soft or pleasant," figuratively "to delight oneself." The Garden of the Hesperides is the Greek version of the Garden of Genesis.
If Adam and Eve, in the Greek religious system, have become Zeus and Hera, there should be literary evidence for their presence in this garden, and there is. Apollodorus wrote that the apples of the Hesperides "were presented by Gaia [Earth] to Zeus after his marriage with Hera." This matches the Genesis account: Eve became Adam’s wife right after she was taken out of Adam (Genesis 2:21–25), and the next recorded event is the taking of the fruit by the first couple. Connecting Zeus and Hera with the Hesperides automatically connects them with the serpent and the fruit tree with which they are always represented.
The chorus in Euripides’ play Hippolytus speaks of "the apple-bearing shore of the Hesperides" where immortal fountains flow "by the place where Zeus lay, and holy Earth with her gifts of blessedness makes the gods prosperity wax great." 9 Thus Euripides put Zeus in the garden, and his language affirms that this is where Zeus came from.
You have probably heard one time or another about Eve eating the apple. The Hebrew word for fruit in Chapter 3 of Genesis is a general term. The idea that Adam and Eve took a bite of an apple comes to us as part of the Greek tradition.
Atlas pushes away the heavens and with them, the God of the heavens
The Greek poets placed a figure named Atlas in the ancient Garden of the Hesperides. Hesiod wrote in his Theogony:
And Atlas through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms, standing at the borders of the earth before the clear-voiced Hesperides; for this lot wise Zeus assigned him. 10

Figure 5. Atlas pushes away the heavens
His presence there clarified the Greeks’ religious viewpoint, for it was his job to put the authority of heaven at a distance from them.
In Figure 5, we see part of a plate scene depicting Atlas pushing away the heavens. We can see where the artist has drawn stars. As Atlas pushes away the heavens, he also pushes away the God of the heavens—the very object of his efforts. Victory for the Greek system means that the Creator is kept at bay, pushed out of the picture, and His influence nullified, so that men become free to believe and do what they will. The way of Greek religion, which is nothing less than the way of Kain (Cain) referred to in the Scriptures, is a life lived without God’s interference with mankind’s desires. The Creator must be pushed away and ignored if Zeus-religion is to succeed.

Levitating Stone
(Hinzugefügt)
Yahweh cursed and condemned the serpent in Genesis 3:14: "On your torso shall you go, and soil shall you eat all the days of your lives." As God is pushed out of humanity’s realm, the curse on the serpent becomes void. He rises up, as on the plate depiction, to take his place as the illuminator and enlightener of the race.


Erstellt 11. August 2006. Update 25. März 2007.
© Medical-Manager Wolfgang Timm
Fortsetzung
Die Kronen symbolisieren die höhere Natur in jedem Menschen, sein individueller potentieller innerer Adel. Jedermann ist verpflichtet seinen inneren Adel nach Albrecht Dürer und Carl Huter zu heben.](92D57DAB-3494-42EB-9084-F5F7F7BB5EB1_files/shapeimage_1.png)
