Change in Greek government

Explain the process by which Governments in Greece changed from monarchies to various other forms(in many cases eventually becoming democracies) during the Archaic Era. (1-2 paragraphs)

The power change started with limited monarchy as kings. The king then was overthrown and the nation would move to aristocracy oligarchy. Then the aristocratic people's would be overthrown by tyrants. From there it was a short jump from that to democracy. Instead of the lower class putting all trust in one tyrant, they put power in themselves, thus making the new government a democracy.

Athens vs. Sparta

Was the war between Athens and Sparta inevitable? Why, or why not?

I would have to say it was not inevitable. In all reality, the entire war was gust for one woman named Helen. If Paris had not taken Helen from Menelaus, the war would not have happened. Although it is small, and it just takes a small act such as this to light the fires of war, it could easily have been avoided.

Mythstory

What is the relationship between myth and history? Has our understanding of this relationship changed because of the work of archaeologists?

Myths are often times just history with religion in them. Take the Epic of Gilgamesh for instance. Gilgamesh was a king of Uruk, but he was not two-thirds divine nor slayed the bull of heaven and humbaba. People poured their religion, which we know today as myth, into the facts to make great stories in which we enjoy today. Another example is The Iliad. In the Iliad, it takes the Trojan war and puts their Greek myths into it. It is quite interesting actually how they make great tales out of regular things such as a war.


I would say yes. If archaeologists had not found things like the Epic of Gilgamesh or The Iliad, then we would not be able to learn about their mixing of myth and history.

Diomedes

Does Diomedes display arete or hubris in Book 5 of the Illiad? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

I'd have to say Diomedes displays hubris, and here is why. Diomedes defies Athena by attacking Apollo when Athena said he could only attack Aphrodite. Athena herself said,"...you must not fight the immortal power head-on, all but one of the deathless gods, this is if Aphrodite daughter of Zeus slips into battle,she's the one to stab with your sharp bronze spear." And so Diomedes does that, but when Apollo comes in, Diomedes attacks him, and therefore defied Athena.

Portraying Characters

How are the characters of Paris, Hector, Menelaus, King Priam and Helen portrayed in Book 3?

Paris) Paris is portrayed quite badly. He is portrayed as a person who can put on a mask for everyone around him, but once he has to show skill, he fails tremendously. Although this may be, Aphrodite seems to be on his side.

Hector) In book 3, Hector, Paris' brother, sees straight through his little bro, and sees what is truly there. He accepts Paris' challenge, and throws him into a one on one battle between him and Menelaus.

Menelaus) Menelaus, Paris' opponent, is literally THE champion of Troy. He is portrayed as a real tough guy who likes war. Although this seems to be true, he settles for defeating one person rather than thousands of needless bloodshed.

King Priam) Sadly, we do not get much description of  King Priam. He is portrayed as a flashy king though. He also seems to appreciate a great person, even if he faces against him in war. We see him actually complementing Agamemnon when Helen tells Priam who Agamemnon is.

Helen) Helen seems to be portrayed as the middle person, but also has a mind of her own. She obviously doesn't like Paris, but isn't really fond of Menelaus. She also seems to be a puppet of Athena's. We see her blaming Athena for everything bad that has happened to her and is happening to her.

Philosophical Idealism

What are the best arguments for or against philosophical idealism?

Pros) Sometimes it is a good way to see things this way, for example, this helps you think about permanent things, and think in concepts rather than being lost in the world. It allows you to think clearer because you can think of a group of things under a certain concept rather than their diversities.

Cons) While this is true, if you go all the way, you cannot see diversities, and are close minded to many things because there is an angle that has no concept. It also blurs what is real and what is simply a man made permanence. You may look at a tree and see its life cycle rather than being able to enjoy the shade in which it gives you.

Minoans and Mycenaeans

Minoans) the Minoens were a sea people in archaic Greece. These people did not have walls on their islands which were around Crete. This was due to their being great at the sea and thinking they could hold their own in the sea without war on their islands. They also were great at art such as architecture and paining. Almost all of these characteristics are opposite for the Myceneans.

Myceneans) the Myceneans were a land people who lived in the archaic Greece era. These people were a land living people around the area  south of the Balkan mountains. They did have great walls and did not have a lot of art. This was because they were at war a lot of the time and were a more serious group rather than taking part of the luxuries they could have like the Minoens.

The Illiad, Book one

Summarize Book one of the Illiad in the context of the Greek terms arete, time, and kleos.

Arete) We see arete hidden throughout the story, but mainly in Agamemnon's argument with Achillies. Agamemnon acceptes Achillies's arete in battle, but basically says he is good at nothing else. Achillies says Agamemnon is excelent at a leadership role, but is no good at all. We also see arete when Achillies talks with his mother. His mother makes a comment to the fact that Achillies has a short life, but an excelent one.

Time) In book one we see a lot of time. It starts with Agamemnon refusing to give the servant of Apollo his daughter back. After that, we hear people talk about Agamemnon throughout the first book as having a lot of stuff, or time. Then, at the council, Agamemnon makes a big deal about needing a replacement for his prize who was the servant of Apollo's daughter. Later Achillies's prize is taken by Agamemnon who needed a replacement, and Achillies asks his mom to ask Zeus to favor the trojans so Agamemnon will need Achilles in battle and give his prize back.

Kleos)  Kleos is a bit harder to see in book one due to the fact that there are no glorious battles, but in Agamemnon's argument with Achillies, there are references to their overall glory. Agamemnon makes reference to Achillies's glory in battle, and Achillies makes a comment to Agamemnon's glory in leadership.

Phoenicia

The Phoenicians lived in Lebanon after descending from Canaan. Phoenicia separated into city-states in 1000BC and fell under Assyria, Persia, and Babylon. Phoenicia contributed to other civilizations greatly through out the years too. They shared metal, timber, purple dye, and other things such as this.

Rameses the not so great

Should Rameses II have been so concerned about his reputation in history? Is historical reputation important for leaders today? Why, or why not?

Rameses II should have been concerned with his reputation, for it gave him power over others. Although I personally disagree with this form of power, it brought Rameses power for a long time and fame for much longer. If it weren't for his fame, he probably would not have stayed in rule for so long, and as for fame, up until the late 19th century A.D., he was thought as a great King, but recent information tells us that much of his fame was false.

Old Egypt

1) Are the similarities between early Egypt and Sumer so great that the two civilizations ought to be regarded as influencing each other? Why,  or Why not?

I'd say no, for it doesn't seem that Egypt and Sumer ever effected each other. I believe this was mainly because firstly Early Egypt was surrounded by desert and was isolated for the oust part along with Egypt and Sumer being separated by the Medateranian Sea. They were both very different from each other, so they would probably not have understood the other's culture. For instance, Egypt's culture completely revolved around the Nile.

3) How does the architecture of Egypt and Sumer reflect the worldviews of the two early civilizations?

For Egypt, the pyramids reflect their worldview greatly. Firstly, the enormousness of the pyramid shows that the king was  a person of great importance. Then the tomb itself. The way the king is buried along with the hieroglyphics shows three things. Firstly, life after death, secondly, the gods, and thirdly, order life, death, and ressurection.

Code of Hammurabi

Today I will be blogging on some of the paragraphs in the core of Hammurabi.

2) The first thing i see when I look at this is that "justice" is often based off of luck, but I think that they believed it had more to do with the divine than luck. 

5) In this paragraph, it shows that the judicial group were highly important, and judging was a big deal in the country. The judges weren't above the law, but instead were held highly accountable to the correct judgment of other citizens.

9) This helps with two things in the country. Thievery and false accusations. If a person were to buy a stolen item, this law protects them from being in trouble for an accidental purchase, and the thief gets highly punished for his actions.

26) This law helps and hurts the country. It discourages people from not going to war because they could lose their main way of life, and be "put on the streets", but in another way it kind of helps someone to be a mercenary. The hired person could easily become the owner of a fairly nice house.

32) This law seems strange at first until you read the last phrase. Basically, if a captured person can buy his freedom, but only with his house, he shall not give his house, but the community will pay for his freedom. This law is intriguing because it makes no sense that the community would have to pay for a captured person, but The reason why he shall not give his house is beacause that was like their identity. I was like giving your debit card or driver's license. I am not quite sure how I feel about this one.

Justice on a silver platter

Today in class I was asked what form of justice should be done to criminals. The same be done to the criminal as the criminal did to another person, or some other form of punishment that might not be near as bad. This is hard because I see the pros and cons of both sides. I think the same be done to the person would be good in most cases and would threaten criminals, but I don't think it is right for us to kill, even if the other person sees it fit. That's where the other form comes in. if someone gets killed, they're sentenced 15-20 years in jail. If the person killed several, the number gets lengthened by 10 years. Of course this doesn't include everything. A friend asked, "What if someone sells drugs? Do they just get drugs sold back?" Although he said it jokingly, this brings up a real point. If something like this happens, they should be sent to jail or given a fine dealing with the seriousness of this.

Analysis of the Epic of Gilgamesh

1) The various versions of the Mesopotamian Epic can help us understand some of the history and the cultures which produced. Fist, it tells us that since there was not only one version, it shows that is wasn't sacred. My guess is that it was something like superman and batman. That tells us that they had heroic figures like we do today, and we probably get our heroic writings from the epic style of writing.

4)It is strange the way current writings differ from ancient ones. Stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh were written not by one author, but by the nation in several different versions. This is the exact opposite of current writings which are written generally by one person, and anyone who copies another can be fined for copyright. Originality back then wasn't just coming up with something, but instead working off of another persons idea. I personally like this, for many of my ideas I get from talking with other people, theorizing, and working off of that.

Cities

Today I have a few questions that I have been asked. What would a person looking at a modern city see as the largest and most important building or buildings? What does this suggest about priorities of modern culture, as opposed to ancient cultures? What is or are the most valid criteria of whether a culture should be regarded as a civilization? What qualities ought to be present in a society for it to be considered "civilized"? So here I go on answering these questions.

In a city, I'd say a person would see it's capitol building or the mayor's work building as the most important. Why? Because the capitol is seen as the highest area in the city, or the mayor is the one who runs the city. I'd say these, or the best restaurants they have been to in that city. Can you tell I'm hungry? This suggests that the priorities lie with how laws and regulations matter to people to make sure that they are in a safe environment... or that they are hungry, versus the ancient culture where they matter more on their gods being with them when they need help. When I think civilization, the criteria that comes to mind are ordered and sustained. I have chosen these because a civilization must be able to live for many more years to come and people need to be able to work together. There are many qualities such as few killings/fights and not in the news very often for wrong reasons. This can also bee seen as people able to live well together and nothing illegal known to be going on in that civilization.

Zeus flavored ice cream?!

In my class we are planning to make an ice cream bar with custom flavors named after Greek and Babylonian gods. I need to come up with two flavors, so here are the two I've come up with. First is Zeus flavored. this flavor has vanilla (or any other flavor of ice cream) with shock rocks. This will give the cool illusion that there is "lightning" in the ice cream. I think people will love it. Next is The Horned Serpent. This will be chocolate or strawberry ice cream for the body, wiped cream for the venom, and lastly chocolate chips for the horns. I think this should make a great sunday.

Enuma Elish and the Theogony

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. been busy, but that's now why I'm here today. I'm here to compare the two ancient creation stories in the Enuma Elish and the Theogony.

Let's start with analyzing the similarities. In both the Theogony and the Enuma Elish, they start with these giant elemental gods. and they come up with the lower gods and eventually demi-gods. this can be seen on pages 6-8 in the Theogony, and pages 228-232 in the Eluma Elish. Next is that a demi-god takes over as ruler of earth. In the Theogony, Zeus overthrows his father and gains rule over the other gods, and in the Eluma Elish, Marduk over throws Tiamat. That reminds me of another similarity. the gods fight and tear each other down. this is important to keep in mind, for the gods in both stories created man.

Next are the dissimilarities. The larges is the definition of immortal. Greeks believed that immortals could not be killed, but the Babylonians believed they could, and that they did kill each other. Also, power was different. Greek gods had power through "things", but Babylonian gods used "things" and spells. they used their words just as much, and if not then more, as they used"things." Two examples are Zeus's famous lightning bold, and Marduk's spoken power along with his lightning bolt. when Marduk spoke, his words were law. It's interesting to see how these two creation stories related to each other, but were not the same.

Greek Worldview

Today I will be attempting to define the Greek worldview using Trumbo's 4 fundamental questions, so I will go through each question, and end up with a final definition... hopefully.

1. Who am I?
According to Greek mythology, the Greeks were the fifth try to make man. It started with the "Golden Age." These first age of men were care free  and almost always happy. They lasted until Promethius angered Zeus, and Zeus, son of Kronos, made Pandora. with the jar opened, and disease and pain and a ton of other horrible stuff came out, the golden age ended. Next was the "Silver Age." these were a lower class of the "Golden Age", and they often argued ,stole from one another, and didn't worship the gods. Zeus, realizing that they would never change their ways, covered up this catastrophic creation, and made the next age of men, the "Bronze Age." These men were even worse, always declaring war on one another. Zeus didn't have to fix this, for they fought until none were left alive. Next were the heroes ( demi-gods), and we finally get to the "Iron Age." These men worshipped the gods, and learned to live with one another as best as possible. Sure they were imperfect, but they didn't do horrible. Zeus left these men and they have evolved to the place in which we live today.

2. Why am I here?
as seen in the last chapter, the humans were left to do whatever. as long as they respected and worshipped the gods, so I guess you can say that the Greeks were here to please the gods.

3. What are the gods like?
If we look at them, we see immoral people with super powers, but if we want to see the Greeks' worldview, we need to think similarly to the Greeks. I'd say that although some of the things that the gods did were questionable, to the Greeks they were created by these gods, and therefore were inclined to serve them as best as they could. as long as the gods were happy with the human race, the human race could live in peace.

4. What is truth?
According to the Greeks, the truth was whatever the gods said. If the gods said they could do immoral things, but the humans couldn't, then they couldn't question it, or else they would be in big trouble. this meant that they were probably constantly trying to see what the gods wanted from them next.

Now that we have all of our facts, we can form a working worldview. So the Greeks were a fifth try to  make man created to worship the gods, and had to do whatever the gods told the to do or not do no matter if the gods did or didn't do it. Other than that, they could do whatever they wanted, and count on the gods to help them if they had no idea what to do with their lives. That's it in a nutshell. Hope to post again soon

-Daran

Aetiological Myth

I am now asked to Define and provide an example of an aetiological myth. According to my Trumbo (a book given to me by my instructor) this type of myth is one is a story that explains something that we observe in nature. I's say that something such as the muses in the first paragraph of page three of the Theogony would be a great example of this type of myth. the muses inspire writers, poets, etc. to write about the gods in Greek culture. In the Theogony, these muses inspire Hesiod to write beautiful poems about the gods, namely Zeus.

Intro to Mythology

Today we started Mythology in my class, and I have been asked to blog about three more questions. The questions I will be attempting to answer are "What are the most significant contrasts between ancient worldviews in modern Western worldviews?, How can understanding a culture's basic worldview help us better understand or interpret its history?, and how would I define mythology?" So here are my answers to these questions.

There are many contrasts between ancient and modern worldviews, so I will try to only hit the highlights. One of the largest differences is the time and technology difference. Today people think they are their own creation or that they craft their own stories, but in more ancient times people served "gods" and some devoted their entire lives just trying to please their "gods." People back then knew there was a God, but simply went with the religion that they grew up with, but today people are beginning to wonder if their even is a God, and if there is one, does He care about the people on Earth. Another difference is that people back then did not worry about things like Twitter, Facebook, or the latest way to have "friends", or any other technology for that matter. Because they didn't have to worry about their image, People could spend more time on what they loved to do. These are the two largest differences between these two worldviews to my knowledge. I know there are many other differences, but I believe these two sums all of the major differences.

This next question is a fairly simple and straightforward one to answer. The cultures basic worldview will help put things into perspective when you read about what they do throughout history.

The last one is a bit more complicated, so I'll try not to make my view on mythology too lengthy. Mythology can be taken two different ways; ancient myths, and modern myths. I'll start by describing ancient myths. Ancient myths deals more with a culture's beliefs about a certain religion. The best example of this is arguably Greek mythology. Almost everyone has heard of Greek mythology at one point in time, and therefor its is known as mythology because it is widely known and no one thinks it true. The other is modern mythology. This mythology is more of ideas that are told that are thought to be true, but aren't proven. The best example I can think of is that you have to wait 30 minutes before swimming if you have just eaten.

I have done my best to answer these 3 questions, and I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog

-Daran

The Maker Dared to Create

In class today we read Genesis 1-3 and I was presented with the three questions based on the context "what is the character of God portrayed in this document?", "what is the process through which he create, and what does that process suggest about the divine nature?", and "how is man formed, and what does the forming of man suggest about the Hebrew understanding of human nature?". Today I will attempt to answer these three Questions. I will also be answering a bonus question, so be sure to keep reading if you are interested.

The character of God at this point of time is reflected through his creation, just as a painting reflects the painter. In the first chapter, God made all of creation, and that shows that he is a very creative God. He put every star that you see in the sky just for you to enjoy at night. Talk about over doing it a little bit. This shows that God is not only creative, but has set the example for us that we should do every task to the best of our abilities as he did.

Next is the process through which he made everything. The process he used was to go from General to specific. First he made light and dark, and then he made the sun, then moon, then each and every star. He made sea and air, then he filled it with all sorts of life. He made ground, and then made plants and animals. Now that he has made everything, he now must make the most specific of all, man. With man, he did not merely speak us into existence, but hand crafted us. So he makes a body, and then fills it with each thing in which it needs.

Many people have ideas on how man was created, but none are as true and honest as this. After God created everything else he said, "Let us make man in our own image,..."(1:26b). He then went down to the earth and shaped it into the body of the first man. And when he finished, He breathed his breath of life into the nostrils of Adam. This form suggests that when Hebrews came later on that they believed that they were formed in God's likeness, and that they were set apart from the rest of creation.

The bonus question is "How would I characterize the Hebrew worldview based on Genesis 1-3.

This seems similar to the last question, but is more about all of creation. With their creator in mind, the Hebrew overview would be that they learn everything from their Creator and study what they can about the world in which God put them in.

I have done my best to answer all four of these questions, and now have hit the end of this post. I hope to make more posts in the near future.

-Daran

Summary of how to read a document

When reading a document, there are three levels of its analysis. Level one is dealing with the perspective that the document was intended for. Questions like "Who Wrote this document?, who was the intended audience?, and what is the story line?"are all questions that we need to ask in level one of our analysis. Level two deals with the purpose of the document. You should ask questions like "Why was this document written?, what type of document is this?, and what are the basic assumptions made in tis document?" Level three deals with what can be taken away from this document. The questions that need answering for this level is "can I believe this document?, what can I learn about the society that produced this document?, and what does this document mean to me?"

A Daring Feat

This blog is named as it is because I will be making posts on daring feats. I will also probably making other miscelaneous posts, so don't be surprised if they are all not about daring feats. Hope to make another post soon.