This week, we’re back to the Greeks.  I always get excited when history, myth, and the Bible come together.  Today, we’ll see how they do just that during the time of the judges.

Bible and History

According to legend, the descendants of Heracles pushed out the Achaeans – whom we know as the Mycenaeans (a name which would have offended all of them, except those from Mycenae…but they will be referred to as “Mycenaeans” here since that’s what modern historians call them).  Archaeology agrees that someone pushed them out, although there’s a variety of people groups it could have been.

Naturally, when you’re invaded, you try to flee if you can.  But where did the Mycenaeans go?

From pottery to loom weights, there is a great deal of “material remains” pointing to the Mycenaeans settling on the coast of Canaan.[1]  Although there may have been other cultures too, the predominant one was Mycenaean.

But they weren’t called that in Canaan, of course. They weren’t even called Achaeans in Canaan.

Rather, these transplanted Greeks became known as the Philistines.

That’s right, the same Philistines who plagued Israel during the time of the Judges were the Mycenaean Greeks.  These Greeks brought their culture, their traditions, and their beliefs to this new land.  They adapted it to the culture around them (as we’ll see), but people don’t change overnight.  Their culture would have had remnants of the Mycenaeans…including their gods.

Bible and Myth

One of the few facts recorded in the Bible about the Philistines is they worshiped a god named Dagon (Judges 16:23-24, 1 Samuel 5:2-7).  There is some debate on whether this is a fish god or a grain god.  In Hebrew, the name literally means “little fish,”[2] and the idea of a half-man, half-fish deity was supported by Mesopotamian iconography.  However, scholars have found that his name could have originally come “from the word for grain or possibly from a word for clouds.”[3]  Thus, there is some debate as to whether he was a sea, grain, or weather god.[4]

I believe this is mainly because people have looked to the east to explain the Philistines’ religion.  However, if these people were the displaced Mycenaeans, then we should be looking west, not east.

If Dagon is a grain or weather god, it certainly sounds like the ancient Greeks we know, who worshipped Zeus (a weather god, who helped grow grain).  However, Linear B tablets (left behind by the fleeing Mycenaeans) put Zeus far below other gods and goddesses, showing that he was actually of less importance.  In fact, their chief god was none other than Zeus’ older brother, Poseidon.[5]

Yes, indeed.  A sea god was the Mycenaeans’ chief deity (which makes sense, since the Mycenaeans were a sea power).  And naturally, after a harrowing journey across the sea, the Mycenaeans would build temples to this terrible and powerful deity.

Of Gods and Men

Interestingly, there are some links between the titles of Canaanite gods and Poseidon, both referencing ties to the earth.[6]  Cultures often recognized the power of foreign gods by equating them with their own gods, and so it’s very possible the Mycenaeans associated Dagon with Poseidon.  Gods also were thought to rule certain territories, making it even more likely that the Mycenaeans simply equated the eastern Dagon with their western Poseidon.

That’s what made the God of the Bible so different – He had power over every territory, not just the land his people were able to rule.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter whether Dagon was a sea god, a weather god, a grain god, or a cupcake god.  What matters is that there was a people group who moved near Israel who worshipped him.  It was a god who could contend for the Israelites’ worship.

And so, God demonstrated His own power and superiority to the Mycenaeans/Philistines in a very personal way…

Bible, History, and Myth

There’s no way to know who the Mycenaean Greeks’ greatest hero was, but certainly the most famous one in our times is Heracles.  If the Philistines were the Mycenaeans (which seems highly likely), then they would have remembered the renegade Heracles, even if they didn’t respect him. Since they were (according to legend) pushed out of their homes by Heracles’ descendants, they would also certainly have had him in the back of their minds when settling in Canaan…

…Where they come face to face with a man worthy of the feats of Heracles himself.

There’s a reason God chose a man like Samson to judge the Philistines.  We’ll look more at Samson and Heracles on Thursday, but I want to leave you with this thought:

God wants all to be drawn to Him and know of His salvation.  He knows all cultures and beliefs, and He uses that knowledge to relate to different people groups.  Samson, as a quasi-Heracles figure, showed the Mycenaeans the power of Yahweh like no one else could.

And maybe – just maybe – it caused some of them to believe in Him.

 

Sources

[1] Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994), 255.

[2] Chad Brand, Charles Draper, and Archie England, eds., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 380.

[3] Ibid.

[4] For more information on this debate, you can check out these links: http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/09/04/Dagon-The-Philistine-Fish-God.aspx#Articlehttps://www.gotquestions.org/who-Dagon.html, http://jbqnew.jewishbible.org/jbq-past-issues/2016/443-july-september-2016/dagon-fish-god/

[5] Leonard R. Palmer, Mycenaeans and Minoans: Aegean Prehistory in the Light of the Linear B Tablets (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), 121-127.

[6] Ibid. 127-128.


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