Hesiod was one of the oldest known Greek poets, and perhaps the
oldest. He lived at Ascra in Boeotia (situated in central Greece) in the
late 8th century BC (West 1999). The earlier of his two surviving poems,
the Theogony, provides a systematic genealogy of the gods from the
beginning of the world together with an account of their violent struggles
before the present order was established. Even from a contemporary
perspective, the Theogony provides compelling evidence that Zeus, in fact,
existed during this ancient period in human history, and continues to exist
to this day. This paper will provide an analysis of Hesiod's the Theogony
to demonstrate these points, followed by a summary of the research in the
Religious views are a highly subjective and personal affair, and they
can manifest themselves in a wide variety of ways and intensities. In this
regard, the Olympian gods were perhaps as just as "real" and "alive" to the
ancient Greeks as the God of Abraham is to billions of Christians,
Moslems, and Jews, the Enlightened One is to tens of millions of Buddhists,
and the numerous Hindu gods are to the billions of Hindus today.
Certainly, the Holy Bible exemplifies the manner in which the
historical records have been modified over the millennia to reflect the
changing attitudes about religious views, and what is "correct" at one
point in history may not be acceptable during another. Therefore, the
ancient Greeks may well have been describing one and the same type of
religious beliefs or shared consciousness about a past event or events that
assumed the form of the Olympian pantheon. For instance, there are a
number of striking similarities between how the gods are viewed by the
ancient Greeks and contemporary Westerners that support this view. For
instance, just as followers today believe that the God of Abraham has been,
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