Greco-Roman Pagan And Judeo-Christian Societies: A Comparative Analysis

Nature of Evil in Greco-Roman Pagan and Judeo-Christian Societies Greco-Roman pagan societies feature the belief in many gods and deities, with their immense power create phenomena such as thunderstorms and volcanoes. In these societies, when something positive occurs, you are to give praise and make a sacrifice to the gods. But when something negative occurs like a disaster, these societies believe that you have angered the gods and will suffer their wrath. But when looking at these two occurrences, neither one these events are seen as the right thing or the malicious thing. There is no concept of that idea in these societies. While looking at Judeo-Christian societies they do have the concept of good and evil. When you do something honorable
Kahn’s quote does not accurately describe the Greco-Roman society. Which would be that persons of Greco-Roman society have the understanding between good and evil. An example would be in Cicero’s The Republic. Philus gives the hypothetical situation of a shipwreck where a strong man sees a weaker man on a piece of driftwood. He states the man would act justly if he does not push him off, but would act unjustly if he pushes him off to save himself. In Philus’ opinion, the strong swimmer acts out of necessity to save his own life, and this is not an inherently evil act. The man has the ability and the will to survive the shipwreck due to the circumstances that he’s been forced into. But as a society, Greco-Romans act in favor of the gods before their own wellbeing. They do not have the will to act for themselves in everyday society because the needs of the gods come before their own. This instance of the shipwreck was an exception because this was a life or death scenario and he had to act in a way to save his
Kahn’s quote does hold true about Judeo-Christian society and Greco-Roman societies. In the nature of Judeo-Christian society, nothing is already predetermined everything is up to the choices that you make and the outcomes of those choices you make. In the instance of Adam and Eve, once they ate the fruit, they became aware of the society around them and it made them realize what they had done. Cain and Abel, Cain realized what he did after God had found out and made him suffer the eternal punishment. While in comparison, it is important to realize that there is no good and evil in Greco-Roman societies. In the Iliad, Thersites is verbally and physically assaulted by Odysseus, for speaking against the king, Agamemnon. In Judeo-Christian society this would have been viewed as morally wrong for public shaming for someone who speaks the truth. In the case of Prometheus and Zeus, Prometheus was doing his job as creator of the humans to give them fire back and make sure they are able to survive. Zeus focused more on that Prometheus defied him rather than and punished all those involved because the gods did not focus on intention rather they believed in a rigid set of