Heracles carece de un programa estructurado que incluya muchas de sus aventuras. Este patrón podría originarse en el hecho de que hasta 21 de sus enemigos son descendientes del agua de mar en todas sus manifestaciones mitológicas: Poseidón, Ponto, Forcis, Ceto. Esta revisión se puede comparar con el papel cosmológico de Ninurta y Marduk en la mitología mesopotámica que lucha contra Tiamat y algunos de sus actos y escenarios. Se puede comprobar que Heracles realiza gran parte de sus trabajos: controla (...) montañas y manantiales de agua dulce, organiza cursos de ríos abriendo gargantas o construyendo canales, limpia las desembocaduras y la costa. Heracles sería un buen hijo del dios de la lluvia. (shrink)

This chapter reviews the selected religious myths of violent death under three rubrics: when death is primordially wrong; when violent death is cosmically right; and when violent death, particularly in the form of suicide, is enshrined as martyrdom. A brief speculation on religious imagination and its peculiar obsessions is given. There are few themes in religious studies that justify a sweeping overview, but violent death is recurrent enough to be one of them. The biblical Chaoskampf theme needs death, rescue, and (...) restoration. Two motifs that illustrate the violent deaths are the dema and the Chaoskampf. The first focuses on the victim, the other on the victor. The spectacle of violent death has concentrated individuals and mobs across traditions. Although the examples presented consider the mythology of violent death, the ritualistic display of violent death could have been treated in equal breadth. (shrink)

Understanding evil spiritual forces is essential for Christian theology. Evil has typically been studied either from a philosophical perspective or through the lens of ‘spiritual warfare’. The first seldom considers demonology; the second is flawed by poor methodology. Furthermore, warfare language is problematic, being very dualistic, associated with violence and poorly applicable to ministry. This study addresses these issues by developing a new model for conceptualizing and counteracting evil using ‘non-warfare’ biblical metaphors, and relying on contemporary metaphor theory, which claims (...) that metaphors are cognitive and can depict reality. In developing this model, I examine four biblical themes with respect to alternate metaphors for evil: Creation, Cult, Christ and Church. Insights from anthropology, theology and science contribute to the construction of the model, and the concepts of profane space, sacred space and sacred actions guide the investigation. The role of the Holy Spirit in maintaining the boundaries of divine reality is emphasized, and the ontology of evil minimized. This model incorporates concentric circles, evil being considered peripheral to godly reality. I suggest metaphors of cleansing, ordering, separating and limiting evil and discuss potential applications of this model. (shrink)