"I was shamed for a day. You will be shamed for eternity."

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/2037607/i-was-shamed-for-a-day-you-will-be-shamed-for-eternity

Sheol

This is in the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh). Sheol is the underworld, or the place of the dead. This is a place of stillness & darkness & dust, which is death.

Within the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), there are a few, brief (& nondescript) mentions of Sheol. Sheol wasn’t a punishment or reward. It was the great equalizer. Whether King or beggar, wicked or righteous, every single person went to Sheol. Irregardless of their moral decision in their mortal life.

Even though such practices are prohibited, the residents of Sheol can, under certain circumstances, be summoned/called by the living to the mortal realm. Like when the infamous Witch of Endor makes Samuel’s spirit show up for King Saul.

It’s often pictured as being “down.” Either deep under the earth or the floor of the ocean.

The residents of Sheol were called Raphaim (shades or ghosts). They weren’t exactly “alive” per se. But they weren’t totally gone either. They exist in a state of extreme lethargy, cut off from the living & importantly, often pictured as being cut off from active communion with God.

As Jewish thought evolved, particularly during the Second Temple period (circa 500 BCE to 70 BCE), the idea of Sheol began to change. Sheol began to be viewed as having “compartments.” Like a pleasant area for the righteous (often called “Abraham’s Bosom”) & a separate place for the suffering of the wicked.

When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek (the Septuagint), Sheol was almost always translated as Hades. By the time the New Testament was written, the focus shifted further toward Gehenna (a place of fiery judgment) & Tartarus. So in the New Testament, Hades is both the underworld of the dead & the personification of the evil it represents.

Sheol is mentioned 66x throughout the Hebrew Bible. The 1st mentions of Sheol within the text associate it with the state of death & eternal finality. Jacob says that he’ll “go down to Sheol,” because he was still mourning the apparent death of his favorite son, Joseph (of Technicolor Dreamcoat fame).

Later in Genesis, the same scene plays out for a 2nd time when Jacob’s sorrow is repeated when another 1 of his sons, Benjamin, couldn’t return to him with his other brothers.

Sheol shows up again during Korah’s story in the Book of Numbers. After Korah attempted to provoke the Israelites to rebel against Moses, Moses vows that Yahweh will prove his legitimacy by splitting open the earth to hurl Korah & his conspirators into Sheol. Sure enough, after Moses stops talking, Yahweh splits the earth open. This causes Korah, his family, & all of his earthly possessions to “enter Sheol alive.”

In Deuteronomy, Moses sings that the anger of Yahweh is a flame which burns in the “depths” of Sheol, consuming the entire earth from the bottom up.

Later mentions of Sheol in the Tanakh picture it as a representation of death. Suggesting that entry into Sheol is an unavoidable consequence of dying.

I Samuel describes Yahweh as the 1 who brings souls down to Sheol. II Samuel further cements Sheol as humanity’s ultimate postmortem destination. I Kings uses “going down to Sheol” as a metaphor for death. Describing those who go do it both “in peace” & “in blood.”

Isaiah, the prophet, explains Sheol at great length during some of his “sermons.” He personified it as possessing an ever-increasing hunger for living people, with a great propensity for the souls of sinners, & where pleas to Yahweh cannot escape.

Ezekiel, during his prophecy of Egypt’s downfall, described Egypt metaphorically descending into Sheol as a dead person would, where all the spirits of the dead, as well as other fallen empires, such as Assyria, jeer & mock its fall from might.

The remaining mentions of Sheol are in the poetic literature of the Hebrew Bible. Job mentions Sheol in several of his laments, calling it his “home” as he lies in anguish & yearning for death to take him there to put an end to his suffering. Sheol is also mentioned in several Psalms as the grave of humanity.

Other biblical names for Sheol were/are: Abaddon (“ruin,” Psalms 88:11; Job 28:22; & Proverbs 15:11) & Sahat (“corruption,” Isaiah 38:17 & Ezekiel 28:8).

Owing to the evolution of its interpretation, some aspects of Sheol seem to contradict each other:

• Those who are in Sheol don’t remember anything. Not even Yahweh. But elsewhere, in Sheol, its residents have an otherwise impossible perception of earthly events. Even those that happen AFTER their demise.
• Pleas to Yahweh cannot escape Sheol. Yet, Yahweh stays its unmistakable master.
• Those who go to Sheol can’t escape. Yet Yahweh raises souls from it.

Despite the abstract nature of Sheol, there’s some physicality to it. Because it was clearly understood to be underground, which is further supported by the term bor (“pit”, Isaiah 14:15 & 24:22 & Ezekiel 26:20).

It’s a “land,” has “gates,” has sections (think Dante’s Inferno), & there are multiple mentions of its “deepest depths” & “farthest corners.”

The concept of both the righteous & unrighteous eventually going to Sheol seems to be an unspoken assumption in the Hebrew Bible. With the codification of Rabbinical Judaism & the Talmud, Jewish theology concerning the afterlife largely rejected the idea of a single place for EVERYONE after death.

It adopted what we recognize today. It maintains a place of reward for the righteous & punishment for the wicked called Gehinnom. As a result, Sheol, Abaddon, Bor, Shakhat, & other related terms were reduced to synonyms for a realm of punishment.

In Mandaeism, the World of Darkness (the underworld) is sometimes called Sheol in the Ginza Rabba & other Mandaean scriptures.

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Dante's Sick Inferno

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1793448/dante-s-sick-inferno

It's too late, I have portrayed you as the damned and me as my favorite Classical figure's bestie

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1487236/it-s-too-late-i-have-portrayed-you-as-the-damned-and-me-as-my-favorite-classical-figure

Moirai

In ancient Greek religion & mythology, the Moirai (a.k.a. in English as the Fates) were the personification of destiny.

There were 3 sisters named: Clotho, who was the spinner; Lachesis, who was the allotter; & Atropos, who was the inevitable, a symbol for death. Their Roman equals are the Parcae.

The Moirai’s role was to make sure that every being, mortal & divine, lived out their destinies. For mortals, this destiny went their entire lives & is pictured as a thread spun from a spindle. A spindle is the thing that Sleeping Beauty touched to become Sleeping Beauty.

Usually, they were considered to be above even the gods, in their role as enforcers of Fate. Zeus was even scared of them. Even though, in some stories, Zeus is able to command them. But these are rare.

The word Moirai (also spelt Moirae or Moerae) comes from Ancient Greek. This means “lots, destinies, apportioners.” It also means a portion, or lot of the whole.

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Fates are mentioned in both Inferno & Purgatorio by their Greek names. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Weird Sisters (or 3 Witches) are prophetesses, who are deeply rooted in both the real & supernatural worlds.

The Moirai are:

• Clotho, the spinner. She spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Roman equal was Nona (“the 9th”), who was originally called upon in the 9th month of pregnancy.
• Lachesis, the allotter or drawer of lots. She measured the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod. Her Roman equal was Decima (“the 10th”).
• Atropos, “inexorable,” or inevitable,” literally “unturning.” She was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of each person’s death. When their time has come, she would cut their life-thread with her shears. Think about the end of Disney’s Hercules, when our main man, Herc, went to save Meg from Hades’ domain. Herc’s life-thread turned gold when he saved. Her Roman equal was Morta (“the dead one”).

In the Republic of Plato, the 3 Moirai sing together with the music of the Seirenes. Lachesis sings the things that were, Clotho the things that are, & Atropos the things that are to be. Pindar, in his Hymn to the Fates, holds them in high honor. He calls them to send their sisters, the Hours (Eunomia, “lawfulness”; Dike, “right”; & Eirene, “peace”), to stop the internal civil strife.

In the Theogony, Hesiod describes the Moirai as daughters of the primeval goddess Nyx (“night”), & the sisters of the Keres (“the black fates”), Thanatos (“death”), & Nemesis (“retribution”). Later in the poem, Hesiod instead calls them daughters of Zeus & the Titaness Themis (“the Institutor”), who was the embodiment of divine order & law. This places them as sisters of the Hours.

In the cosmogony of Alcman (7th century BC), first came Thetis (“disposer, creation”) & then simultaneously Poros (“path”) & Tekmor (“end post, ordinance”). Poros is related to the end of all things.

Later, in the Orphic cosmogony, first came Thesis, whose ineffable nature is unexpected. Ananke (“necessity”) is the primeval goddess of inevitability who is entwined with the time-god Chronos, at the very beginning of time. They represented the cosmic forces of Fate & Time. They were sometimes called to control the fates of the gods. The 3 Moirai are daughters of Ananke.

In the Theogony of Hesiod, the 3 Moirai are personified as the daughters of Nyx & are acting the gods. Later they were daughters of Zeus & Themis, who was the embodiment of divine order & law. In Pluto’s Republic, the 3 Fates are daughters of Ananke (necessity).

The Moirai were supposed to appear 3 nights after a kid’s birth to determine the course of its life. At Sparta, the Temple to the Moirai stood near the communal hearth of the polis. Polis means “city” in Ancient Greek.

As the goddesses of birth who even prophesied the fate of the newly born, Elieithyia, the ancient Minoan goddess of childbirth & divine midwifery, was their companion.

The Erinyes, a group of chthonic goddesses of vengeance, served as tools of the Moirai. Chthonic means concerning, belonging to, or inhabiting the underworld. They inflicted punishment for evil deeds, particularly upon those who sought to avoid their rightful destiny. The Morai were confused with the Erinyes, as well as the death-goddesses, the Keres.

In earlier times, they were pictured as only a few, or perhaps only 1, individual goddess Homer’s Illiad speaks generally of the Moira, who spins the thread of life for men at their birth. She’s Moria Krataia, “powerful Moira,” or there are several Moirai.

In the Odyssey, there’s a reference to the Klothes, or spinners. At Delphi, only the Fates of Birth & Death were revered. In Athens, Aphrodite was called Aphrodite Urania, the “eldest of the Fates.”

In the older myths, they’re daughters of primeval beings like Nyx (“night”) in Theogony, or Ananke in Orphic cosmogony.

The Moirai could be placated as goddesses. Brides in Athens offered them locks of hair, & women swore by them. They may have originated as a birth goddesses & only later their reputation as the agents of destiny. The Moirai were also credited to be the inventors of 7 Greek letters – A, B, H, I, T, & Y.

The Fates had at least 3 known temples: Ancient Corinth, Sparta, & Thebes. The temple in Sparta was situated next to the grave/tomb of Orestes.

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#7thCenturyBC #Alcman #Allotter #Ananke #AncientGreek #Aphrodite #AphroditeUrania #Athens #Atropos #Chronos #Chtonic #Clotho #Corinth #Dante #DanteSInferno #Death #Decima #Delphi #Destiny #Dike #Disney #DivineComedy #Eirene #Elieithyia #Eunomia #Fate #Fates #Grave #Greek #GreekMythology #Hesiod #Homer #HymnOfTheFates #Illiad #Institutor #Klothes #Lachesis #Macbeth #Midwifery #Moerae #MoiraKrataia #Moirai #Morta #Nemesis #Night #Nona #Nyx #Odyssey #Orestes #Orphic #Parcae #Pindar #Plato #Polis #Poros #Pregnancy #Prophetesses #Purgatorio #Republic #Roman #Seirenes #Shakespeare #Shears #SleepingBeauty #Sparta #Spindle #Spinner #Spinners #Tekmor #Thanatos #TheErinyes #TheHours #TheKeres #TheMoira #TheMoirae #Thebes #Themis #Theogony #Thesis #ThreeWitches #Time #Titaness #tomb #WeirdSisters #Zeus

to bring back Culture to this channel, we’re gonna be delving into Suda 51’s inferno

https://youtu.be/lFcyx7mHQp8?si=h0QHJOkXVbOEGdtD

#suda51 #inferno #dantesinferno #retrogame #grindhouse #youtubegaming

Social media isn’t "democratized" just because people sit in Echo Chambers, surrounded by those who agree and cheer them on. True progress comes from challenging ideas, questioning assumptions, and pushing each other to think, learn, and grow—not from endless back-patting.

#SocialMedia #EchoChamber #DigitalDystopia #GroupThink #OnlineDebate #CriticalThinking #BlackHoleOfOpinions #ChallengeYourself #DantesInferno #ThinkOutsideTheBox #BreakTheLoop #TheoreticalPhysics #Physics #Academia