What a relief!

Our archaeological focus from Emory’s Carlos Museum in this post features this relief (a type of sculpture where the rock, marble, or clay remains flat on the back and the image is carved out in the front). The image depicts the Greek myth of Leto and her twin children, the Olympian gods Apollo and Artemis.

According to Greek legend, Leto, who was the Titan goddess of motherhood, modesty, and chastity, became pregnant with two of Zeus’s children.  Zeus’s famously jealous wife Hera cursed Leto and her pregnancy. After the twins were born, Hera dispatched a huge snake to devour Leto’s twins. The twins, however, fought back and prevailed (Artemis in particular was famed with a bow and arrows). Following in her Titan mother’s footsteps, Artemis became the Olympian goddess of childbirth and guardian of young children.

The interesting thing about this image and its corresponding myth find a similar story in the New Testament. In Revelation 12, John the Seer narrates a symbolic vision: a pregnant woman, crowned with stars. Similar to the goddess of motherhood and modesty, her description is virtuous, and she is clearly contrasted with the harlot a few chapters later (Rev 17). She too is expecting a child, and the text tells us that a great dragon stands poised to devour her son.

This parallel between the Greek myth and the apocalyptic revelation also tells us something about the dragon. Hera’s rage and murderous impulse stems from jealousy—the desire to be number one. Now, Hera certainly had a right to be jealous of her husband’s affections. But when we ask, how is the dragon jealous, we touch directly on one of Revelation’s biggest themes. Evil—and particularly Satan—is described throughout Revelation as attempting to rival God, in other words to be number one. Evil parodies good, and the devil tries to look and sound like God in order to achieve premiere status. For example, throughout Revelation, Jesus is described as a slain lamb (5:6; 6:1; 7:10; 12:11; 13:8;15:3; 21:23). But a manifestation of evil attempts this deception: “It had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon” (13:11).

It seems like there is common imagery, symbolism, and storytelling used in both narratives. What we can discern is that early Christians (and Jews) used the cultural images, myths, and symbols to convey the truth. This is a relevant topic, as many Christians debate the relationship between faith and the dominant culture. It is clear that ancient people of used the language and cultural descriptions of the time to tell their own stories or to demonstrate certain truths using ideas people would already be familiar with.

Understanding this idea might help us reflect on how we use our own cultural images and metaphors to tell the story of faith to the world. What stories, songs, art, or experiences find points of contact for us in contemplating or bearing witness to God in the world. Many Christian thinkers have observed that our Western culture has moved to a post-Christian phase, where biblical motifs and language are not widely known. Perhaps reflection on the stories within our own time and place will inspire ways for us to tell that old, old story.