Did the Nemean lion, 573BC, really exist?

[Condottiere 40K]

The sacrifice aspect has a voluntary aspect to it, or at least an inevitability, imposed by either society as a whole or a priest caste.

Herakles doesn't seem like the type to go like a sheep to the slaughter; heroes usually sacrifice themselves to protect individuals or communities, they don't sacrifice themselves for our sins.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Jesus' death was due to Yahweh's master plan (aka The Father) so in a way Jesus didn't really have a choice, he merely accepted his fate and the divine plan of The Father knowing full well that his kingdom was not of this Earth and hence he had nothing to lose but to accept and overcome suffering so that he might rise to the Heavens. In following Jesus his followers would be free of sin and divine wrath and would instead get to follow Jesus into Heaven. This runs contrary to traditional Judaic scripture in which all Humans would eventually go to Sheol, a place beneath the Earth which was a world of darkness but neither inherently evil nor inherently good.

Herakles for his part freed himself from Earthly pain and suffering and whether through his deeds or otherwise he ascended up to Olympus and became a god. If the tales of Odysseus (among others) are to be considered part of the canon then Herakles separated from his human self which went down to Hades and his divine self went up to Olympos. As Odysseus and I think also Orpheus were said to have found the 'shade' of Herakles in Hades. But this was not technically Herakles' true self rather a part of his original Earthly being which was cast down into Hades at the time of his death. Neither did Herakles get sent to Tartaros or the Elysion pedion but ascended to Mount Olympos.
The key difference here is that while Jesus remained in Hell or purgatory for 3 days Herakles' apotheosis appears to be instant. More over it involved the destruction of his physical Human self in the fire and his divine being ascending. Jesus on the other hand awoke after his death with his physical wounds and all, and then ascended. Where as Jesus embraced suffering and later on it is implied that he also embraced the suffering of all those around him. Herakles for his part rejected suffering and a mortal life by stepping into the pyre of flames and destroying the mortal self. Rather than saving others from a metaphysical concept such as sin his acts involved the destruction of threats to Greek Civilization thus bettering the existence of those around him in a more tangible and less metaphysical way. Unlike Jesus he also separated individuals into those which he did not harm and those which he caused harm, so he wasn't a pacifist or all accepting like Jesus was, he was a strong warrior who achieved a sort of political power through some less specific means but his position is not exactly clear as he was not technically a king. Jesus rejects social values for a greater concept of sin or religious virtue and Herakles struggles to abide by the social values due to his divine nature or his divine curse (from Hera) or perhaps even his lack of morals, this is not in itself clear either.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Sorry, I thought Hercules slew the Nemean lion, not Heracles.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

*Herakles,
and I am not sure what you are talking about

[Condottiere 40K]

Roman cultural appropriation, before geographical.

Or Greek cultural imperialism, during Greek expansionism.

Herakles was dead man walking, the question was how long he would have to endure that agony.

The moral of the story, don't accept any gifts from horses.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I mean the stories didn't get changed that much in their Roman incarnation. Basically just more of Hercules does some badass things instead of complex stories about Greek concepts. Also more stories that deal with Hercules traveling through Italy.

[hellheaven1987]

Jesus' death was due to Yahweh's master plan (aka The Father) so in a way Jesus didn't really have a choice, he merely accepted his fate and the divine plan of The Father knowing full well that his kingdom was not of this Earth and hence he had nothing to lose but to accept and overcome suffering so that he might rise to the Heavens.

Jesus is the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit; in other words it is Father's master plan to execute itself??

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Depends on who you ask but yeah it never made sense to me either. The Arian sect of Christianity (among others) rejects this concept of the Trinity, stating clearly that the Father and the Son are two separate entities. Islam does as well if they count that is.

[Kyriakos]

Roman cultural appropriation, before geographical.

Or Greek cultural imperialism, during Greek expansionism.

Herakles was dead man walking, the question was how long he would have to endure that agony.

The moral of the story, don't accept any gifts from horses.

[hellheaven1987]

Depends on who you ask but yeah it never made sense to me either. The Arian sect of Christianity (among others) rejects this concept of the Trinity, stating clearly that the Father and the Son are two separate entities. Islam does as well if they count that is.

It is strange Christians are not disturbing by the concept that God is scripting, directing and acting the whole drama itself...

[Condottiere 40K]

Free will: certain actions probably will lead you down to certain fates, but you know there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

[Keyser]

Free will: certain actions probably will lead you down to certain fates, but you know there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

If there is a god and that God is truly omnipotent and omniscient, then free will is impossible*.

*Of course, i know the theory that God limit his powers himself to give us freewill, but that still makes no sense, since if he truly was omnipotent and omniscient there wouldn't be any point for him to do that, he would still know the ending before it even started.
I also know some place God's power in the present, (he is omnipotent and omniscient for each moment but his omniscience doesn't extend past this etc), but then he is not truly omniscient, and so not truly omnipotent, so if that is untrue, what else about him is ? That's a whole new can of worms.

[athanaric]

Sorry, I thought Hercules slew the Nemean lion, not Heracles.

They are the same person... It's like saying Odin and Wodan. I think people get confused because English native speakers tend to use the horrible Latinized spelling (thus "Craterus", etc.) when using Greek words and names. Even though technically, Hercules is a Latinized word and not just a stupid anachronistic spelling, this illustrates the need for the English-speaking world to adopt the proper, original terms (which can be easily transliterated using the superior Latin alphabet, and are already in use in places like Germany, anyway) instead of recycling the spelling from the secondary Latin-language sources.

[Abdülmecid I]

Why do you consider the latinised spelling, as horrible? Aside from the suffix of personal names ending in "ος" (like Craterus, Poseidonius, Harmodius and etc.), whose transliteration is indeed a bit inaccurate, which you already mentioned, I can't think of any other mistake. Names like Boeotia, Hyperion or Themistocles sound fine. For example, how would you spell Heracles, using the Latin alphabet?

[Cyclops]

Why do you consider the latinised spelling, as horrible? Aside from the suffix of personal names ending in "ος" (like Craterus, Poseidonius, Harmodius and etc.), whose transliteration is indeed a bit inaccurate, which you already mentioned, I can't think of any other mistake. Names like Boeotia, Hyperion or Themistocles sound fine. For example, how would you spell Heracles, using the Latin alphabet?

I would write Herakles because I have a vain and slightly ridiculous feeling it makes me look smarterer. That said I don't want to have to write Athenai instead of Athens. That's going to far.

[athanaric]

Why do you consider the latinised spelling, as horrible? Aside from the suffix of personal names ending in "ος" (like Craterus, Poseidonius, Harmodius and etc.), whose transliteration is indeed a bit inaccurate, which you already mentioned, I can't think of any other mistake.

They're misleading. Particularly the usage of "c" instead of "k" and "e" instead of "i" just confuses things further. Perhaps the names of Greeks living under Roman dominion should be exempt.

Names like Boeotia, Hyperion or Themistocles sound fine.

Well, Hyperion isn't even Latinized.

For example, how would you spell Heracles, using the Latin alphabet?

With a k, as usual (this is a special case, as AFAIK "Heracles" is just a spelling mistake. It's either Herakles - the original Greek pronunciation/spelling - or Hercules, the Roman version of Herakles. Or Melqart...

I would write Herakles because I have a vain and slightly ridiculous feeling it makes me look smarterer. That said I don't want to have to write Athenai instead of Athens. That's going to far.

Well, Athens is also a common term in modern English, so that's a different case IMO.

[Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ]

I see no reason for switching from latin loanwords and names derived from greek to direct greek transliteration. After all many english words are second hand loanwords such as "China", which was originally derived from Sanskrit instead of Chinese, via Persian, then Latin and thus ultimately becoming english "China".

I would write Herakles because I have a vain and slightly ridiculous feeling it makes me look smarterer.

Still not good enough - Hēraklēs

Or Melqart...

Praise be unto him!

[athanaric]

I see no reason for switching from latin loanwords and names derived from greek to direct greek transliteration. After all many english words are second hand loanwords such as "China", which was originally derived from Sanskrit instead of Chinese, via Persian, then Latin and thus ultimately becoming english "China".

There's a difference between common, well-established terms like "Athens" and "China" on the one hand, and concrete names of historical or mythological figures/topoi/whatever that are not widely used outside of academic circles on the other.

[Copperknickers II]

They are the same person... It's like saying Odin and Wodan. I think people get confused because English native speakers tend to use the horrible Latinized spelling (thus "Craterus", etc.) when using Greek words and names. Even though technically, Hercules is a Latinized word and not just a stupid anachronistic spelling, this illustrates the need for the English-speaking world to adopt the proper, original terms (which can be easily transliterated using the superior Latin alphabet, and are already in use in places like Germany, anyway) instead of recycling the spelling from the secondary Latin-language sources.

The reason Germany uses Greek transliterations is because it was never a part of the Roman Empire, so it sees Greek and Latin as just two ancient languages. But in Latin Europe, of which Britain (or at least, England) was historically part, Latin is our heritage language in a way that Greek will never be. We don't feel a direct tie of identity with the Greeks in the way we do with the Romans and so we take most of our Greek culture through Rome and not directly from Greece - this was especially the case before the Renaissance when Greek was rarely learned in Catholic Europe so it was literally a foreign culture, although even today Greek is not valued as highly as Latin and is not compulsory even in most of our old money Public schools. Besides, Biblical mythology is largely stolen from the Sumerians, doesn't mean we should use Sumerian names for Noah or Jonah - Hebrew is our sacred language as Judaeo-Christians so that's the nomenclature we should use.

[Abdülmecid I]

They're misleading. Particularly the usage of "c" instead of "k" and "e" instead of "i" just confuses things further. Perhaps the names of Greeks living under Roman dominion should be exempt.

I can't really comment on "k" and "c", which in latin also sounded like a modern "k", because I really don't know whose pronunciation was closer to the Greek "κ", but, as Apollodotus pointed out, I believe that you are wrong about "e", confusing Greek pre-Hellenistic phonetics with the modern language. Roughly speaking, the ancient Greek eta was always like a long epsilon (like omega (ω), literally o the big, was the equivalent of a long omikron (o), literally o the little), which means that, without using the polytonic orthography, transliterating "ης" to "es" is the safest method. That information is essential, in order to correctly add either a circumflex or an acute accent. Generally speaking, Greek diacritics can become rather complicated. Take Ἡρακλῆς (Heracles) or Ὑπερίων (Hyperion, which actually is the latinised version), whose rough breathing (The Greek letter ypsilon (υ) always takes, by the way, a rough breathing, e.g. Hysteria, Hyacinthus, Hyperboreia and etc.) indicates that they should take a "h" in front of them, similarly to how they were written down during the archaic times. Then, the phonetics changed quite radically, after the development of the koine, which resulted into many inscriptions containing a bunch of spelling mistakes.