While gods and goddesses are sitting and chatting

Aphrodite: Goddess of beauty and love. She was born of the sea foams arose over the sea waves from the blood and flesh weep­ing from the testicles of Cronus. She has two characteristics:

• Aphrodite Urania; goddess of pure love.
• Aphrodite Pandemos; goddess of prostitution.

Aphrodite is Hephaistos’s wife and this man is a blacksmith and worker lame god. Ares is her greatest love. Aphrodite is al­ways portrayed as being nude. She did not intend to hide her beauty. Pigeon, dove and rose are her symbols.

A legend; While gods and goddesses are sitting and chatting on the Mount Ida (Kaz Mountains) and drinking their nectars on the other hand, a debate over the most beautiful goddess comes up. Is it Zeus’ wife Hera or his daughter Athena or Aphrodite? After the debate three of them take it personally. None of the gods standing there dares to speak his mind. All of a sudden they find themselves in an uneasy atmosphere. Taking the advantage of this commotion, Eris throws an apple with an inscription “To the most beautiful Goddess” on it.

Three goddesses reach for the apple. They fight like cat and dog. There is an unbearable noise now. Zeus interferes in the dis­pute involuntarily and He refrains from giving a decision due to his relation with three goddesses.

“Goddesses” says Zeus. “I love three of you equally. I assign Paris, a shepherd on the Mount Ida, as the arbitrator. Go and find him!.. Settle this matter!..”

Guided by Hermes three goddesses set forth to find Paris. Hermes relates the facts to Paris. Paris scans three goddesses from head to foot. What crossing his mind cannot be known but he is also not able to give judgment. Noticing this situation the goddesses go ahead to make promises to Paris.

Hera:

“Look, you handsome guy” says, “If you give me the apple, I will make you the strongest mortal of the entire world.

Aphrodite:

“Look, you beautiful guy” says, “If you give me the apple, I will give you the most beautiful mortal woman of the world.”

Athena:

“Look, you brave guy” says, “if you give me the apple, I will make you the strongest warrior of the world.”

Confused with such charming promises, Paris submits the apple to Aphrodite who made the promise of “the most beautiful woman”. Thus, Aphrodite becomes the goddess of beauty.

The first beauty contest was held on the Mount Katz (Ida).

Aphrodite keeps her promise and submits the Spartan King Agamemnon’ wife beautiful Helena to Paris.

This story is the mythological cause of Trojan Wars.

Poseidon: Zeus’s brother and god of seas. He is acerbic and ferocious. He bears a trident. He is also god of earthquake and other natural phenomena. He is the creator of horse.

Known as winged horse, Pegasus is the son of Poseidon.

Hestia: Zeus’s sister. One of the virgin goddesses. Goddess of family. Because she is the symbol of domestic nobility and fer­tility. A fire that never goes flat was used to light in every city. This fire used to symbolize Hestia.

A Greek man that can interfere in any immoral affair used to wish for a faithful woman who was going to wait for him at home, look after his children and cook at home. Also, they were pay attention to the condition that the girl they were going to marry had to be virgin. The goddess Hestia was held in high estimation in Greek man’s eye since she represented virginity and fertility.

We included eminent Olympian gods and their known sto­ries to our book. We are going to narrate the whole adventures of these Olympian gods in another study.

The new titled “Monotheist religions” will follow our first chapter ending with Greek religion and mythology. We have tried to shed a light on the beliefs, resource and diversity of Anatolian men beginning with Qatalhdyiik Mother Goddess belief and we have taken pain over not break the ties with the Hittite, Urartian, Persian, Roman and Greek societies. Revealing the beliefs of an­tiquity men characterized with mythology and establish relations between these beliefs and monotheist religions and also identify their universal dimension with Anatolian saints ( Mevlana, Hajji Bektash Wali etc.)

This story is the mythological cause of Trojan Wars

Aphrodite: Goddess of beauty and love. She was born of the sea foams arose over the sea waves from the blood and flesh weep­ing from the testicles of Cronus. She has two characteristics:

• Aphrodite Urania; goddess of pure love.
• Aphrodite Pandemos; goddess of prostitution.

Aphrodite is Hephaistos’s wife and this man is a blacksmith and worker lame god. Ares is her greatest love. Aphrodite is al­ways portrayed as being nude. She did not intend to hide her beauty. Pigeon, dove and rose are her symbols.

A legend; While gods and goddesses are sitting and chatting on the Mount Ida (Kaz Mountains) and drinking their nectars on the other hand, a debate over the most beautiful goddess comes up. Is it Zeus’ wife Hera or his daughter Athena or Aphrodite? After the debate three of them take it personally. None of the gods standing there dares to speak his mind. All of a sudden they find themselves in an uneasy atmosphere. Taking the advantage of this commotion, Eris throws an apple with an inscription “To the most beautiful Goddess” on it.

Three goddesses reach for the apple. They fight like cat and dog. There is an unbearable noise now. Zeus interferes in the dis­pute involuntarily and He refrains from giving a decision due to his relation with three goddesses.

“Goddesses” says Zeus. “I love three of you equally. I assign Paris, a shepherd on the Mount Ida, as the arbitrator. Go and find him!.. Settle this matter!..”

Guided by Hermes three goddesses set forth to find Paris. Hermes relates the facts to Paris. Paris scans three goddesses from head to foot. What crossing his mind cannot be known but he is also not able to give judgment. Noticing this situation the goddesses go ahead to make promises to Paris.

Hera:

“Look, you handsome guy” says, “If you give me the apple, I will make you the strongest mortal of the entire world.

Aphrodite:

“Look, you beautiful guy” says, “If you give me the apple, I will give you the most beautiful mortal woman of the world.”

Athena:

“Look, you brave guy” says, “if you give me the apple, I will make you the strongest warrior of the world.”

Confused with such charming promises, Paris submits the apple to Aphrodite who made the promise of “the most beautiful woman”. Thus, Aphrodite becomes the goddess of beauty.

The first beauty contest was held on the Mount Katz (Ida).

Aphrodite keeps her promise and submits the Spartan King Agamemnon’ wife beautiful Helena to Paris.

The kings get to find a name for the city

Zeus has always been cheating on Hera. Accordingly, cheat­ing has to be taken for granted for mankind as well. Moreover, is not Zeus the one who created them?

Hera must be loyal. She is described as a housewife that wait­ing for her husband without questioning. She can be disappointed and hurt but never unfaithful. The men living at that age draw a Hera type for their women. In case of a cheating, the punishment would be more severe than Zeus performed of Hera. Because Hera is immortal, the woman is mortal, however.

As it is seen, by the help of mythological stories we can learn about the social, economic, moral condition of the people living in the age of legends and naturally their understanding of family.

1. Hera: The wife and the sister of Zeus. She is the goddess of marriage and midwifery. She has a nervous and direful image. She is the queen of the heavens. The biggest temple belonging to Hera is on the Island Sisam. Peacock and cow are known to be her symbols. She is the divine symbol of faithful and loyal wife. Zeus womanizes but she mourns. She is the most beautiful god­dess after Aphrodite. Hera is mostly symbolized with pomegran­ate which is the symbol of reproduction. Her face has a lily white complexion as a representation of beauty. The white heaven is embodies the divine face of Hera.
2. Athena: God of war and intelligence. She is Zeus’s daugh­ter. Although Metis is her mother, Zeus brings her to the world in a peculiar way. The moment Zeus is caught by Hera while he was with beloved Metis, he becomes entangled and swallows her right there. Zeus will bring the baby of pregnant Metis out of his own head. Intelligent and clever Zeus bears Metis inside his head for a long time. When the time to get rid of her, Zeus makes his master son Hephaistos incise his head and Athena come to the world.

Athena is one of the three representative goddesses of ever virginity. She is more mighty even that the god of war, Ares. She is fair and homespun. Whichever side Athena supports in a war, that side always wins the war. Athena is never displayed nude.

Ram, goat, dove, cypress and owl are her symbols.

In one legend; In Greece, the kings want to build a new city over marvelous lowland. The kings get to find a name for the city they will build. One of the gods or goddesses will name this city. But who? The people of that age decide to set up a race among the gods so as not to offend them. The name of any god who will be able to create the most beautiful and beneficial thing for this city will be given to this city.

The gods and goddesses attending the competition show their skills. Poseidon-god of seas- launches his spear on a rock and a horse comes out of there. Athena throws a gilded spear at the ground and it turns into an olive tree with silver leaves. At the end of the competition Zeus decides that the olive tree created by Athena will be more beneficial for the city and the name of the city becomes Athens after taking the name of Athena.

3. Hermes: God of wind. His father is Zeus and his mother is Maia who is Atlas’s daughter and one of the nymphs. The young­est god, Hermes, is elegant and attractive. There is a magician wand in his hands. Hermes is also the messenger of the gods. He is god of thieves, merchants and market places and the god who takes the dead ones to underground (Hades). His main mission is to convey the orders of the gods.

hands. The Greeks in Hellene society, who has usually followed the gods as example, do not approve the relations set established with married women. Accordingly, the fact that Ares has seduced a married goddess, Aphrodite, is the main reason of Ares being disliked. And this shows us that the Hellenic people in archaic period gave great importance to sanctity of family.

This legend reminds us the Prophet Abraham

A strange legend; Hermes travels around alone on a nice spring day. He encounters noisy crowd on his way. He comes closer to the crowd and witnesses that a god is about to sacri­fice his own daughter to the gods. Disguised as a mortal Hermes learns about what’s going on there and flies to the sky and then af­ter a while returns back with a rum in his hands. He tells the king that he brought this rum as a sacrifice instead of his daughter for I lie honor of gods to bring an end to the drought lasting for a long time. Seeing Hermes and the rum brought the king feels so happy and kills the rum as a sacrifice instead of his own daughter.

This legend reminds us the Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim) sacrificing his son Ismail (Ishmael). Because of this incident, the name of Hermes is “Hermes carrying rum”.

These similarities between the legend we came across in Greek mythology and the events firstly seen in Sumerian Gilgamesh originally, developed later on and illustrated in Christianity and Muslim are a indicator of a continuity.

1. Ares: God of war. Son of Zeus and Hera. He envies the love by his father Zeus for the goddess of war, Athena. He is closer to his mother. Just like his mother, he is mostly irritable. He en­joys breaking out trouble and violence, antagonizing. Not having a great domain Ares was not welcomed in Anatolia.

He is always in conflict with Heracles (Hercules) the local god of Anatolia. He is humiliated in every case by Heracles. He has liaison with Aphrodite. From this liaison Phobos (Defeat) and Deimos (Fear) come into the world. He falls from grace sub­stantially owing to his liaison. Anyway, he is not loved so much. Known as fair, noble, witty Athena is the first one who comes to mind when someone utters the word “war”, so there is no need to another god of war in a sense. Also, the love affair between him and Aphrodite make him fall into contempt completely. Thus, Ares is generally portrayed as being nude. War helmet has been taken from his head and attached to his

Hera is mostly symbolized

Zeus has always been cheating on Hera. Accordingly, cheat­ing has to be taken for granted for mankind as well. Moreover, is not Zeus the one who created them?

Hera must be loyal. She is described as a housewife that wait­ing for her husband without questioning. She can be disappointed and hurt but never unfaithful. The men living at that age draw a Hera type for their women. In case of a cheating, the punishment would be more severe than Zeus performed of Hera. Because Hera is immortal, the woman is mortal, however.

As it is seen, by the help of mythological stories we can learn about the social, economic, moral condition of the people living in the age of legends and naturally their understanding of family.

1. Hera: The wife and the sister of Zeus. She is the goddess of marriage and midwifery. She has a nervous and direful image. She is the queen of the heavens. The biggest temple belonging to Hera is on the Island Sisam. Peacock and cow are known to be her symbols. She is the divine symbol of faithful and loyal wife. Zeus womanizes but she mourns. She is the most beautiful god­dess after Aphrodite. Hera is mostly symbolized with pomegran­ate which is the symbol of reproduction. Her face has a lily white complexion as a representation of beauty. The white heaven is embodies the divine face of Hera.

Athena: God of war and intelligence. She is Zeus’s daugh­ter. Although Metis is her mother, Zeus brings her to the world in a peculiar way. The moment Zeus is caught by Hera while he was with beloved Metis, he becomes entangled and swallows her right there. Zeus will bring the baby of pregnant Metis out of his own head. Intelligent and clever Zeus bears Metis inside his head for a long time. When the time