By that I mean we have Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto (sometimes, but more rarely, called Shintoism), etc. Is there a more “typical sounding” term for these ancient mythologies (Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Arabian, Chinese etc) that follows similar conventions? (To clarify, I mean is there a name for Greek Mythology like “Olympianism” or even something covered by the patron god(dess) like Artemisianity or Athenianism).
All of them kinda fall under the category of Paganism; you could be more specific by saying “Greek Paganism.” But remember, there wasn’t a strict division, since many of these ancient societies borrowed each others’ gods and goddesses pretty willy-nilly.
Well, yes, I thought of that, but threw it out for being just a bit more catch-all than I’m looking for. Let’s say, hypothetically, I wanted to worship the Olympian Pantheon but when asked my religion I didn’t want to say “I follow Greek Mythology” (because it kinda says “fake” there in the title) but I also want to make it quite clear it’s the Olympian Pantheon and not, say, the Norse one, because I believe in Zeus. Odin? That’s just plain kooky (or, alternatively ,"Odin is a sniveling powerless worm compared to the grace and might of Ares!)
I’ve always heard it as “X Mythology”. Sorry.
I do have to say this looks like I disregarded your comment about there not being a strict division, friedo. I do realize that and appreciate the comment, but there still is a pretty clear sorting for “who belongs where,” or at least enough so I can say “Norse Pantheon” and everyone will know I’m talking specifically about Thor, Odin, Baldur, Tyr etc and not Ra, Set, Horus etc even if the various religions did play give and take now and then (which I acknowledge).
Polytheism is really the only way to describe Greek and Roman religion, because they weren’t exclusivist, like Christianity or Judaism. When they came across people worshiping a strange god, they simply included him in the pantheon, or decided that the god was Jupiter, or Mars, or Apollo, etc, under another name.
I’m sure the Romans had a name for their own (or others’) beliefs, didn’t they?
If you want to go the slightly in-depth route, you could use the mystery religions.
The big one was The Eleusinian Mysteries. If I was an inductee, I guess I could call my self an Eleusinian. Same with the Dionysian and Orphic mysteries. I’m a Dionysist or Orphist respectively. I’m not sure if the practitioners referred to themselves as such, but it works in English.
I disagree. Polytheism is just one attribute of these religions, there’s tons of other ways to describe Greek/Roman religion, and also other religions that can be described as polytheistic (Hinduism comes to mind). Polytheism is just used to refer to a religious system with more than one deity, as opposed to monotheistic (one-deity) systems, that’s all.
But you also see sometimes the terms Christian or Judaic Mythology, particularly in terms of what were most likely not historical events, such as Moses birth story, which was likely appropriated from the Egyptiansparting of the Red Sea, the virgin birth or resurrection, an angel talking to some Muslim guy, all of the Mormon stuff, Boeing 707s with Scientologists. Of course it gets a little more delicate since there are a lot more people still invested in these myths than in the myths and tales of the ancient Greeks.
I don’t really think there were many Ancient Greek who worshipped the entire pantheon, especially since the gods were often depicted in conflict with each other. As far as I can tell most people seem to have visited the temples of the gods they felt most connected to and largely ignored the rest, much like modern Hindu will only leave offerings to their own patron god. So it’s more likely they would have considered themselves worshippers of Athena or Ares or whatnot than that they would invoke the entire mythology.
Nope.
The issue is that there wasn’t A Religion, in the sense that we think of now. There were collections of non-mutually exclusive rituals, beliefs and stories that pretty much everyone took some part in (except for those bizarre Jews).
Only when Christianity came along, and created a division between their beliefs and traditional Greco-Roman religious beliefs, did they need to figure out a word. Christians called them ‘pagans’, which is a pretty unflattering word which basically means ‘hicks’. People like Julian (the so-called ‘Apostate’) ended up using the word ‘Hellene’ (ie., ‘Greek’) to designate people who followed traditional (and not so traditional, in the case of the neo-Platonists, as Julian was) Greco-Roman belief systems.
Polytheism doesn’t even really work, because there were some monotheist-ish systems (like the neo-Platonists, as far as I’m aware), and some fairly atheistic ones.
I don’t really think that’s the case. Sure, individuals might favour certain deities and make sacrifices to them, but civic religion, which was a huge part of traditional Greco-Roman religion, had festivals to a large number of deities which might not necessarily be the ‘patrons’ of specific individuals.
Which isn’t to say that every single person worshipped every single god, but they certainly wouldn’t have identified themselves as devotees to only one god, unless they were priests. Also, there can be an amazing amount of disconnect between myth and ritual - just because certain figures were shown being in conflict in certain versions of myth doesn’t mean a person would have a problem participating in rituals to both.
ETA: I know DaphneBlack works on this kind of stuff (in the later period), so maybe she’ll come by and weigh in.
To partially answer the original poster, modern neopagans whose religion is a revival of Norse/Germanic paganism refer to their religion as “Asatru”, or by several other names. See:
Cheers,
bcg
Beat me to it, but I can add: The philosophy of Aleister Crowley leaned heavily on Egyptian Mythos, so you could use his name for his followers “Thelemites”.
If you wanted.
It’s not quite the same as modern Hinduism- Hindus tend to have familial patron gods, but they don’t really ignore the others. It’s just that you can only fit so many statuettes into your home shrine.
The Greeks, on the other hand, played their gods off against one another, such as with the siege of Troy (where the Trojans relied on Apollo to grant them victory).
Again, I have never seen any evidence at all that the enmity between gods that appears in fiction had an impact on ritual practice.
Not between individuals, but between city-states, no? IIRC, the Achaeans sacked the Temple of Apollo, right?
The Iliad is fiction. It did not happen. Even within the fictional world of the Iliad, Troy was not Greek.
No Greek city-states ever, as far as I’m aware, went to war based on religious disagreements. There were wars over control of certain sacred sites (which all considered sacred). The closest I can think of is that the Greeks and Persians tried to burn each others’ temples as revenge for original temple burnings, but, again, that’s revenge and not a religious difference, and the Persians aren’t Greek.