Did the Greek and Romans Gods have a type of Bible with rules the followers had to follow.?

Question

Whether the the gods were real doesn't matter. What I want to know is did they have written rules of behavor that the gods expected of them to get the god's blessing. In other words were the gods law makers.

Answer 1

In a sense, there were the themistes or divine ordinances, which were said to have been delivered to man from the gods through the Delphic oracle.

However, these were not preserved in any sort of holy book. The themistes were traditions. They were morale proscriptions which were understood as part of the culture. Similarly we don't need to refer to the Bible to know what is right and wrong in our own culture.

Many of these however were embedded in Greek religion and general customs -- e.g. there were set customs on how to deal with murder, which involved the payment of blood money to the murderer's family, exile for a certain period, religious purifications and atonement.
Similarly certain gods presided over moral concepts e.g. Zeus Xenios was the protector of the guest (against crimes), Zeus Horkios was the defender of the oath, the Erinyes avenged crimes against the parent, etc. In other words, a sin would anger the gods, and everyone knew what these sins were and which gods would avenge them.

Much of Greek mythology also contains parables on issues of morality -- similar to Biblical stories -- although the Greeks never formalised these into a holy text.

But certain ancient sects of later antiquity, like the pagan Orphics had a sort of holy book, which was concerned with life after death, virtue, and reincarnation leading to paradise.

BTW Holy books were rare in the pre-Christian, pre-Islamic world. It was a Roman emperor Constantine (the Romans being very legalistic) who called for an official Christian Bible. Before then the early Christians had no holy book -- just a large collection of unorganised scriptures.

Answer 2

There was no Pagan Bible. However some literary works about the gods and heroes were treated with almost as much reverence as we treat the Bible. But no the Greeks and Romans were well aware humans created written laws.

However while there was no equivalent to the Old Tstament event of God passing down the Ten Commandments the Greeks did believe certain types of activities were sins that violated natural law and would bring retribution such as murdering parents or incest or hubris or behaving like a god or claiming to be a god when you were not one or mistreating a guest and there does seem to have been a belief that some of the ancient heroes were supported and protected by the gods !

Answer 3

This is a good question but you should ask in the history section so maybe a history buff could answer. I don't think that a bible type book was kept but the wealthy had libraries of scrolls. Most people couldn't read. I don't think that they had a strong religion because they never tried to convert the people they conquered. I have read that they had lost most of their belief by the time of Jesus with Venus being the most believed in.

Answer 4

There were many Scrolls of the lore of the Gods and Goddesses. One of the Christians' ways of converting is to destroy scrolls, statues, and temples.

I caught one Christian neighbor who purported to be a friend, on a Bridge night tearing pages out of one of my antique Grimores and mumbling prayers.
I didn't call the cops. I did explain to the 4 other couples why I was asking him to leave my house in front of his wife. He still had pages sticking out of his pockets. . . he kept mumbling prayers and saying "You're not going to hit me are you?"

Answer 5

I a follower and I think that I am run faster than Mercury or Hermes. Are they doing anything, No because they are not REAL!!!!!!!

Oh, Look at me. I am stronger than Zeus. LOL!!!!!!

Answer 6

No, the gods didn't. They weren't real. Romans had some but not much.

Answer 7

No, if they felt like you did something wrong they would just kill you, it depens on what mood they were in, I think anyway.