At the opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics, a depiction of a feast celebration sparked heated discussions–especially among many Americans, who assumed that the depiction was a disrespectul representation of the Biblical Last Supper. In my opinion, the feast depicted was the Feast of Ancient Greece’s Mythological Dionysus, whose Roman counterpart was Bacchus. Both Dionysus and Bacchus were gods of excesses, and I believe that everyone will agree that the feast depicted at the Opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics was one of excesses. With that in mind, I do not believe that the Feast depicted was that of the Last Supper, and in this post, I’ll try to explain the rationale for my belief.
Dionysus was part of Ancient Greek Mythology.
“Greek mythology holds that the first Olympic Games were competed in by the gods. The games were held every four years in Olympia, a sacred site in the western Peloponnese, from 776 BC to at least 393 AD to honor Zeus, the king of the gods.” Google ai
I REPEAT: The First Olympic Games Took Place Before Jesus Was Even Born
They are part of an Anceint Greek Mythological System.
What Is A Myth?
“Myth is an oral story, symbolic, dynamic, and apparently simple story, of an extraordinary event….Myth seeks out the original meaning of the world– it wants to know: A stone in the middle of the desert, the reproduction of a rare species, or human life, require an explanation that can satisfy the thirst for knowledge. Myth considers and interprets events in space and time, especially those that are furthest-removed. Paradoxically, only in this way does myth also comprehend the present. Like empirical science, but in a different way, myth gives sense to the world through causes and effects. All myth is an etiology.
“When myth explains origins or a new beginning, it expounds a cosmogony….
“Each cosmogony, in turn, can be more or less general: It can explain the origins of the universe, of the gods, or of men.” (Losada).
Losada, José Manuel. “Myth and Origins: Men Want to Know.” David Publishing Company, Oct. 2015, www.davidpublisher.com/Public/uploads/Contribute/562870b08884b.pdf.
No one is sure when the tradition of Ancient Greek Mythology began, but most scholars agree that Greek Mythology predated the birth of Jesus and the stories about Jesus, It may even have predated many of the stories of the Old Testament. I find it interesting that the Ancient Greek story of the creation of the world is similar to that of the Bible.
How Does the Biblical Story of Creation in Genesis Compare to that of the Ancient Greeks?
In Ancient Greek Mythology, Zeus was the most important Deity. Zeus had wives, but he also mated with several other goddesses — He also mated with humans, and it was through his union with the mortal Semele, the daughter of the king of Thebes, that a son, Dionysus, was born.
Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) Ariadne on Naxos (detail) (1913), oil on canvas, 116 × 147 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.\
[Dionysus married Ariadne, and he is the figure driving the chariot in the above image]
In other words, Dionysus was partially a human and partially a deity, and he was brought up by nymphs. One day he discovered the grapevine and decided to travel the world teaching mankind the art of making wine out of grapes, According to stories about Dionysus, he had a voraious appetite for wine and other pleasures and was inclined to frequently partake of the wine that he made.
If you have ever gone to a New Orleans Mardi Gras Bacchus Parade, you probably have some idea of the excesses of Bacchus, Keep in mind that in Ancient Greece, Bacchus was called Dionysus.