” “in male-dominated classical Greece the most influential voice, the Delphic oracle, belonged to a woman”

So glad you questioned this; yours was my reaction as well.

I was extremely fortunate to have visited Delphi on a university-sponsored trip with Professor Hale, as it happens, and it was my understanding then, as it is yours, that male priests interpreted the incoherent mumblings of the pythia. The most influential voices would clearly, then, have been male.

They appear to have translated the pythia’s mumblings in the form of riddles whose answers which could be interpreted in multiple ways. (Of course in that way the pythia (and priests) would always have been correct.)

Roger, Please cite your evidence for 1st Corinthians 12 referring to glossolalia rather than its referring to the same phenomenon as in Acts 2, the “holy pneuma” of someone speaking in their native language, yet being understood by those speaking foreign languages; or, the diametrical “holy pneuma” of someone’s speaking in a foreign language of which they had no prior knowledge..

Ethylene gas? Hahahahaha. It takes 430 ppm of Ethylene to SMELL, as you claim Plutarch did, yet it was IMPOSSIBLE for anything over 1.044 ppm to accumulate within the Temple. Nor is the Oracle always in there, the priests are there more than she ever was. It also requires hours to metabolize enough of a HIGH CONCENTRATION to begin to cause an observable problem. Not to mention that NO ORACLE in History has ever acted in a manner consistent with your fantasies.

Smoke? Vapors? If you knew a single thing about any of this, you would have known what that was.

“First, we see again that it is a danger indeed to ignore the words of the ancients, to reject their “miracles” as fanciful and to assume that they did not know what they saw. Something powerful and profound did happen.

It is likewise interesting to see validation of those ancient reports but with scientific (archaeological, geological and toxicological) bases for the behavior they described. Naturally there is variation in the ancients’ interpretation and understanding and in ours. They opted for Apollo and we opt for for ethylene. They had their mystery and assumptions, we have our science and explanations.”

You teach classes in being a MASSIVE HYPOCRITE, or is it just fun? You say you have Science? Science debunks the Christian God constantly. You ignore that. Typical.

YOU ACTUALLY THINK SOCRATES WAS EXECUTED?!?!?!?!? ROFL!!!!!!!!!

I surely hope you all enjoyed deluding yourselves, because no amount of mud-slinging or daydreams will change the fact that Greece has been EPIC from Day 1. Greece is the undeniable source of everything of value in this world. Rome adopted EVERYTHING from Greece. Thousands of years of History that left CLEAR evidence of the truth of it all behind as testimony, even KING MINOS’ LABYRINTH exists. I’m sorry that the entire story of your faith is about as real as Canary-sized fluffy pink hippos, I imagine it sucks, but that’s reality and you have to deal with it.

While Greek and pagan world had oracles and prophets, it’s too easy to compare these to the Hebrew prophets, whose mental states and relationship to their audiences were generally very different, partly by conscious design.