Apotheosis: Difference between revisions
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** The patriarch [[w:Enoch|Enoch]], father of Methuselah, is an odd case. According to [[The Bible/Source/Genesis#5|Genesis 5:24]], "...Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." This is interpreted in many Christian and Jewish traditions to mean that he physically ascended into Heaven without dying, but in no formal scripture is anything more said about him or his post-ascension status. The [[w:Apocrypha|Apocrypha]] called the [[w:Book of Enoch|Book of Enoch]], 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch allege that Enoch was transformed into an angel and appointed guardian of all the celestial treasures, made chief of the archangels, and became the immediate attendant on the Throne of God; [[w:3 Enoch|3 Enoch]] explicitly says he became the Metatron, the voice of God. It should be noted that none of the books of Enoch are considered canonical scripture by the vast majority of Jewish or Christian bodies, although the Ethiopian Jewish community Beta Israel and the Christian Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church both consider them part of their biblical canon.
* [[Mormonism]] includes among its tenets a belief called "exaltation", in which the faithful will ascend to heaven and eventually become lesser gods subordinate to God while dwelling with Him through eternity. They believe that one purpose for Christ's mission and atonement was to allow the deification of mortal men, which will (eventually) happen in the afterlife to those who properly embraced Mormon beliefs before the final judgment.
** Mormonism also averts the above comment about angels - they ''do'' see angels as humans who have died (or, in a few historical cases, [[It Makes Sense in Context|not yet been born]]) and become sufficiently advanced to be sent (back) to Earth as messengers. Genuine angels are always closer to God than us mortals, and therefore worth listening to - but still not worthy of worship because they are not God. [[Mormonism#The_Doctrine_and_Covenants|The Doctrine and Covenants]] actually advises people to shake hands with any angel they meet.
* Unlike the subjects of most of the "hero cults" of [[Ancient Greece]] (which resembled ancestor worship more than anything else), [[Classical Mythology/Characters#Mortals and Demigods|Heracles]] and [[w:Asclepius|Asclepius]] were (at least sometimes) venerated as mortals who had ascended to become true gods.
** Dionysus was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman. Depending on the version, he became a god by being born as one or rebirth. One version was him being the unborn son of Semele, who was killed by Hero while being pregnant with him. Zeus saved him by sewing him into his thigh until he was fully grown and born as the god of wine (which also follows with his name meaning "twice born"). Another version had him being the son of the mortal Persephone. Hera tried her hands at sabotage until she enlisted the help of Titans to rip the newborn apart. Zeus fought the Titans, but the child was already eaten except for his heart, which was saved by a goddess, and Dionysus was reborn.
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