Ragnarok - Christian propaganda, wrong interpretation or self-fulfiling prophecy?

[David19]

While i'm not a Heathen, i like learning about the Norse religion and beliefs, especially about Ragnarok.

It seems like Ragnarok has many different interpretations, some see it as a prophecy of the end times, others see it as a metaphor for the seasons or as just nothing special, etc, and i was recently reading 2 good PDFs, by a Heathen (who's a Seidr practicioner), and he went into Ragnarok a bit.

The site is: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/seidhman/, and the PDFs are near the top of the page, they're called 'Reincarnation among the Norse: Sifting through the Evidence' and 'Investigating the Afterlife Concepts of the Norse Heathen: A Reconstructionist's Approach: revised' (http://www.angelfire.com/nm/seidhman/gravemound.pdf)(it's actually the latter one that goes into the most detail about it).

The bit about Ragnarok is on page 20, and he basically says, the prophecy about the end of the gods, and the destruction of the world was post-Christian, and not Heathen (and was more coming from a Christian POV), and i was just wondering if anyone would agree with this.

But, there was also an interesting post about Odin on an UK occult board that i sometimes visit, here's the link, http://www.barbelith.com/topic/26083 and the post is on the 2nd page (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/26083/from/35):


But I'm not sure it's all at clear within the Lore that Odin's trickery is justified, considering how often it's for the sake of acquiring shinies for His own people no matter how much it screws over and angers those who are not His own people. It tends to make them more inclined to hate His people, and create more wars in the future, etc. etc.

The thing is, the Lore is written from the perspective that a huge all-out war with the Jotuns is inevitable. From that perspective, sure whatever you can do to weaken Them and help Us is probably a good idea.

But how much of that is a self-fulfilling prophecy? How much of the war is inevitable because the nature of the Aesir, as ruled by Odin, to take what They want or need, and break whatever oaths to outsiders They see fit is exactly why that is inevitable

I found that post interesting 'cause if there is any truth in Ragnarok, then it could be a self-fulfiling prophecy - kind of like poking a lion - there's only so much that it can take.

Anyway, i hope that made some kind of sense, and if it didn't, just put it down to the fact that i've just got back from holiday.

But, what are your thoughts?.

Thanks.

[Faol-chù]

I found that post interesting 'cause if there is any truth in Ragnarok, then it could be a self-fulfiling prophecy - kind of like poking a lion - there's only so much that it can take.

Anyway, i hope that made some kind of sense, and if it didn't, just put it down to the fact that i've just got back from holiday.

But, what are your thoughts?.

Thanks.

While I really do think a lot of lore (including the Bible) may include elements of 'self-fulfilling prophecy', I don't necessarily think that Ragnarok is necessarily representitive of "Christianity"...

It seems to me that, even in Gaelic lore, there is a broadly used theme of 'an end to a particular kind of order'...Which does not necessarily equal "end of the world"...but rather, 'an end to a particular way of understanding'.

At the time, that probably had connotations of being overwhelmed by another tribe...who did things somewhat differently...perhaps even spoke a somewhat different language.

From a 'tribal' perspective (rather than one ordained by a 'city-state'), this makes a lot of sense.

I think this is an ancient theme, indeed...one which took on a new meaning with the advent of larger governnments, and 'religious bodies', as well.

[Carla O'Harris]

While i'm not a Heathen, i like learning about the Norse religion and beliefs, especially about Ragnarok.

It seems like Ragnarok has many different interpretations, some see it as a prophecy of the end times, others see it as a metaphor for the seasons or as just nothing special, etc, and i was recently reading 2 good PDFs, by a Heathen (who's a Seidr practicioner), and he went into Ragnarok a bit.

The site is: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/seidhman/, and the PDFs are near the top of the page, they're called 'Reincarnation among the Norse: Sifting through the Evidence' and 'Investigating the Afterlife Concepts of the Norse Heathen: A Reconstructionist's Approach: revised' (http://www.angelfire.com/nm/seidhman/gravemound.pdf)(it's actually the latter one that goes into the most detail about it).

The bit about Ragnarok is on page 20, and he basically says, the prophecy about the end of the gods, and the destruction of the world was post-Christian, and not Heathen (and was more coming from a Christian POV), and i was just wondering if anyone would agree with this.

But, there was also an interesting post about Odin on an UK occult board that i sometimes visit, here's the link, http://www.barbelith.com/topic/26083 and the post is on the 2nd page (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/26083/from/35):



I found that post interesting 'cause if there is any truth in Ragnarok, then it could be a self-fulfiling prophecy - kind of like poking a lion - there's only so much that it can take.

Anyway, i hope that made some kind of sense, and if it didn't, just put it down to the fact that i've just got back from holiday.

But, what are your thoughts?.

Thanks.



They obviously have a lot of misunderstandings about Odin and his actions.

And while they are free to invent any theology they like for themselves, it's disingenuous to take one of the basic theologies and say it never existed prior to the Christians.

That's all old hat. It's Bugge before he was completely rebutted.

[ModernKnight]

I think it's folly to ignore the fact that other than Tacitus, all our sources for the ancient Germanic religion were written after hundreds of years of conversions. Indeed, they were all recorded after paganism was illegal and Christianity became the official religion. It is sheer stupidity to pretend that all of that has no effect on a culture's beliefs or how those beliefs were recorded by Christians.

[David19]

So, would Ragnarok have been an actual Heathen belief or was it more added by Christians (or under Christian influence), or perhaps was it more like a metaphor for the historical and political time period - the ending of the Norse religion and the beginning of a new one (Christianity).

A lot of the apocalypses that i've seen seem to be metaphors for other things, like i've heard Revelations actually refers to the Romans and that 666, in Jewish Gematria(sp?) is Nero, or that the Christian apocalypse refers to the destruction of the 2nd temple of Jerusalem, and i was just wondering, if it was the same for Ragnarok.

[Carla O'Harris]

Ragnarok was an actual heathen belief held by heathens. Anything else is pure speculation.

[Carla O'Harris]

I think it's folly to ignore the fact that other than Tacitus, all our sources for the ancient Germanic religion were written after hundreds of years of conversions. Indeed, they were all recorded after paganism was illegal and Christianity became the official religion. It is sheer stupidity to pretend that all of that has no effect on a culture's beliefs or how those beliefs were recorded by Christians.


So they altered the metrical poems, which scholars agree preserves poems over long, extended periods of time. Almost everyone agrees that the Poetic Edda was composed in present metrical form sometime around 800 A.D. by pure heathens.

[ModernKnight]

"Heathen" belief is not a static concept, beliefs change over time. Some beliefs were adopted out of Christian contexts as contact with Christians grew. Some heathen beliefs were adopted by the Christians. Beliefs change to fit new conceptions of reality. Personally, I have no idea what kind of cultural purpose the changing beliefs had to the ancient Norsemen ... given that our only sources are those written by Christian authors, I don't think it's possible to know.

[Carla O'Harris]

Our only sources were not written by Christian authors. The Poetic Edda was composed by heathens. We have skaldic poems composed by heathens. We have rune-stone inscriptions that match sagas that were written down later. And we have material in all of these that matches the earliest of Indo-European mythologies. That's confirmation. The only reason that some things look like they were taken from the Christians is because those elements already pre-existed in the culture. Christianity got it from Zoroastrianism.