Inspired by religion discussion on Main

[Carol]

Magpie: 
> > I would absolutely consider Prometheus to fit this criteria. He's the champion of mortals, committed a crime for us and took his punishment for it--a punishment that couldn't possibly have been any big surprise. He risked the wrath of Zeus to give pepole the means of life. Go Prometheus!
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Yes, he is the only one who fits to me too, even if not very directly. The gist is that he suffered horribly (and much longer than Jesus) because he wanted to help people, so I can now at least think of one example.

Carol responds:
But he didn't actually die and rise from the dead. All that happened is that his liver grew back overnight and was eaten again the next day--and the next and the next for what the Greeks must have assumed was all eternity. A horrible fate, indeed, but it's not the same thing as death and resurrection. Prometheus, not being human or part human, couldn't die (in the Greek view of divinity, which differs in that respect from the Egyptian and Norse view). The Titans were overthrown and banished (for the most part) to Tartarus; they weren't killed because they couldn't die, and none of them, including Prometheus, was resurrected. (I can't recall whether they suffered specific punishments like Sisyphus and Tantalus, who were both mortals.)

Carol, who sees the parallel but thinks that, despite his immortality, Prometheus' fate more closely resembles the eternal punishment of wicked mortals in Tartarus than the death and resurrection of Christ