To the Kouretes [Gods]. . . glorious saviors of the world…. Immortal gods, you nurture… as gentle saviors who bring fair breezes and clear weather.
[ Orphic Hymns, 38]

Was Christianity new?  Was Christianity unique?  Let's talk about the ideas of God and the immortal human soul.

God
The idea of God -- of one or many supernatural beings who look like us and think like us, and care about us, and interact with us, and reward and punish us -- is universal and way older than Christianity or Judaism. You know this.

Moses' family prayed to Gods for generations before Judaism was a twinkle in Moses eye.

Here's how Plato (yes, that Plato) described the pagan Gods in the fourth century BC:
	When people sinned, they prayed to the gods for forgiveness.
	When people died the Gods redeemed them from the pains of hell.

[Quoting Hesiod] "The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose; and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odor of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed." And they produce a host of books written by Mousaios and Orpheus, … according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us. [ Plato, The Republic, Book 2.7, (4th century BC)]

Sound familiar? Sure it does. Our God is like the Pagan Gods, and the Pagan Gods got there first.

Here's how the editor of Britannica's Great Books puts it > >

"There are ...fundamental agreements between paganism and Judeo-Christian regarding the nature of the divine....The deities are conceived personally, not in terms of impersonal, brute forces. Conceived as beings with intelligence and will, the Gods concern themselves with earthly society; the aid or oppose man's plans and efforts; they reward men for fidelity and virtue and punish them for impiety and sin." [The Great Ideas, 1952, Ch. 29]

Yeah, but the Iliad is fiction. The Pagan's Gods are silly myths.

To you. Not to the ancients. To the ancients the Gods were a daily presence, a force controlling their lives.

A few examples, not from archaic poets but from everyday ancient authors -- historians, playwrights, novelists > >

All the more amazed at this outburst the young man asked what it was all about; and then, after imploring the gods and goddesses for mercy and forgiveness if under compulsion of her love for him she uttered what should be kept secret…[Livy, History of Rome, 39.10 (1st century AD)]

Metaneira to the goddess Demeter] Nurse this child for me, whom the immortals have given me, late-born and unexpected, but much prayed for ... [Homeric Hymn to Demeter, (7th century BC)]

Then Demeter of the fair crown said to her, "May you also be of good cheer, woman, and may the gods grant you all good things; [Homeric Hymn to Demeter, (7th century BC)]

[Kallidike, speaking to Demeter] A favorite son, born to her late, is being nursed in the strongly built palace; she prayed much for him, and rejoiced in him. [Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 165 (7th c BC)]

... the fame has traveled wide of how the gods appear to mankind and bring unexpected aid to their initiates of theirs who call upon them in the midst of perils. [Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 5.49.5 (1st century AD)]

If you had been there and seen these wonders for yourself, you would have gone down on your knees and prayed to the god you now deny. [Euripides, The Bacchae, 703 - 707 (5th century BC)]