Talk:Gaia

Python link

That was hilarious, Paul August. Don't see how you copied Honor Harrington instead of Python_(mythology), but that's none of my business.

--Magnus Puer (sermo) 17:59, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes well, things happen ;-) Paul August ☎ 20:53, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Gaia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:14, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

See Talk:Gaia (disambiguation) § Requested move 9 December 2017. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:13, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe add a Trivia section or something?

The name 'George' (and its variants) is derived from the ancient Greek name 'Georgios', which in turn is believed to have originated as a theophoric name after Zeus Georgos, the Athenian version of Zeus. Zeus Georgos was, as the name suggests, an agrarian deity, and as such, related to Ge. In some myths Zeus and Gaia are said to have born children together, so the existence of an 'earth-working Zeus' (as the name / title can be literally translated) makes sense.--87.255.89.160 (talk) 11:24, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Great way to neutralize argument

". Further books by Lovelock and others popularized the Gaia Hypothesis, which was embraced to some extent by New Age environmentalists as part of the heightened awareness of environmental concerns of the 1990s." Allanana79 (talk) 09:45, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Gaia as child of chaos

If the infobox has Gaia as child of Chaos and sibling to Nyx, Erebus and Tartarus, shouldn't that get mentioned in the article as well? Because now this information stands there entirely unsourced (since only Hesiod is mentioned, and it's established that Hesiod has her parentless). I think it shouldn't display info without the supporting citation. Deiadameian, (talk) 21:00 UTC

The infobox is - or should be - just a summary of content in the main aricle, and nothing more. Infoboxes shouldn't contain anything that isn't addressed in the article itself. Everything in the infobox should be supported by a reliable source in the article itself. Infoboxes aren't meant to deal with disputed or competing claims, or controversy. Personally. I find them singularly inappropriate for articles dealing with mythology or religion.Haploidavey (talk) 22:12, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The difficulty is that the infobox format presupposes that deities have fixed relationships with other deities, whereas in fact beliefs varied from time to time and place to place. Hesiod tidied everything up, resulting in the neat family trees we learn at school, but this isn't really reflective of the underlying religious beliefs. It doesn't make sense to include in an infobox every relationship which has ever been conjectured for a deity, so (if we have it all) I'm happy with how it looks now. Havelock Jones (talk) 08:30, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Deiadameian: The problem is that the original line from Hesiod is ambiguous:

In truth, first of all Chasm came to be, and then broad-breasted Earth, the ever immovable seat of all the immortals who possess snowy Olympus' peak and murky Tartarus in the depths of the broad-pathed earth, and Eros, who is the most beautiful among the immortals", etc.

The reason I changed it at Family tree of the Greek gods is because it was agreed on the talk page that it should be shown that way. This does not necessarily mean that it is "established" that Gaia, Tartarus and Eros are born separately of Chaos. Rather, the majority of reliable secondary sources interpret the passage as saying that they came after (i.e. separately) rather than from Chaos. As Wikipedia should convey the overall opinion of the up-to-date scholarly sources on a subject, I agree with you that the infobox probably ought to say "None" rather than "None, or Nyx, Erebus, Tartarus and Eros". (This way it's also consistent with the Theogony's page, and with the Family tree of the Greek gods page.) Also, the IP address that reverted your edits didn't give any reasoning for doing so, so I don't see a problem.

References

I will ping Paul August, as he is the primary author of the page Theogony, and is (I believe) the one that made the chart of the primordial gods used here.

As to Hyginus' version, I don't think that should really be in the infobox. It's only mentioned briefly in the article, and having it there is more confusing than informative. That was my reasoning for removing it.

— Dave12121212 [talk] 11:04, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I am not too concerned about Hyginus' inclusion in the infobox, to be honest. It's Chaos as Gaia's parent that I don't entirely agree with. Deiadameian (talk) 11:10, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to change back to the old version with Chaos as Gaia's parent. Having "None" under parents seems to me to represent the scholarly consensus as well as agree with other articles. Unless there are any objections, I think it should stay as it is. — Dave12121212 [talk] 11:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

As for Gaia (and Tartarus and Eros) as the offspring of Chaos in the Theogony, as Dave notes above, it's not clear exactly what Hesiod means by "after". I believe that "most" scholars (but not all) interpret Hesiod as probably meaning that Gaia and the others were not the offspring of Chaos. For example:

• Gantz, p. 4: "With regard to all three of these figures—Gaia, Tartaros, and Eros—we should note that Hesiod does not say they arose from (as opposed to after) Chaos, although this is often assumed."
• Hard, p. 23: "Although it is quite often assumed that all three are born out of Chaos as her offspring, this is not stated by Hesiod nor indeed implied, governed by the same verb geneto ('came yo be'). Gaia, Tartaros and Eros are best regarded as being primal realities like Chaos that came into existence independently of her."
• Caldwell, p. 5: "[the body of the Theogony] begins with the spontaneous appearance of Chaos, Gaia, Tartaros, and Eros (116-122). By their emergence from nothing, without sources or parents, these four are separated from everything that follows."

As for presenting Hesiod's genealogy in the infobox (if we must have one at all!) I think "none" is ok but perhaps with some sort of explanatory footnote?

As for Hyginus, I have several issues with how his genealogy is currently presented in the article. I think we should say that Hyginus has the parents of "Terra (Earth)" are "Aether and Dies (Day)" and that the siblings of "Terra" are "Caelus (Sky) and Mare (Sea)" (not Uranus (or Heaven) and certainly not Thalassa!)

Paul August ☎ 16:30, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Epithets

I intend to give a simplified list of epithets, including the epithets which are mentioned in the section "Cult". Jestmoon(talk) 15:22, 28 February 2024 (UTC)