The Parthenon Code: Mankind’s History In Marble, by Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr.

At the first Romans Bible study in our recent series, our congregation’s pastor mentioned this particular book as being of great importance in understanding Greco-Roman culture and its deliberate hostility to God’s ways. This praise is not an exaggeration, as this book is a compelling art history book of the highest order, taking as its subject matter the sculpture of the Parthenon and its relationship to biblical history. Towards the end of the book, the author makes a comment that makes it plain why our pastor connected this book with the study of Romans 1 in particular: “In about 50 AD, Paul arrived in Athens. He knew what the Parthenon was and what it represented. In fact, “his spirit was incited in him at beholding the city being idol-ridden” (Acts 17:16). He most likely had the Parthenon idol-image of Athena in mind when he wrote in Romans 1:22-23 about those who “alleging themselves to be wise…are made stupid, and they change the glory of the incorruptible God into the likes of an image of a corruptible human being [Eve] and flying creatures [the winged griffins on Athena’s helmet and Nike in her right hand] and quadrupeds [the griffins and the lion-bodied sphinx on Athena’s helmet] and reptiles [the serpent rising up at Athena’s side, those trimming her aegis, and the Gorgon Medusa—the head of serpents].” Zeus-religion boasted of the Greeks’ total alienation from Noah and his God. It was as if the sculptors of the Parthenon had intentionally buried Noah, his God, and their spiritual children beneath their own marble heroes and gods (257).”

The content of this book is a very close piece of art history and art criticism that seeks to recover an understanding of the history that the Greeks recorded in their myths, their poetry, their vases, their art and architecture, and even their festivals. The author begins with a background summary of the code of the classical Greek artists as well as of Greek religion as a whole. The next part of the book, in eight chapters, looks at the representation of Noah, the flood, and Noah’s godly daughters (the Amazons), as well as the line of Seth (the centaurs) and the way that Noah’s authority was taken by Herakles, who stands in for the wicked rebel Nimrod. After this, the third part spends about fifteen chapters giving a close reconstruction of the East Pediment of the Parthenon, discussing in great detail the symbolism of the various idols and what they meant in reconstructing biblical history from the point of view of the serpent and those who followed his ways. The book thus manages to blend ancient history, biblical exegesis, and art criticism into a book that deserves the accolades it has received from previous reviewers who have seen the book as “original, seminal, ground-breaking, unforgettable, and highly recommended,” as the Midwest Book Review stated.

This book belongs with a group of books [1] that makes its point the demonstration of the conscious commitment of Greek culture to opposing submission to God’s laws and God’s ways. The book both directly and indirectly points out that humanism, with mankind as the measure of all things, stands in direct opposition to the ways of God and in direct rebellion to God. It demonstrates the various lies about immortality and enlightenment that have been used to deceive mankind at all times into viewing the taking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as a great victory in making men wise rather than an immense defeat by bringing mankind death and trouble and putting us under the despotic rule of the dragon Satan and his wicked lieutenants. It points out, in the most stark terms possible, the enmity that exists between the Athens of fallen mankind and the Jerusalem of God [2]. It is, in short, a book of immense worth for those who have any interest in the relationship between art history and scripture, and in the origins of Greek religion in a deliberate and hostile rejection of God’s ways and a confusion of enlightenment with darkness, and of freedom from the laws and ways of God with subjection to despotic demons.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/book-review-spirit-of-antichrist/

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/between-athens-and-jerusalem/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/so-that-they-are-without-excuse/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/on-the-difference-between-greek-thought-and-hebrew-thought/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/an-introduction-to-satans-house-divided/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/abraham-lincoln-democracy-despotism-and-the-two-trees/