Balder and Jesus
Jeremy Vigil
Tim Bryan
Overview
This is the compare and contrast of two dying
god stories. The first story is the death of Balder. This is a Norse story. The
second is the death of Jesus. This is a Christian story. I will give a brief
summary of the stories before proceeding to the compare and contrast.
The
first story is about a god named Balder. He was a beloved god. Everyone loved
him except for the villain of the story, Loki.
Balder had a nightmare predicting he was going to die. He told all the
other gods when he woke up. The other gods didn’t want to accept his fate
because Balder was virtuous and wise so Frigg, Balder’s mother, asked every
living and non-living thing not to harm him. Everything agreed. To prove Balder
couldn’t be kill all the gods started to throw stones and weapons at
Balder. Nothing hurt him. Loki, the
trickster god, was jealous of Balder’s popularity so he found the one thing
that could kill Balder. He gave it to Balder’s brother Hoder to throw at
Balder. This killed him so all the gods started to mourn. They decided to find
a way to bring Balder back to life. They found out that the only way to bring
him back is to have every living and non-living thing weep for him. Everyone
did weep for Balder except for Loki so he was imprisoned until the
Ragnarok. After the Ragnarok Loki was
defeated and Balder was returned to the earth with other young gods.
The
second story is about Jesus. Many chief priests and elders were jealous of
Jesus because he was taking away their power so they devised a plan to kill
him. They paid Judas, one of Jesus’
disciples, 30 silver coins to point out Jesus so they can arrest him. Judas told the guards he would kiss Jesus to
point him out. When He did this, the
guards arrested Jesus and took him to trial. The chief priests and elders made
accusations and pressured the governor Pilate to crucify Jesus. The governor
did order Jesus’ crucifixion reluctantly. Jesus was nailed to a cross and given
a crown of thorns. Jesus died hours
later but not once did he condemn the people responsible for his suffering.
Before Jesus died, he said he would be resurrected. The governor didn’t want someone to steal Jesus’ body and fake
his resurrection so he sealed his tomb. Guards were placed at his tomb. This
didn’t stop Jesus’ resurrection and three days later god resurrected Jesus.
Both these stories had more similarity’s then differences. Even though, Jesus and Balder are two different stories from two different beliefs. Their admirers reacted the same way to their death. They were saddened and grief stricken. Their loss was greater than losing a brother.
Jesus and Balder both handled death the same way. They were not scared of death. They knew death is not the end but a change to another existence.
The most dramatic similarity
is that jealousy killed them both. Loki was jealous of Balder’s popularity so
were the chief priests and elders of Jesus. This shows how emotions play a
pivotal role in humanity. Especially, strong emotions like jealousy.
Both
Jesus and Balder were admired and beloved.
The reason they were loved so much is they were wise and generous. This
placed them on a pedestal. Their admirers wanted to protect them. Frigg protected Balder by asking all things
not to harm Balder. Peter tried to protect Jesus by pulling out his sword when
the guards came to arrest him.
They both were the son of
god. Jesus was the Son of God and Balder was son of Odin the king of gods. This
made them immortal to all their admirers. This causes even greater pain when
they died because everyone thought they would be there for them forever.
The core of the story
remains the same. Someone devises a
plan to kill someone they don’t like. They both use someone else to do it. In Jesus’ case it was the Governor and in
Balder’s case it was his brother Hoder. Both of them die and are grieved over.
Then they are resurrected.
The differences were only
slight. The biggest difference I see is the morale of the story. The morale of Jesus’ story is that he died
for your sins and the morale of Balder’s story is never think you are
invincible.
Of
coarse the way they died was different. Jesus died being crucified and Balder
died by mistletoe. Jesus suffered more being crucified than Balder being
stabbed through the heart. I gathered that Balder died instantaneously.
Everyone
knew Balder was the son of Orion, the king of gods. Many people didn’t believe
Jesus was the Son of God. This is also apparent today. Many people believe
Jesus was only a prophet.
Both
of these stories tell a tale about the fall of two highly admired individuals.
Both of them were praised and mourned. We can only hope we can become as wise
and Jesus and as well liked as Balder. There is one sad truth to these stories.
The good die young.