BGS Classics Podcast
A podcast designed to help you learn and revise for your Latin, Greek and Class Civ courses.
So far, we have:
1. GCSE Class Civ: Myth and Religion
2. GCSE Class Civ: Homeric World
3. A level Class Civ: Love and Relationships
4. A level Class Civ: Invention of the Barbarian
5. "Jumping off points": special guests join us to talk about Classical Civilisation and the multiplicity of links to the rest of history, literature, religion, and society.
BGS Classics Podcast
Special Guest: Colin Wadey on the nature of religion in the ancient and modern world
In this episode of the Bristol Grammar School Classics Podcast, Andy Keen and Dan Watkins are joined by Colin Wadey, teacher of Philosophy and Ethics, for a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of religion in the ancient and modern world.
The conversation explores the differences—and similarities—between Greek and Roman polytheism and the monotheistic traditions of Judaism and Christianity. They examine how religious practice in antiquity was more about action than belief, and how ideas of sacrifice, afterlife, and the divine evolved across time. Topics include the transactional nature of ancient worship, the development of cults like Mithras and Asclepius, and the mythic versus historical framing of sacred stories.
Along the way, they reflect on the role of myth, paradox, and meaning-making in religious thought, question whether we're really so different from the ancients, and consider whether searching for truth might be more important than finding it.