Consider the gas-giant Jupiter, whom the Greeks remembered as the ruler Zeus, the victor in the celestial clash of the Titans. "Jupiter is just a little speck of light in our sky, but ancient peoples recalled the god Jupiter as a towering form in the heavens, wielding lightning as his weapon of choice. What does this mean? If the gods were planets, then the thunderbolts of the gods were nothing less than interplanetary lightning discharges."

In Hesiod's Theogony, we read of Zeus, "From Heaven and from Olympus he came immediately, hurling his lightning: the bolts flew thick and fast from his strong hand together with thunder and lightning, whirling an awesome flame...."

When the dragon Typhon attacked the world, there was "thunder and lightning, and ... fire from the monster, and the scorching winds and blazing thunderbolt." Destroyed by a lightning bolt from Zeus, the world-threatening dragon came to be known as the 'thunderstricken'. Indeed, it is remarkable how many mythical figures are struck down by lightning. In classical myth alone, you would have to include Enceladus, Mimas, Menoetius, Aristodemus and Capaneus, Idas, Iasion, Asclepius and others.

Hebrew tradition has remembered well the lightning of the gods. Psalm 77 proclaims: "The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook."

From India, the Mahabharata and Ramayana relate that lightning of the gods filled the heavens like a rain of fiery arrows. From ancient Egypt, Babylon, Scandinavia, China, and the Americas, myths and legends describe conflagrations attributed to thunderbolts from the gods.