TvTropes claims that Ancient Greeks saw Zeus as being better than in his myths, to the point that Plato thought the myths were blasphemous slander and wanted them banned. Is this true?

by Red_Galiray

The quote in question: "Keep in mind also that there is a clear disconnect from how the myths portrayed him and how the Ancient Greeks saw him, with many a philosopher disdaining the myths for tainting Zeus' reputation (in fact some, like Plato considered the myths basically blasphemous for their portrayals, and he wanted the poems relating them to be banned)."

So is this true? Did the Ancient Greeks believe that Zeus wasn't actually the rapist tyrant of myth? Or did they accept that Zeus had done horrible things and venerated him regardless?

Noodleboom

/u/toldinstone discusses how (elite, literate) Greeks related myths to conceptions of the gods, including Zeus here

/u/hannahstohelit compiled some further reading in that thread:

  • /u/DarthPositus examines how different genres treated the gods here
  • /u/EdmondAgonistes discusses the evolving myth skepticism of Classical Athenian drama here
  • /u/mythoplokos and /u/Astrogator walk through Greek and Roman practices and how they relate to belief (as well as the difficulty of getting in the heads of practitioners from limited evidence and from such a different cultural context) here

In Republic Book II, Plato does (through Socrates' dialogue) say that a state should suppress harmful stories, including those which describe God/Zeus/general divinity as the "author of evil" (or committing any sort of deception, including changing form). The context of Plato's beliefs in Greek thought and the specifics of those beliefs are wayyyy out of my wheelhouse, though.