JUPITER
(gr., “Zeus pater”, “father god” or “father of the gods”).
Supreme god of the Greeks and Romans, represented as a virile, bearded, energetic and majestic guy, sitting on a throne, with a beam of lightning in his right hand.
The inhabitants of Lystra believed that Barnabas was Jupiter in disguise, since in mythology it was common for the gods to come down to earth in the form of men (Acts 14:12; 19:35). In this last quote it means “image fallen from the sky.”
The apocryphal books of the Maccabees narrate the attempts of Antiochus Epiphanes to impose the cult of Olympian Zeus on the Jews by dedicating the Temple in Jerusalem to him, which caused the uprising of the people.