Touring the Parthenon and the Erechteion

He was on tour in Greece and the tour guide was taking the bus load of Americans to see the Parthenon. The tour guide explained that the Parthenon was perhaps the most impressive of all the Ancient Greek temples, dedicated to the goddess Athena the armed warrior goddess, who appears in Greek mythology as a helper of many heroes, including Odysseus (remember studying the Odyssey in school?), Jason, and Hercules.
The tour guide also showed the crowd a smaller, slightly better preserved temple just down the hill from the Parthenon, and this little temple was called the Erechtheion named after the son of Athena, Erichthonius.

"What was the story behind these two temples?" he asked. "Are they connected in some way?"

"Why yes," said the tour guide, a beautiful dark complexioned woman, dressed in a manner that was both conservative and unmistakably attractive.

The Parthenon was created to honor Athena, who, in Classical Greek myths was not only a warrior goddess, but she was also depicted as someone who never took to herself a consort (or lover) and thus she was known as Athena the Virgin. The word virgin, in Greek was parthenos. You can easily see the connection between the word parthenos and the name of the temple, Parthenon."

"But, if Athena was known as "Athena the Virgin" then how did she come to have a son?" he asked.

"Good question," replied the guide. "It may be more accurate for us to describe Erichthonius as the adoptive child of Athena. The story of the birth of Erichthonius goes like this" Another god, Hephaestus, looked on Athena, lusted after her, and attempted to rape the goddess. Being both a committed virgin and a warrior goddess Athena resisted and the two struggled. In the heat of this struggle, the two fell upon a rug of pure lamb's wool, and Hephaestus, having an erection, had a premature emission, his semen fell into the pure lamb's wool, and out of that wool sprang the child Erichtonius. "

He couldn't help but notice the similarity between the words erection and Erichthonius, but he felt ill at ease with all his fellow travelers locking eyes on him, still, he felt he had to ask.

"Pardon me," he interrupted, "but do the people of Greece still believe in things like warrior goddesses and miraculous births of a god springing from pure lambs wool?"

He could tell immediately that he had offended his tour guide.

"Of course not! We are members of the Greek Orthodox Church and we believe only in the Lord Jesus Christ born of the blessed virgin Mary."