There was once a man who was Odin—just like, in more recent times, there were men called Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha.
The latter three, being better known to us, are clearly men—they face the dilemmas of men, and they respond as men.
So Jesus is tempted in the wilderness and Buddha has a child—and Muhammad, the most human of the three, claiming no miracles, leads armies and has wives and children (we know more about him than the other two, so he is more historical and real to us).
The same with Apollo, Odin, Thor—it’s just those men lived a very long time ago and we have almost nothing of their personalities left to us.
These are men in touch with the higher states of being—they do not necessarily perform miracles, although often they do.
To be in touch with the higher states of being means to have harmonised yourself with a superior rhythm—perhaps you always were that rhythm but it took time to unfurl.
You could say that when this rhythm manifests it does so as lights in the sky, as the star of Bethlehem, or as the aethers—as the angels or divas (however you want to put it).
In that sense, the gods are not personified; however, in practice, they manifest themselves through the god-men, who are “the shining ones” (the light emanates from their forehead, or from a halo behind them).
Hence if someone says “the gods were men” then this correct as correct could be—Jesus was a god-man, Buddha was a god-man, Muhammad was a god-man; and, long ago, there was a man who was Odin, a man who most perfectly instantiated that archetype.
“Rhythm” itself means “to flow”, so it’s about the cosmic river—hence Rhea, the mother of the gods, represents the cosmic river.
In a city like Birmingham you have the River Rea (“ray”), upon which the settlement was founded by the Beorma tribe—and it derives from the same source, “to flow”.
The god-men know the rhythm.