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> I think the writer sells short the comparison of Homer to the bible. It goes a lot deeper than "the one book everyone knows." I didn't get the feeling that t

> I think the writer sells short the comparison of Homer to the bible. It goes a lot deeper than "the one book everyone knows." I didn't get the feeling that the author sold short the analogy between the Bible and the Iliad. After all, he says: > How close is the analogy with the Bible? In terms of sheer cultural ubiquity, pretty close. The Bible's cultural influence on the West is immense and goes much beyond being "the one book everyone knows." Many of Jesus' ethical ideals have become so engrained in our culture we are not even aware of where they came from. For example, the idea expressed in John 9, that a person who is blind from birth is not blind because of the sin of their parents or a sin he was expected to commit. This blame thinking was pervasive in antiquity; you can see a glimpse of this ideal in Book 2 of the Iliad.. Thersites is specifically called out for being ugly and club-footed, before he berates Agamemnon until Odysseus knocks him on the head. Everyone in the assembly praises Odysseus saying "terrific strokes ... he's put a stop to this babbling, foulmouthed fool!" We no longer believe that ugliness and badness are associated. Note that while I suspect this transformation in values is because of the New Testament, I have not researched this carefully and would appreciate being corrected if someone knew more about this. Even if this particular example is not correct, I suspect there are many other similar examples of the influence of the hidden Bible on our culture. I think the author of the review is not trying to discount the association between the Bible and the Iliad, but instead is trying to dismiss the misconception that the Iliad was a "sacred text" like the Bible is. The Iliad is filled with references to the gods, sacrifices, libations, oaths, prayers, and other trappings of religion---but it is poetry that was meant to entertain and Homer took poetic license. And the Greeks knew he took poetic license--that he "lied." The stories about Hera seducing Zeus and Ares having an affair with Aphrodite are comic, and were comic to the Greeks like they are to us. It appears that the Iliad influenced religious practice significantly, but it still doesn't seem right to call it a religious text. Thus, I think the author of the review makes a fair comparison between the Bible and the Iliad.

netcan 8y ago
I didn't mean that he's wrong. I agree about the shared language created by the King James in Georgian England and The Iliad across a lot of times and places. I just think that's only the tip of an iceberg. Some of the other points of analogy (like both emerging from the same dark age, on different outskirts of a collapsed civilization) are worth mentioning too. Maybe I phrased that badly. What i meant was "yes, and also."
- artsandmeta 8y ago
  I see, I misunderstood you and thought you were suggesting that the Iliad was in fact a "sacred text." I see know you were not saying that. I like several of your other comments: > Homer is often thought to be describing events during the bronze dark age, the period between the collapse of middle eastern bronze age empires and the rise of iron age empires (like the greek one). > This is what the bible is too, to a large extent. The exodus, judges, King David, prophets, heros... Stories about the legendary dark age written by decendants during the early iron age. > As civilization (and population) re-grew these stories formed a cultural core. Judeans got swept into the aramean, babylonian, persian and later hellenic empires. The library of knowledge grew enourmously. But, the old stories still remained at the heart of the cultural. I think there are many parallels between the two.

netcan 8y ago

I didn't mean that he's wrong. I agree about the shared language created by the King James in Georgian England and The Iliad across a lot of times and places. I just think that's only the tip of an iceberg. Some of the other points of analogy (like both emerging from the same dark age, on different outskirts of a collapsed civilization) are worth mentioning too. Maybe I phrased that badly. What i meant was "yes, and also."

artsandmeta 8y ago
I see, I misunderstood you and thought you were suggesting that the Iliad was in fact a "sacred text." I see know you were not saying that. I like several of your other comments: > Homer is often thought to be describing events during the bronze dark age, the period between the collapse of middle eastern bronze age empires and the rise of iron age empires (like the greek one). > This is what the bible is too, to a large extent. The exodus, judges, King David, prophets, heros... Stories about the legendary dark age written by decendants during the early iron age. > As civilization (and population) re-grew these stories formed a cultural core. Judeans got swept into the aramean, babylonian, persian and later hellenic empires. The library of knowledge grew enourmously. But, the old stories still remained at the heart of the cultural. I think there are many parallels between the two.