Jesus vs. Odysseus: The debate about ‘The Odyssey’ that’s been overlooked
Dennis MacDonald has some exciting news for fans of “The Odyssey” who hope to see a spinoff of this summer’s biggest hit film.
Homer’s epic poem has already been rewritten. He claims that if you open a Bible, you can see how the blind poet Homer, who wrote the ancient epic poem, also influenced some of the most well-known accounts of Jesus found in significant portions of the New Testament.
Debates over geopolitics, a transgender actor portraying a Greek warrior, and a dark-skinned lady as Helen of Troy have been sparked by Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster. However, MacDonald, a biblical scholar, is at the heart of a long-simmering, neglected controversy concerning Homer’s writings.
According to MacDonald and a few other Bible scholars, the New Testament contains traces of Homer’s epic poetry. The Jesus vs Odyssey and Homer’s The Iliad are credited with inspiring classic biblical tales like Jesus walking on water and meeting a demonic man living among the tombs, and Paul being mistaken for a god after being shipwrecked.
According to MacDonald, the authors of these biblical stories weren’t copying Homer. He thinks they were giving Jesus “narrative steroids to let him compete with the mythological heroes of the Greeks and Romans” by employing mimesis, a popular literary technique at the period. The poetry first appeared centuries before the New Testament was canonized, making it almost 3,000 years old.
According to MacDonald, their goal was to demonstrate that Jesus was the “ultimate superhero.
Citing well-known Greek mythological characters, MacDonald tells CNN, “The purpose of many of these stories is to show that Jesus is better than the likes of Achilles, the like of Odysseus, the like of Hermes, and so on.” “Jesus is not only superior to Homeric heroes, but he also possesses greater intelligence and compassion.
MacDonald’s opinions run counter to the conventional wisdom of many biblical experts on the composition of the New Testament. The majority of experts believe that Jewish scriptures and oral traditions—gathered from eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ healings and parables and passed down from generation to generation—remain the primary sources for the New Testament’s epistles, despite some scholars claiming that Homer’s influence can be seen in some passages.
Nevertheless, two competing movements contribute to the significance of MacDonald’s claims. There is a nationwide movement to require Bible instruction in public schools and the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public areas. The Bible, according to certain American Christians, is the product of divine inspiration and is crucial to comprehending what it means to be an American.
However, there is also a growing public awareness that the New Testament was written by “God’s ghostwriters,” according to one academic. These academics contend that the writers of “lost gospels” that were never included in the biblical canon, the enslaved individuals who wrote the New Testament, and even the crosscurrents of Stoic and Platonic thought that prevailed in antiquity all influenced biblical narratives.
These two movements are at odds over issues that people have been raising for centuries:
Who wrote the Bible? Was it people or God? Or perhaps both?
Did Homer influence portrayals of Jesus?
The academics who assert that Homer had an impact on the Bible are hardly outliers. They have a bit of history to their advantage.
According to some academics, it would be challenging for the early authors of the New Testament to avoid Homer’s impact. Biblical historian Margaret M. Mitchell described Homer’s epics as the “theological textbook and cultural standard in the Greco-Roman world.
In school, Roman kids committed Homer to memory. At elegant banquets hosted by their owners, enslaved people read his poetry. Homer was cited by politicians, and murals of Odysseus and other Homeric figures adorned residences.
According to one academic, Homer was inescapable even for those who haven’t read him, just like Shakespeare is for us now.
According to Robyn Faith Walsh, an early Christianity researcher at the University of Miami, “I will tell my students: Regardless of where you went to school or how much schooling you’ve had, usually you’ve been exposed to Shakespeare one way or another.
Even if you’ve never read Shakespeare. Citing the 1999 film “10 Things I Hate About You,” which is based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” she says CNN, “You’ve been exposed to some of those plot points.
Walsh claims that other biblical academics share MacDonald’s viewpoint on the New Testament.
“Anyone in the ancient world who was educated enough to write literature would have read Homer, so the idea of Jesus as something of a hero-type figure is not far off,” she explains.
Regarding the degree of Homer’s effect on the New Testament, however, some academics disagree with MacDonald. According to MacDonald, three New Testament books—the Book of Acts, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Luke—showcase Homer’s impact. Walsh acknowledges that it’s plausible that Homer had some influence on how Jesus was portrayed, but she doesn’t fully accept the breadth and specificity of MacDonald’s similarities. Robert Rabel, another academic, charges MacDonald with “farfetched comparisons” and “analytic overkill.
According to Mitchell, a professor of early Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School, early Christian writers wouldn’t take the chance of associating Jesus with Odysseus, a figure whose cunning, cruelty, and duplicity were well known in the milieu of the first Christian church.
“Early Christ-believers were hardly isolated from the ubiquitous influence of Homeric lore in the ancient world,” Mitchell tells CNN. “However, it is greatly exaggerated to say that significant portions of the New Testament rely on literary borrowing, imitation, and transvaluation of Homer.
How The Odyssey and Nolan’s movie compare to the Bible
You can pass judgment if you’ve read The Odyssey or seen the film. Examine the evidence by opening the New Testament.
Walsh identifies one obvious connection between the accounts of Jesus and Homer. Both Odysseus and Jesus act as undercover operatives in the Odyssey and the Gospels. Even their closest loved ones were unaware of their identities.
Odysseus informs Cyclops, the monster he meets in a cave, that his name is “nobody” in The Odyssey. He disguises himself as a beggar upon his return to Ithaca, keeping his identity a secret from both his most devoted servant, Eumaeus, and his wife, Penelope.
Even his closest followers are first unaware that Jesus is the Messiah, according to the Gospels. We refer to this concealment as the “messianic secret.
According to Walsh, Jesus urges his disciples not to notify anybody while he does miracles.
According to Walsh, the heroes of both tales strategically chose to conceal their identities in order to carry out their missions: Jesus to fulfill his mission, which would require his self-sacrificing death, and Odysseus to seek revenge on his wife’s suitors.
According to Walsh, a reader of the Gospel of Mark, for instance, would see parallels between Homer and Jesus’ attempts to conceal his identity.
She claims that this is precisely how Odysseus is portrayed in Homer. “The hero doesn’t reveal his identity until he is ready to do so. That is a clear indication that the author of the Gospel of Mark studied Homer. He observed that the hero reveals himself when he is ready after reading The Odyssey.
Another well-known New Testament verse about Paul, one of the early church’s founders, is cited by MacDonald.
Paul gets shipwrecked while traveling to Rome in a section of the Book of Acts. After escaping a viper bite, he lands on an island where the locals believe him to be a god.
A disheveled Odysseus is shipwrecked in The Odyssey and washes up on the shore, where he meets Nausicaa, a princess. The princess asks out loud whether Odysseus is a god after he takes a bath to remove the dirt and salt from the shipwreck.
According to MacDonald, “the person who emerges from a shipwreck can be interpreted as a deity in both cases.
MacDonald also highlights more plot parallels between the New Testament and Homer’s Iliad.
When a maritime emergency occurs in The Odyssey, Odysseus dozes off on the ship’s deck. A gospel story about Jesus dozing off on a cushion in the boat’s stern during a violent storm is inspired by that incident.
Jesus is described as walking on water in another verse. The god Hermes, who soars over water in The Odyssey, is emulated in that tale. And in Mark 13–14, a woman anoints Jesus with oil in one of the most moving moments in the Gospel. According to MacDonald, that is comparable to the tale of Odysseus being anointed by an elderly woman in Odyssey 19.
Jesus vs. Odysseus
According to MacDonald, there is another analogy between Homer and the Bible that highlights similarities between Jesus and Odysseus while highlighting Jesus’ supremacy. Horror stories are involved.
Jesus meets a demon-possessed man who resides in the tombs, or caves, in one terrifying scenario. The guy responds, “My name is Legion for we are many,” when Jesus asks him his name. The man is too powerful to be restrained by chains. One of the few instances in the Bible where Jesus finds it difficult to heal someone is this one. However, after healing the man, Jesus casts the devils into a herd of pigs that drown after falling over a cliff.
Two creatures are encountered by Odysseus, with varying outcomes. Both the epic poem and the movie feature these sequences. He meets Circe, a formidable sorcerer who entices Odysseus’ men to peril, and Cyclops in a cave. With the aid of a magical herb, Odysseus defeats the Cyclops and flees Circe, but not before losing a few of his soldiers.
“Mark wanted his readers to understand that Jesus was a superior and stronger hero than Homer’s. According to MacDonald’s book “Mythologizing Jesus,” Jesus “made a monster sane, whereas Odysseus blinded a monster.” “Jesus is a compassionate hero.
MacDonald, whose father was a fundamentalist pastor, believes that some of his coworkers have shunned him because of his assertions. He makes light of the fact that some of his detractors have “Homerphobia,” which is an exaggerated response to the idea that parts of the New Testament are heavily influenced by Homer.
He claims that asserting that the New Testament was inspired by God is risky.
According to him, “arrogance and worse, social competition, are likely to ensue once one claims revelations from God.” “Jesus and his teachings were shaped to meet the human challenges of their ancient readers by early Christian intellectuals who wrote the New Testament Gospels in a sophisticated and creative manner.
However, what happens if you explain to someone that the New Testament is a work of literature? Some people claim that their lives have been changed by the conviction that “all scripture is God-breathed” and that their religion is based on an infallible Bible.
Walsh, a professor at the University of Miami, has an alternative viewpoint.
She thinks it’s crucial for people to keep in mind that humans are the source of everything we know about the past and that people frequently find it difficult to understand events and derive meaning from life-changing experiences.
According to her, “some readers find that acknowledging those human fingerprints makes the texts more interesting and, in some ways, more relatable, rather than undermining faith.
The controversy surrounding Homer’s epic poetry is not new. Historians claim that disputes arose in antiquity regarding Jesus vs Odysseus‘ travels and the faithfulness of his wife, Penelope. The Roman philosopher Seneca maintained that the meaning of Homer’s epic poetry was consistently misunderstood.
The popularity of “The Odyssey” is claimed to demonstrate that people are open to returning to the movies. It also demonstrates another point. Human nature is the same even when we no longer sail “wine-dark” waters full of monsters or wear togas.
The mysterious poet Homer continues to inspire and provoke us all.