Bible Homer and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths

<p><em>The Bible Homer and the Search for Meaning in Ancient My</em>ths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility – almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible—for humans to discover ethical norms accept death as a necessary human limit develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion.</p><p></p><p>Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh’s Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don’t live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural anthropomorphic and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer’s polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully <i>without any help from the divine.</i> In other words to live well in Homer’s tragic world – an insight gleaned by Achilles the hero of the <i>Iliad</i> – <em>one must live as if there were no gods at all</em>.</p><p></p><p>The Bible Homer and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics biblical studies theology and philosophy have – especially between disciplines – about the gods of early Greek epic while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life. </p>