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All right, confession time: I spent a lot of my time reading the Odyssey hating on Odysseus. Between all the seemingly reckless and arrogant decisions he made, I found myself kind of looking at hime like a heroic sissy.
But now as I am reading Genesis critically through the lens of literature, I’m realizing at a deeper level that the people in the Bible really didn’t behave very prettily all of the time either. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob - they all made some pretty “reckless” decisions at different times all throughout their lives.
So we are dealing with flawed people.
Both the Odyssey and Genesis are incredibly well-preserved ancient texts.
Both tales focus on the interactions of God/gods and man.
What makes the Bible different?
In the Odyssey, we see man-made gods constantly fighting one another. We see a world in chaos directed by gods of chaos. This is a man-formed world. One where human men create human gods.
In contrast, one the Biblical side of things, we see a perfect God create perfect man. When those men fall, we see a God who doesn’t go for a quick fix (DESTROY ALL EVIL EVER!!!), but a loving God who allows free choice, and eventually sacrifices everything to selflessly save his flawed beings. That isn’t a concept created by flawed men, but a truth circulated by a living God.
Don’t you think that’s worth capitalizing?
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p.s. I commented on Ashley Harding's post :)
Love this. A difference is consistency. We see so many inconsistencies in the character of the mythological gods. But God is consistent. His ways are just and sure. Not flaky and shaky.
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