emotional

So you say the Bible is more comparable to Mein Kampf than to the Odyssey? How sad.

Pyrrho

I have not read Mein Kampf, so I am not saying any such thing.

The Bible is, first of all, not really a unified whole, but a collection of separate and distinct books. Not surprisingly, they vary in their literary style and merit. And even individual books, such as Genesis, are, according to many scholars, compilations of other works, which explains why, for example, Genesis has two creation stories, inconsistent with each other. In its current form, the book of Genesis is quite a mess rather than a coherent story. Additionally, the morals suggested by it are worse than those suggested by works like The Odyssey. With Genesis, knowledge is bad (eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and you die); with The Odyssey, being knowledgeable is considered to be good. The Bible tends to tell stories where God is completely unreasonable (e.g., Job) and psychotic (e.g., any New Testament book in which Jesus is murdered because God is mad at others), but the gods in The Odyssey behave much more like regular people. The Bible glorifies insanity; The Odyssey glorifies courage and fidelity.

kkawohl

Spam deleted - liv

lpetrich

There is some historicity in the Odyssey:

The Laestrygonians seem like Scandinavians:

They live in 24-hour daytime and they live in long, rocky bays with high cliffs on each side.

The 24-hour daytime is correct for the summer, the easiest time to travel by sea and visit the area, and those bays seem like fjords.

Also, the Cyclopes looks like they had been inspired by fossil elephant skulls: the nose hole seems almost like a single eye socket.

But for the most part, the Odyssey best viewed as sword-and-sorcery fantasy.

My favorite feature of the Odyssey is how Odysseus wins by cleverness. When he and his men were trapped in a Cyclops's home, they recognized that they need that Cyclops alive in order to move the door stone and let them escape, so they decided to blind him rather than kill him. And they got out by hanging beneath the Cyclops's livestock, holding on with arms and legs. As an additional insult, Odysseus identified himself as "Nobody" (oudeis in Greek).

That's also a nice feature of the exploits of Hercules and Theseus -- they win by cleverness as well as by strength.

emotional

Biff compared the Bible to a tiger that will eat you alive. To me it sounds like strong advice to keep the Bible under a leash - to ban it or something similar.

Oh well, maybe I shouldn't overact. I don't have any reservations about banning the Qur'an, for example. Only that it won't work, of course. With the Qur'an, as with the Bible, the work to be done is to convince people that it's just a bunch of fictional stories and not the Word of God. So I think the liberal's approach is a noble one.

Biff the unclean

Biff compared the Bible to a tiger that will eat you alive. To me it sounds like strong advice to keep the Bible under a leash - to ban it or something similar.
No, I am just talking about honesty.
The author of the article in the OP advises you to "learn to understand that there are other readings possible" which means don't think that the bad parts are bad. That ridiculous and more than a little dangerous.
Christianity reigned supreme in the Western world for fifteen hundred years and it was a disaster. Present day Christians look back at them and say "they weren't real Christians. Jesus never wanted anyone to behave like that." Which is complete bull. These earlier Christians were following god's word to the letter. To pretend that they weren't is to ignore the hate and violence that it inspires. We ignore that at our own peril.

Pyrrho

I agree. The "liberal" Christians are essentially dishonest and misrepresent the Bible.

(I did not notice your original post at first, because my original post was posted in the same minute.)

Pyrrho

Yes, they value intelligence, courage, and strength. In other words, they value actual ability, which is quite a contrast with the general thrust of the Bible. Plus, the entire Odyssey is the story of how Odysseus is trying to get home to his wife and son. He even rejects living forever with a beautiful goddess/divine woman on an island in order to do so. Hence, it is a glorification of fidelity as well.

Biff the unclean

Weeeeeeeellllll.....if you over look a little fing with Calypso and that thing with Circe.
It glorifies the fidelity of Penelope and Argos the dog

Pyrrho

The ancient Greeks did not expect husbands to be monogamous. Sexual fidelity is not the only kind of fidelity. Perhaps you have been spending too much time with that filth called "the Bible", with its prurient god, so your mind naturally tends toward the gutter.

Odysseus was fulfilling the obligations that were expected of marriage at that time. He was not interested in abandoning his wife, but an ancient Greek marriage allowed husbands to engage in sexual activities with other people.

Additionally, if my memory is correct (it has been a long time since I read The Odyssey), his sexual activities were beneficial for him being able to get back home, as he needed help in getting home, to overcome the gods that were opposing him. But, again, the ancient Greek marriage did not include a vow of monogamy for the husband, so he was not breaking his agreement or contract with his wife whether it was helpful in getting home or not.