The Bible & the Odyssey: Polar Opposites?

[00:00:00]Yes, I've seen the movie, The Odyssey, the Christopher Nolan movie, and I mostly liked it. I think it's a six out of 10, but I have some really serious thoughts about the whole epic of The Odyssey and its message from a professor of theology here at the University of Notre Dame. This is not only based on the movie, which as these things go is kind of close to the book, but it's also based on the book itself. Look, look what I have here. This is my original OG copy of The Odyssey from when I was forced to read it in school. There's a little inscription I wrote in 1991, Gabriel Said Reynolds, 1991.

[00:00:45]There are three points I'd like to make about The Odyssey from the perspective of a theology professor. Number one is about the love or the marriage between Odysseus and Penelope. So, it's kind of a story of faithfulness, but actually not really. I mean, there's the very triumphant scene at the end where Odysseus comes back, you know, kills all the suitors, they're reunited. In the book, Penelope actually is extremely cautious before she is like, "Okay, you really are Odysseus." In the movie, it happens pretty pretty quickly, but in the book, you know, it has to do with the bed, and the bed has a post from a live tree, and then they [clears throat] have their moment of bliss together. But, how much faithfulness is there in the marriage? Now, on the one hand, Odysseus actually has the option to remain forever with a goddess, with Calypso, and he says no to that offer so that he can continue his quest to get home to Penelope.

[00:01:51]But, he does stay there for a while. He also stays for a while with Circe, something not in the movie and shares her bed or the bed of both of those divine ladies and she never really seems guilty. There's no like confession scene where he's like, "Listen, Penelope, I've tell you something.

[00:02:10]You know, I just have to tell you. I'm really sorry." Like there's none of those kinds of scenes. And also, though not in the movie, eventually Odysseus kind of gets bored of Penelope and then goes off alone on a quest into the distant reaches in the west. In the movie, they go off together and there's kind of marital love shown at the end, but that's not actually in the book. So, do they represent a faithful marriage?

[00:02:39]Yeah, Penelope does. Does Odysseus?

[00:02:42]No. And of course, from a theological perspective, you know, scripture, the Bible is pretty clear that marriage is forever between a man and a woman. And it even gives us a spiritual metaphor between Christ and the church. So, there's this elevated spiritual picture of marriage, which definitely is not the picture of Homer in the Odyssey.

[00:03:05]Number two is the scene in the book.

[00:03:08]This was kind of one of the cheesier scenes in the movie where Odysseus decides he's going to actually be the first one to listen to the sirens. The sirens are these sort of magical supernatural creatures who like to lure men onto their island and then devour them, which is why there's bones all over their island, which should be a sign to people passing by that there's some danger there. So, Odysseus, you know, lashes himself to the mast and refuses to block up his ears with wax so that he can hear the beautiful sirens call and he tells everyone, "Listen, I'm probably going to like command you to release me, but don't let me go no matter what. Don't let me go." From Homer's perspective, this was a good thing Odysseus did. Uh he's a hero because he does things others didn't, and that is sort of the goal of a human, to be a hero. He's really held up as an exemplar. It might be compared to similar stories in the Bible, but in which the desire to be more than a kind of normal human uh to elevate oneself lead to trouble.

[00:04:23]So, of course, this is the case with Adam and Eve, the serpent that tempts them with eating the forbidden fruit says, uh you will not die, you will be like gods, and that convinces them. The story of the Tower of Babel is about all of the humans gathered there in a valley who decide to build a tower, not just cuz towers are cool, but to make a name for themselves.

[00:04:50]And so, the Bible seems to teach something the opposite of Homer in this regard. Human the human destiny is uh not to challenge God or to seek greatness for the sake of greatness, to try to turn oneself into a god. Uh in fact, human well-being and flourishing is found in accepting um oneself as a human and even recognizing the need of God in one's life. And so, we might contrast the story of Odysseus and the Sirens with the example, for example, of Mary in the scene of the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke, where we see her humility, and for her humility, she is lifted up. All generations will call her blessed.

[00:05:42]Okay, the uh third point from Odysseus is that creepy scene in the movie where he goes and he speaks with the dead.

[00:05:52]What a surprise he finds Agamemnon there. He's like, "Wait, I saw you and you were still alive." And he tells the story of Clytemnestra and how when he returned home from the Trojan War, he was murdered by his wife for a good reason, by the way, cuz he had slaughtered their daughter just so he could get favorable winds to go off to Troy. But also in the movie and even more profoundly in the book of the Odyssey, the world of the dead is a dismal place.

[00:06:25]So, there's no sense of a reward in the kind of shady existence of the afterlife.

[00:06:32]And in fact, you know, we hear even from Achilles, whose it doesn't show up in the movie, who he's the hero from the Iliad, from the actual fighting in Troy, that life itself is the point. So, you know, hold on to life or carpe diem, seize each day of life in order to um uh just, you know, make the best of it.

[00:06:58]Not even carpe diem in the sense of do something great, but just like, you know, even being a servant or whatever in life is better than being dead because there's nothing great that's going to happen. And you see that sort of represented in the movie.

[00:07:12]Actually, it's a good scene in the movie, I think, where they have to drink blood from a sacrificed animal even to have the strength to be able to speak.

[00:07:20]This forms a profound contrast. Christ in the Gospels uses the analogy of a wedding banquet, a celebration, a joyful celebration. Again, there's that metaphor maybe of Christ and the church in that. In Islam as well, and Muslims dispute over whether to interpret these things allegorically or literally, but heaven is presented as a garden, the highest bliss, the highest happiness is not in this life. It's in the next life.