Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East

Bruce Louden is Professor in the Languages and Linguistics Department at the University of Texas, El Paso. His previous books are The Odyssey: Structure, Narration, and Meaning (1999) and The Iliad: Structure, Myth, and Meaning (2006).

Explores the parallels between the Odyssey and genres of myth extant in various Near Eastern cultures, in particular the Bible.

Introduction; 1. Divine councils and apocalyptic myth; 2. Theoxeny: Odyssey 1, 3, 13¿22, and Genesis 18¿19; 3. Romance: the Odyssey and the myth of Joseph (Genesis 37, 39¿47); 4. Helen and Rahab (Joshua 2), Menelaus and Jacob (Genesis 32:22¿32); 5. Ogygia and creation myth, Kalypso and Ishtar; 6. Argonautic myth: Odysseus and Nausikaa/Circe, Jason and Medea, Jacob and Rachel (Odyssey 6¿8, 10¿12, 13.1¿187, Genesis 28¿33); 7. Odysseus and Jonah: sea-monsters and the fantastic voyage; 8. The combat myth: Polyphemos and Humbaba; 9. Catabasis, consultation, and the vision: Odyssey 11, 1 Samuel 28, Gilgamesh 12, Aeneid 6, and the Book of Revelation; 10. Odyssey 12 and Exodus 32: Odysseus and Moses, the people defy their leader and rebel against God; 11. The suitors and the depiction of impious men in wisdom literature; 12. Odysseus and Jesus: the King returns, unrecognized and abused in his own Kingdom; 13. Contained apocalypse: Odyssey 12, 13, 22 and 24, Exodus 32 (and Genesis 18¿19); Conclusion.