Connecting the Odyssey to the Torah
Seven Connections You May Have Missed Between the Odyssey and the Hebrew Bible
Like many clergy members-to-be, I grew up fascinated by Greek mythology and its stories of human beings striving with gods. I remember reading Greek classics like the Iliad and Odyssey as a child. Later, when studying abroad in Israel, I even flew to the west coast of Turkey to visit the ancient site of Troy, replete with a wooden horse, erected for tourists. And so like many others, I was excited to see Christopher Nolan’s depiction of the Greek saga.
Believed to have been written somewhere around the 6-7th century BCE, the Odyssey’s timeline matches rather well with the writing of the Torah and other elements of the Hebrew Bible, with both based upon earlier oral traditions. This was a period of great upheaval for the larger region, with the ending of the Bronze age and the rise of the Assyrian empire (which conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in the 9th century BCE) and later the Babylonian empire (which conquered the southern kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE); hence the need to secure oral traditions into written form. Perhaps this helps to explain several thematic connections between the two volumes.
And so for your summer reading enjoyment, as the number seven carries deep significance for wholeness and fulfillment (as in the seven days of creation), here are seven moments in which this connection is revealed:
- A long voyage home in which almost no one survives
According to the Odyssey, of the 600 men who set out from Troy, Odysseus is the only one to survive the voyage and the encounters with various threats along the way. Similarly, in its final four books, the Torah tells the story of a forty-year journey home, in which the Israelites face a series of tests and challenges. As in the Odyssey, there is a foreign sorcerer (Bilaam) and tempting relationships (such as with the Midianites). Ultimately, Caleb and Joshua are the only Israelites to complete the voyage, as even Moses dies before entering into the land.
The Torah tells of 600,000 Israelites (though counting only males of fighting age) embarking upon the journey. However, after the sin of the spies, God commands the Israelites to wander in the wilderness until a new generation, born free, rather than as slaves, is ready to conquer the land.
The voyage is also reminiscent of Jonah’s sail from Jaffa to Ninevah. Just as Poseidon churns the seas against Odysseus and his men, God brings rough waters in order to keep Jonah from fleeing westward towards Tarshish instead of God’s intended itinerary northward towards the Assyrian capital. Upon facing the rough waves, Jonah’s crewmates divine God’s will through drawing stars, reluctantly throwing Jonah overboard to calm the seas. (Jonah 1)
2. The importance of welcoming strangers
One current running throughout the Odyssey and emphasized by Nolan’s depiction is the importance of welcoming strangers as guests. Referred to as “Zeus’s law” in the story, it matches the Torah’s emphasis on the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim – welcoming strangers. This value is first demonstrated by Abraham and Sarah, who welcome angelic strangers into their tent, and like in the movie, engage in the ritual of washing their guests’ feet. As a consequence, Sarah is told that even in her old age, she will give birth to a son. To this day, the value of hachnasat orchim remains a staple of Jewish life, with open-sided wedding chuppah a symbol of Abraham and Sarah’s home.
One sidenote here – the motif of nobles and gods masking themselves as beggars, such as Odysseus upon his return to Ithaca, is found in many cultures, including Hawaiian mythology. Growing up in Hawaii, we were told legends of the fire goddess Pele, who could be found at the side of the road as either a poor older woman or young child, dressed in white. The legend offers the warning that all who failed to care for this lonely individual would be cursed, while those showing care would be blessed.
3. The sin of sacrificing one’s child
The Iliad tells of Agamemnon killing his eldest daughter Iphigenia as a sacrifice to the goddess Artemis. The Odyssey then depicts Agamemnon’s murder as a consequence for his actions. The Torah demonstrates a similar concern for the ancient practice of infanticide, most notably featured in the binding of Isaac, as read on Rosh Hashanah. While the Torah presents Abraham in a positive light for being willing to obey God’s obscene commandment, God ultimately stops the execution.
Later commentaries are often less supportive of Abraham, criticizing him for not pushing back against God on his own son’s behalf, although he is willing to do so for strangers in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. Later in the Torah, infanticide is strictly forbidden and the foreign tribe of Molech is called out for continuing this barbaric practice. (Lev 18)
An additional sidenote – the barbarism of infanticide as a means to gain the favor of the deity is also featured prominently in the show Game of Thrones, in which the King Stanus Baratheon sacrifices his daughter Shereen in the hopes of gaining divine intervention in his upcoming battle, ultimately to no end.
4. Blinded guards fooled by animal skins
In one of the most famous scenes from the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men escape the Cyclops by hiding under his flock of sheep as the blinded giant’s hand grazes over them. The Torah provides us with a nearly perfect parallel, with the aging and blinded Isaac being fooled by his son Jacob, who dresses up as his animalistic brother Esau by donning animal skins and fur. Just as the Cyclops is fooled, Isaac is tricked into giving Isaac the blessing intended for his older brother Esau when he reaches out and feels animal hair.
More broadly, the ancient practice of animal sacrifice entailed the lives of sheep, goats, and bulls being taken in the place of humans. In the scapegoat ritual of Yom Kippur, the priest would place the sins of the people upon two goats – one to be sacrificed as expiation to God and the second to carry those sins away into the wilderness. In both stories, humans are spared or blessed based upon their ability to substitute or disguise themselves as animals.
5. Gluttony punished through lethal overeating
Long before Dante’s Inferno and Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, the sin of gluttony was well chronicled in ancient literature. In the Odyssey, on the island of Aeaea, the sorceress Circe welcomes Odysseus’ ravenous crew. Gulping down stew with unbridled voracity, the concoction turns lethal as Circe transforms the men into swine, before Odysseus later arrives and saves them.
While the Torah lacks stories of such transformation, the Israelites exhibit similar qualities when they revolt against Moses in the wilderness. Sick of eating the manna provided by God, they cry to return to Egyptian servitude, where at least they could eat. They call out, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!” (Num 11).
In response to their lack of gratitude and display of gluttony, God vows to overstuff the revolting Israelites with meat for an entire month. Making copious amounts of quail fall from the sky, God causes a plague to descend upon those rebelling against Moses, as they eat. The Torah reads, “The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed, when God’s anger blazed forth against the people.” (Num 11)
6. Sacred cows
In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s men are punished for eating the sacred cattle of the sun God Helios, by being killed in a violent storm and shipwreck sent by Zeus. The motif of the sacred cow was common in the ancient world (as well as many parts of the world still today), as the cow provides both milk and meat while itself offering no violent threat.
The most notable reference to such symbolism in the Torah is found in the building of the egel zahav – the golden calf, which the Israelites construct when they fear that Moses will not return from Mount Sinai. In this reference, the calf stands for sustenance and abundance when the people fear for their ability to survive in the wilderness.
The Torah is also chock full of references to the sacrifice of cows, bulls, sheep and goats, as mentioned in point 3 above. Finally, there is the mysterious mitzvah of the red heifer, a unique and unblemished cow to be sacrificed and used for priestly purification (see Num 19).
7. The revelation of Greeks being the “Sea People”
In typical Nolan fashion, the Odyssey movie features a late reveal (spoiler alert): the violent “sea people” Odyssey has heard of are the Greeks themselves. Through the decades-long siege upon Troy and the conquering of trade routes, the Greeks have become the adversaries they had most feared.
In similar fashion, the Book of Judges finds the Israelites warring against the coastal tribe of the Philistines. In The Book of Samuel, the Ark of the Covenant is lost in military battle against the Philistines (1st Samuel 4-6). Later, the Israelite David faces off against the Philistine Goliath (1st Samuel 17).
Modern historians largely agree that the Philistines were likely of Greek origin, with seafaring Aegean wayfarers landing and settling on the Mediterranean coast. Egyptian inscriptions from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses III document a group called the Peleset. Most historians identify them as the Philistines, who arrived via the sea during the wider Bronze Age collapse around 1175 BCE. The Hebrew Bible itself associates the Philistines with Caphtor (Jeremiah 47, Amos 9), which historians identify as the Mediterranean island of Crete. And so Nolan’s take on the “Sea People” seems rather fitting.
The Obvious Difference
While we can admire the many literary connections between the Odyssey and the Hebrew Bible, one fundamental difference stands out: while the Odyssey offers yet another polytheistic story of gods warring with one another and using humans as their pawns, the Torah and larger Hebrew Bible offers a groundbreaking, revolutionary idea: that there is only one God, who is beyond the sun, the moon, the stars, the seas and the heavens. As this God stands alone as the creator and sustainor of the universe, it is God alone who deserves our praise. As the polytheistic priests of Ba’al proclaim in the words which conclude Yom Kippur’s Neilah service (1st Kings 18):
Adonai Hu HaElohim
Adonai alone is our God!
Therefore, although these two tales contain various points of intersection, they ultimately mark two cultures heading in opposite directions. Thus while the Odyssey stands as a landmark piece of literature, the Torah continues to inspire religious devotion and adherence, even today.