World Literature from a Christian Perspective

World Literature from a Christian Perspective

By Edwin McAllister

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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Introduction to the Old Testament 8

Introduction to The Iliad 17

Introduction to The Odyssey 29

Introduction to Agamemnon 39

Introduction to Oedipus 50

Introduction to The Aeneid 59

Introduction to the New Testament 73

Introduction to The Confessions 79

Introduction to Beowulf 84

Introduction to The Inferno 90

Introduction to The Canterbury Tales 96

Introduction to Luther’s Commentary on Galatians 104

Introduction to The Prince 110

Introduction to “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” 115

Introduction to Hamlet 121

Introduction to Paradise Lost 130

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World Literature From A Christian Perspective Introduction

When I was in grade school, I had an argument with a friend over the ethics of telling lies. We were having a schoolyard fight over a lie I’d been telling recently. I claimed to have broken my leg in order to avoid playing tackle football at recess, and my friend told me that I could not lie because “the Bible says lying is wrong.” I challenged him to “find the place” where the Bible says lying is wrong.

Finding “the place” turned out to be more difficult than my friend thought it would be. It took us half an hour to find the Ten Commandments in the dusty old King James we dug up, but when we did locate them, “Thou shalt not tell lies” was not among them. Instead, what we found was “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16). That didn’t help much, since it didn’t really cover what I was doing. At worst, I was bearing false witness against myself. In our further attempt to find “the rule,” what we discovered was a lot of stories and poems and precious few straightforward “thou shalt not kill”-type rules.

Although we didn’t realize it at the time, my friend and I were learning a valuable lesson about the Bible: often, rather than directly stating truth or ethical ideals, the Bible uses literary techniques to embody or incarnate ideas. In other words, rather than saying “do not lie,” the Bible shows God’s hatred for lying in stories like that of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 or in figurative language like that Jesus uses in John 8 when he identifies Satan as “the father of lies.” Acts 5 never literally says “Do not lie,” but when Ananias and Sapphira are struck dead by God after lying to the Holy Spirit, the story shows that God hates lying. When Jesus identifies Satan as the father of lies he does not literally mean that Satan is a father who has lies as his children; instead, by identifying Satan as “the father” of lies, he implies that Satan is the ultimate source of all falsehood. Stories and figures like these embody God’s love of the truth and his hatred for falsehood.

Literature not only embodies propositional truths like “God hates lies,” it also conveys experiential truth, or what it feels like to live through a particular experience. At times, such experiential truth can gratify our curiosity about other lives, other cultures, and other times. None of us is likely to experience the brutal hand-to-hand combat described so precisely in the Iliad, but reading the Iliad can help us to understand something of the terror and exhilaration these warriors felt.

But the experiential dimension of literature does more than simply gratify our curiosity about the experiences of other people and places. The best literature teaches us something about how it feels to be a limited human being living in a fallen world. The Iliad not only asks us to experience combat, but to experience the grief of losing someone close to us. Achilles’ grief for Patroclus can help us to understand our own grief and how to avoid the worst excesses to which grief can drive us. Achilles’ grief can cause us to reflect on our own human limitations and the temptation to live as if those limitations did not exist. When we respond to good works of literature by saying to ourselves: “Yes, that is what life is like; that is how it feels to be human,” we are responding to the experiential truth that literature conveys.

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Finally, literature is frequently a better learning tool than propositional language. Memorizing the ten commandments is a chore. Remembering the basic outline of the story of Joseph is simple, yet that same story has as much to teach us about the character of God as the Ten Commandments, and perhaps more, as we shall see.

In addition to being pleasurable for its own sake (everyone loves stories), literature can intensify the impact of what we read by speaking to our hearts rather than to our heads only, implanting its lessons far more deeply than “head knowledge.” Literature is also easier to remember, a way of saying a great deal in a small space. When David writes “The Lord is my shepherd,” he’s using a metaphor that contains volumes of information about God—information that need not be memorized because it is packed into the metaphor itself.

Psalm 73, which we will explore at some length, is a great example of how Biblical literature can embody both propositional and experiential truth.

Psalm 73 1 Truly God is good to the upright,

to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. 5 They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. 7 Their eyes swell out with fatness;

their hearts overflow with follies.

8 They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. 9 They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.

10 Therefore their people turn to them and praise them; and find no fault in them. 11 They say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?”

12 This is what the wicked are like- always carefree, they increase in wealth. 13 Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. 14 All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.

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15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children. 16 When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. 18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you make them fall down to ruin. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! 20 As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. 23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 27 Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds. *This is the “New Revised Standard McAllister Version” (NRSMV) of this Psalm, cobbled together from several other translations.

The psalm begins with a statement of propositional truth: “Truly God is good to the upright.” We might notice, though, that the speaker begins this statement with the word “Truly,” as though the statement needed some intensification, indicating the speaker’s recognition that the propositional statement of the first verse (“God is good to the upright”) is not self-evident. From its beginning line, then, the poem embodies the truths of human experience, where short-term observations do not always support the abstract claims made elsewhere in the Bible. Is God really “good to the upright”? A cursory glance at the world would certainly suggest otherwise, for it is

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frequently the case that those who despise God and trample his truth seem to be the most “blessed.”

The dissonance between the Biblical truth that “God is good to the upright” and the experiential evidence of human observation is the puzzle that the speaker mulls over in this poem. The psalm itself embodies this dissonance because the claim that is ultimately upheld in the psalm (God IS good to the upright) is at first stated only as an abstract proposition, whereas the evidence against the claim (the wicked are prospering) is presented in a series of concrete images, which we will explore in some detail below.

The speaker begins with a series of relatively straightforward observations about the prosperity of the wicked: “they have no struggles” and “their bodies are healthy and strong.” The language becomes more recognizably literary when the speaker claims that “pride is their necklace.” “Pride” cannot literally be worn around the neck; this is figurative language. In this case, the figure is called a metaphor, a comparison that does not use the words “like” or “as.” Instead of saying “A is like B” (a figure called a simile), metaphor instead makes the much stronger and more striking claim that “A is B.” Metaphor helps us to grasp something abstract or unfamiliar (the pride of the wicked) by comparing it with something concrete and familiar (a person wearing a necklace). A necklace is something worn openly, often as a way of displaying prosperity (especially thick gold chains or jewels). So the suggestion here is that the wicked are not even ashamed of their pride, but rather display it openly.

The speaker goes on to tell us that the eyes of the wicked “swell out with fatness.” Again, the speaker simply presents us with a word-picture, but the picture speaks clearly enough that no further explanation is necessary. In this culture, fatness is not shameful, but is instead a sign of prosperity, indicating that one does not have to do manual labor and can afford to eat a great deal of rich food. So the image of the eyes of the wicked swelling out with fatness embodies or incarnates the abstract idea that the wicked are prospering.

An even more interesting figure appears in verse 9, where we are told that the tongue of the wicked “struts through the earth.” (NASB translates “struts” here as “parades.”) The figure here is called personification, which happens when a writer invests an object with human properties. In this case, a tongue is made to walk grandly around the earth as if it had legs and a brain to guide it. The psalmist asks us to see the picture as a way of understanding the real object he is describing: the words of the wicked, which are obviously as full of false pride as a lone man strutting through the earth laying claim to all that he sees.

Verses 10 and 11 show us the effect of the apparent prosperity of the wicked: other people admire the wicked and turn away from God. Seeing the wicked go unpunished, they are encouraged to engage in wicked behavior themselves. After all, if God does not punish the wicked but gives them prosperity, maybe he does not watch over human behavior at all. Of course, the psalm doesn’t literally say any of this. Instead, it simply reports the actions and speech of “the people” and leaves us to infer what these speeches and actions mean. The speaker even begins to report his own frustration with God’s

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lack of oversight in allowing the wicked to prosper by directly reporting his own thoughts: “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure.” In other words, “What a waste of time to be obedient to God if wicked people have all the wealth, health, and happiness.”

But the psalm does not leave us to sort unaided through the implications of the disheartening experience of seeing the wicked prosper. Instead, just after verse 14, at the exact midpoint of the psalm, the tone changes based on the speaker’s having “entered the sanctuary of God.” This last phrase is more figurative language serving to indicate not necessarily a change in physical location, but a figurative change in thinking, since “entering” this sanctuary involves an entire change of heart on the part of the thinker, a change that will be embodied in the rest of the psalm.

This change of heart might be described as a shift from short-term to long-term thinking; the shift is incarnated for us in figurative language. The speaker remembers here that God places the wicked “on slippery ground.” Of course, the speaker does not literally mean that God puts down wicked people in the mud, but that figuratively speaking, the wicked are in “slippery places,” places where one cannot stand long before falling. “Slippery place” is a physical metaphor describing the spiritual position of the wicked before God. The implication, here and elsewhere, is that destruction is coming on the wicked eventually. The ultimate destruction of the wicked is one of the most fundamental of all Biblical themes, embodied in stories all over the Bible.

When we begin to allow ourselves to think in Biblical terms, when our hearts are soaked in the truth of the Bible, we understand that the prosperity of the wicked is only temporary. God has never allowed the wicked to prosper unpunished, though retribution comes on God’s timetable and not on man’s. God’s character as the punisher of evil deeds has not changed. The history of God’s interaction with humans is full of stories of the temporary prosperity of the wicked being ultimately placed under God’s judgment.

In Psalm 73, the speaker’s ultimate embrace of God’s way of thinking, comes through, rather than apart from, a wrestling with the fallen world and its apparent contradiction of Biblical truth. The speaker in the psalm reaches solid ground theologically only after looking carefully and actively at his world, even in those places where the facts seem to contradict scripture, even at those actions and behaviors that are displeasing to God, not hiding from them, but encountering them and thinking about what they mean. To extend the psalmist’s metaphor, we enter the sanctuary of God by passing through the courtyard of critical thinking.

My prayer is that, even as the psalmist’s view of the world is deepened by approaching the evidence of experience from a Biblical perspective, your encounter with literature will help you undergo the same process of transformation this psalm embodies. This process is described by Paul in Romans 12:2, when he warns against being “conformed to this world,” as the speaker of the psalm appears to be in the first fourteen verses, relying solely on his short-term observations of the prosperity of the wicked. Paul commands instead that we allow ourselves to be “transformed by the renewing of [our] mind[s], that [we] may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will

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of God.” Knowing the will, and thus the character, of God, is the end or purpose of all human knowledge. The study of the best literature can be an invaluable aid in that process.

Worldview The Bible teaches us that humans are limited beings who exist in a fallen

world, a world that is very different from the world that God originally created for us to occupy. God created us with a consciousness that was designed for a perfect world, but, like fish out of water, we no longer occupy that world. As a result, our minds constantly scream that something is wrong. The hard facts of existence—death, disease, aging, human evil, our own loneliness and sense of isolation—strike us as desperately wrong, so we naturally search for answers. This search is as human and normal as breathing.

The mere fact of human consciousness, of existing in a fallen world, forces on each of us certain questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What should I be doing? What went wrong? Where am I? Who (or what) is in control of events? No culture has ever existed that did not feel the need to answer these questions, for they are built into the very nature of man.

Your answers to these questions define your worldview, your way of thinking about yourself and your relationship to the world and to God. Every human being has a worldview; some are more explicit and carefully constructed than others, but we all have one. One of the goals of this anthology is to encourage you to think more carefully about your own worldview and to begin “taking every thought captive” so that your thinking will become more clearly in line with a Biblical worldview. For organizational purposes, I am dividing these worldview questions up into three areas: view of man (who am I?), view of the world (where am I?), and view of the divine (what, or who, is in charge?). In practice, we’ll see that all of these questions are inter-related, that answering any of these questions in a particular way affects the way we answer the others.

View of Man Who am I? Every worldview attempts to provide a meaningful answer to

this question, an answer that helps an individual to understand his relationship with the world and with the divine. Am I created or did I “just happen”? Do I have free will, or are my actions predetermined by some external force? Can I take significant action? How can I live a meaningful life? How useful is my reason? How do I balance my responsibilities to the community with my own desires? Are my abilities and gifts in life the result of who my parents are? How important are “every day” events like cooking, eating, and caring for children? Are they less important than extraordinary events like wars, counsels, and business meetings? How important is romantic love? Is love merely a distraction from more important matters?

View of World Where am I? The nature of the world we inhabit has been a subject of

reflection for philosophers and scientists since the beginnings of recorded history. The primary questions that humans have asked about the world involve orderliness. Does the world display an order, a predictable pattern of behavior, or is the world simply random? Psalm 73 seems to be asking

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precisely this question; after all, if evildoers flourish, there must be no order. Answers to this question are generally based on how one answers other related questions: was the world created, or did it just happen? Is the physical world all that exists, or is there a spiritual world as well? Does the physical world really exist? Some non-Christian worldviews like Hinduism and Christian Science hold that the material world is merely an illusion and that the only “real” world is the spiritual. Other worldviews like Platonism hold that the material world exists but is only a shabby and imperfect reflection of the truly significant spiritual world. Finally, some worldviews like scientific determinism insist that the spiritual world does not exist at all, or if it does it is unnecessary for explaining the physical world. View of the world also includes views about man’s ultimate destination: where (if anywhere) do we go after death?

View of the Divine What (or who) is in control? The Bible tells us that God created humans

to be in a close and loving relationship with Him; when man sinned, he cut himself off from his relationship with God. Ever since, man apart from God has felt deeply that something or someone must be in control of the observable world, working behind the scenes. But different cultures and groups without the Biblical revelation of God have disagreed about the nature of that divine someone or something. Is there a force that transcends the physical world that controls it? Does that force have personal features like emotions, memory, or planning? If the force is personal, is there one God, as the Hebrew tradition insists, or are there many, as the Greeks, Hindus, and Mormons claim? How complete is the control of the divine over physical affairs? Did the force that controls the universe actually create the universe?

Organization of Chapters Each chapter of the textbook consists of an introduction to a single piece

of literature or selections from a single work or author. Each chapter will be divided into five, and sometimes six, sections. The first section of each chapter will be entitled “Introduction” and will include general notes about the author, the immediate historical context for the work, changes in critical opinions or receptions of the work, and other matters not directly related to worldview issues. The next three sections of each chapter (“View of Man,” “View of the Divine,” “View of the World”) will discuss how the work or group of works reflects a particular worldview. Where necessary, chapters will also include “Individual Analysis of Major Characters.” Finally, each chapter will include a section on the “Artistic / Aesthetic” qualities of each of the works. Here, we’ll explore the specifically literary qualities of each work: design and patterning, relationship to art of the past, how form reflects meaning, and finally how the work treats the importance of art itself to human existence.

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Introduction to the Old Testament 2 Chronicles 18-20 Introduction General Even students who know the Bible well may not recognize this obscure narrative from the Old Testament, but this brief passage can teach us a great deal about the Hebrew worldview, particularly when we compare some of the features of this passage with similar features we will encounter later in our study of classical literature. The narrative is drawn from the “divided kingdom” period, when the Israelites split into two political entities: Israel, which generally had apostate kings, and Judah, which generally remained faithful to God. View of Man

2 Chronicles 18-20 provides us with a great example of a literary feature that sets the Bible apart from literature being produced out of the classical tradition at the same time: the Bible’s focus on the moral development of individuals. Jehoshaphat grows and changes over time and is a dynamic, multifaceted individual. Nevertheless, he retains certain features of his personality over time. Consider Jehoshaphat’s early experience with Ahab; his alliance with this wicked King of Israel brings disaster, particularly because of ignoring the words of the prophet Micaiah. Jehoshaphat does not make the same mistake in his second great crisis. He learns and grows so that his behavior in the second crisis is in part determined by what he learned in the first crisis. Classical heroes, on the other hand, do not develop but remain static. Unfortunately, Jehoshaphat’s transformation is not complete; some of his weakness of character evidently remains with him throughout life. Just as he was willing at the beginning of his reign to keep company with King Ahab, so at the end of his reign does he make a deal with Ahaziah, another wicked king of Israel.

In addition to his dynamic personality, Jehoshaphat’s ability to feel and to express fear also sets him apart from most classical heroes. Unlike Achilles, the hero of the Iliad, who is so mighty in battle that he fears no man on earth and even takes on a god, Jehoshaphat is admirable precisely because he is aware of his own limitations. He cannot defeat the army that is approaching Judah through his own strength. This awareness motivates him to take his most significant action: calling directly on God in prayer.

The prayer itself makes an interesting contrast with prayers that we will find later in classical literature. For the Greeks, prayer is often a form of “deal-making” with the gods that places man in the position of a spiritual trading partner, offering to perform sacrifices, build temples, and carry out other “god-honoring” acts in return for favors from the

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gods. In the Iliad, a priest of Apollo begins his prayer to his god by reminding the god of all the good things the priest has done for him:

Hear me, Apollo! God of the silver bow . . . If ever I roofed a shrine to please your heart, Ever burned the long rich thigh bones of bulls and goats On your holy altar, now, now bring my prayers to pass!

Jehoshaphat’s prayer, on the other hand, shows that the God of the Bible cannot be manipulated, because he cannot be motivated by greed or vanity. Man, as understood from a Biblical perspective, has nothing to offer an entirely self-sufficient God as part of a deal-making process. If the cattle on a thousand hills belong to our God (Psalm 50:10b), He will not be impressed with our small sacrifices. More importantly, the gospel of grace tells us that God’s favor cannot be won through works of goodness; our works cannot make him love us more, nor can our neglect of works make Him love us less, since His character is unchanging and eternal. Thus, Jehoshaphat’s prayer to this self-sufficient God simply reminds God of His character in the past and asks Him to act in a way that is consistent with His protection and provision of past times.

Most importantly, the prayer ends with a statement of utter dependence: “…we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” If Jehoshaphat is the hero of this story, he is a very different kind of hero from those we will encounter in classical literature. We admire Achilles and Odysseus for their courage, their resourcefulness, and above all their splendid independence. But Jehoshaphat admits his own inability to help himself, declaring himself entirely dependent on God. God’s answer to Jehoshaphat’s prayer reveals a great deal about the nature of Biblical heroism and the ancient Hebrew worldview: “Do not be afraid. For the battle is not yours, but God’s.” In the context of the Hebrew’s belief in a God controlling all human affairs, traditional classical heroism is impossible. Man cannot win any genuine glory for himself, for all of his accomplishments are only expressions of the glory of God.

Thus, Biblical heroism differs from classical heroism mainly in its dependence and passivity. Biblical heroes are utterly dependent on God for their strength, for their skill, and for the favor that they find from others. Biblical heroes often express their heroism simply by believing God and waiting for him to work. Consider Daniel, a giant of faith; his greatest act of heroism was not being eaten by lions. Daniel doesn’t tear the lions to pieces as Achilles would, or trick them into destroying themselves as the wily Odysseus would have. He simply stands and waits for God to take care of the situation. Joseph’s heroism consists of waiting patiently in jail— or worse still, running away from a woman (Potiphar’s wife). Try to imagine Achilles running from a woman! Homer does not ask us to admire his characters based on their moral behavior. View of World

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All the events that occur in this story are under the control of an omnipotent God. But this God is invisible, separate from the creation that he watches over. How God manages to make the Ammonites, Moabites, and Meunites destroy one another—what ruses or disguises he uses, how he manipulates their thinking—is of no interest to the narrator or, presumably, the audience. God’s presumed omnipotence makes defeating such an army so laughably simple that it seems to be not worth narrating at all. Compare this with Homer’s careful description of the intervention of the gods in the fighting before Troy. View of the Divine

The prayer of Jehoshaphat also points to a critical distinction between Greek and Hebrew ideas of God: where the Greeks gods are capricious, changing their minds, shifting alliances, and abandoning their favorites without warning, for the Hebrews, God is unchanging, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thus, remembering God’s behavior in the past becomes a critical part of understanding how He will behave in the present and future. God asks us to be familiar with His Word because it reveals His character to us, a character that remains the same throughout history.

The Greeks, as we will see, had no such assurance. Aside from their powers and their immortality, the Greek gods are ultimately no different morally from any human being; and their actions show it. Out of gratitude toward a particularly pious individual like Hector, they may act for a time to protect his interests. But when their own interests conflict with his, they withdraw their favor and allow him to die.

Artistic/Aesthetic A second great difference between classical and biblical narrative styles emerges early in Chapter 20, where we are told that “some men” came to warn Jehoshaphat about the approach of the armies out of Aram. Who are these “men”? How did they learn this news? What was their relationship with Jehoshaphat? The Bible never tells us. Compare this with Homer’s treatment of the embassy to Achillles in Book IX of the Iliad. There, we learn the identities of all of the messengers, we learn the relationship of each of these men to Achilles, and we are treated to a long speech from each man that expresses his unique personality and relationship to Achilles.

The narrative also points to another difference between classical and Biblical narrative style: the comparative reticence of the Bible with regard to specific detail. Biblical narrative uses much greater economy of detail than Homeric narrative. Homer will often stop and lovingly describe objects – Achilles’ armor and shield, for example – that have nothing to do with the plot of the story. In classical narrative, details are often included for their aesthetic value. The greater economy of

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Biblical narrative underlines the fact that the Bible was written and read according to a very different set of assumptions than those that animated the production and consumption of classical works of literature. As grand as Homer’s works are, and as fully as they express the ideals of classical civilization, they were ultimately created as entertainment, a way to kill time around the campfire. Thus, details are often included for their own sake. The Bible was produced as a didactic religious text, designed to teach us something about God, the world, man, and man’s relationship with God. Details not relevant to the didactic point of the story are relentlessly stripped away, and we are left with only what is most important. It follows that ALL details in Biblical narrative are included for a reason.

We might also note that the Biblical narrative includes no details about the armies beyond their size and their points of origin. Unlike Homer, who skips effortlessly back and forth from the Greek to the Trojan army and introduces characters from both sides, the Biblical narrator is not interested in the makeup or character of the Moabite, Ammonite, and Meunite fighting forces. All we need to know is that they have opposed themselves to the people of God and that God will take care of them. Are there great heroes accompanying this army? Will there be a clash of mighty men like the struggle between Achilles and Hector that is the climax of the Iliad? Such issues are of very little interest or significance to Hebrew writers or readers. There are no such “clashes of the Titans” in the Bible; the only significant head-to-head physical combat in the Bible involves an insignificant shepherd boy fighting against the giant Goliath, and here the whole point of the story is the didactic lesson that God can empower even the lowliest and weakest to do battle with the mightiest hero on earth. Unlike the Greek gods, the God of the Bible is not impressed with physical prowess. This particular battle becomes a powerful expression of that truth. This army does not have to strike a single blow; they simply believe God and act on his commands. God does the work. When Jehoshaphat’s army arrives on the battlefield, the enemy is already conquered. They have nothing to do except pick up the pieces and go home rejoicing.

Story of Joseph (Genesis 37, 39-46) Introduction

General I suggested in the introduction to 2 Chronicles 18-20 that the Bible follows a principle of “narrative economy” so that every specific detail will have some relevance for the story. If that principle holds true in relation to the story of Joseph, the mention of Joseph’s exact age, seventeen, (in Gen 37:2) must be significant. Joseph’s age at the beginning of the story puts him on the cusp between childhood and adulthood. The second mention of Joseph’s age comes after he has

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taken the reins of power in Egypt, when we learn that he is thirty, and has thus come to full adulthood. The events in between represent a kind of “coming-of-age” story that allows us to see Joseph’s early immaturity and to compare his earlier behavior with his later more mature behavior. Thus, the story reflects the Bible’s characteristic focus on individual moral development. We must understand Joseph’s past in order to understand his behavior in the present, for like other Biblical characters, his personality is the sum total of his experiences.

Joseph’s character at the beginning of the story is clearly that of a spoiled youngest child. He is not only sheltered from doing the kind of work his brothers must do, but he is given what must be for the brothers an incredibly annoying symbol of his status as his father’s favorite: a many-colored coat entirely inappropriate for a man of his age and birth order. Such a mark of favor should by rights be given to Reuben, the oldest brother. Jacob’s decision to “play favorites” sets the sons of Zilpah, Bilhah, and Leah against Joseph, the son of Jacob’s love-match with Rachel.

The first indication of Joseph’s immaturity is his acting as “tattle tale” against these brothers, bringing home “their evil report” to Jacob. This does not endear Joseph to his brothers, but he makes matters considerably worse when he decides to tell his brothers about the dream he has had. Joseph’s brothers immediately understand the meaning of the dream: at some point in the future Joseph will have power over them. The brothers assume, probably correctly, that Joseph too understands the meaning: “Shalt thou indeed reign over us?” In the Hebrew culture of Joseph’s day, age and birth order were critically important for establishing a hierarchy of authority within the family; for Joseph, a youngest brother, to wear clothes that symbolize his favored status and to report to his brothers and parents a dream suggesting that he would rule over them would have been extremely offensive. Their resentment over this episode plays a large part in the brothers’ dislike of Joseph. Remember their remark as they see Joseph coming from afar, just before they sell him into slavery: “Behold this dreamer cometh.” Joseph’s behavior at the beginning of the story shows us an immature young man, displaying his desire for personal glory by lording his favored status and prophetic dreams over his older brothers and parents. Jacob’s behavior, like Joseph’s, is more intelligible if we know his past. In particular, his choice of Joseph as his favored son is understandable when we remember that Joseph is the product of Jacob’s love for Rachel, the woman he loved so dearly that he was willing to work 14 years for her father in order to win her hand in marriage. Because at this point Joseph is the only son Rachel has produced, Jacob is probably more inclined to favor him because of the love he bears his mother. But if Jacob’s behavior is in part the product of his experiences and his

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environment, it is also consistently and unmistakably his own: his tendency to play favorites (which he undoubtedly inherited from his own parents, Isaac and Rebecca, who each had a favorite among their twin sons Jacob and Esau) is a constant feature of his personality from the beginning of this section of his history until the end: the favoritism he shows Joseph will be transferred to Benjamin (also a son of Rachel) by the story’s end. Jacob’s actions and speech are also marked by consistent melodrama and self-pity, as he repeatedly “refuse[s] to be comforted” and threatens his children with mourning himself to death: “in mourning will I go down to the the grave to my son” (37: 35). Later, he repeats the threat when Reuben proposes taking Benjamin to Egypt: “[Y]ou will bring my gray head down to the grave in sorrow” (42:38b).

View of the Divine Though God is very rarely mentioned in this narrative, His presence is nevertheless significant at every point. In fact, the entire narrative embodies the claim of Psalm 73, which is that although short- term observation may suggest the contrary: ultimately, God’s righteousness is knowable through the outward appearances of the observable world—in this case, the details of Joseph’s experience. As in 2 Chronicles 20, the narrator does not feel obliged to explain how God manipulates events or works behind the scenes to preserve and bless his people. God’s transcendent power is so great that such explanations would either be incomprehensible to limited human beings, or, if accommodated to our understanding through symbol and metaphor, would serve to lessen our sense of the power and majesty of our God. Like the speaker of Psalm 73, Joseph comes to understand God’s purpose fully only after passing through difficult experiences.

View of Man Joseph’s heroic qualities are uniquely Biblical and contrast

powerfully with those character qualities we will see held up as heroic in classical literature. The chosen vessel of an omnipotent and omniscient God, Joseph is “heroic” primarily in his passivity, in his willingness to wait and see what his God will do. He is the helpless victim of his brothers. He has to wait patiently in prison, unable to free himself by his own exertions. He is principally distinguished from other characters in the tale not by his superior courage or strength, but by his quiet hope and trust in God and his constant willingness to deflect glory away from himself and toward God. When Joseph is praised for his ability to interpret dreams, he turns aside the praise: “Do not interpretations belong to God?” (40:8) or, “I cannot do it, but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires” (41:16).

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Joseph is not a warrior, not a king, but merely the spoiled youngest son (in a culture with very little value for youngest sons) of a sheep-herder. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Joseph is the last person in the world anyone would expect to have heroic qualities. And yet his obscurity and lack of early promise set Joseph firmly in the line of Biblical heroes, who often seem chosen by God precisely for their obscurity and lack of promise. Consider David, another youngest son whose primary responsibilities in his youth are sheep-herding and cheese-carrying. Yet David is chosen by God to defeat the mightiest warrior in the Philistine army at an age when the armor and weapons of an adult warrior are far too large for him. Or consider Gideon, the great military leader who begins his career cowering in a hole in the ground. Christ himself is perhaps the greatest example of this Biblical theme: an obscure son of an obscure carpenter living in an obscure corner of the earth. God chooses losers, underdogs, cowards, youngest sons, the obscure and unpromising, and makes them heroes.

The defining character quality for Biblical heroes is a trust in and a dependence on God. The Biblical hero is always dependent on God. Traditional heroism, particularly in its proud independence—the strength and courage of Achilles, the wily resourcefulness of Odysseus—

is not even a possibility for Biblical heroes. Joseph’s lack of responsibility for his own personal success is underlined so often that it approaches the comic; he arrives somewhere—Potiphar’s house, jail, the palace of the Pharaoh—and immediately “finds favor” and is put in charge. By the last repetition of this pattern, hardly ten minutes can have passed between the time Joseph is brought up from Pharaoh’s dungeon and the moment he becomes the second most powerful man on Earth. The speed with which this happens, and the obvious disproportion between the duties Joseph performs and the Pharaoh’s generous response (consider that at this point Pharaoh does not even know if Joseph’s prediction is going to come to pass), all point very strongly to the fact that Joseph is still by and large a passive participant in his own meteoric rise to the top, utterly dependent on God for all he has.

The story also embodies another important Christian theme: the value of suffering. Joseph suffers horribly, yet in the end sees that God is in control of all the events of his life. This new awareness of the value of suffering brings about not only greater emotional maturity for Joseph, but also a better life for his entire family.

View of the World Is Joseph’s world orderly? Not at first glance; it cannot have seemed like an orderly world to Joseph when his brothers tossed him into a

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pit and sold him into slavery. Yet by the end of his life, Joseph is able to forgive his brothers precisely because he understands their behavior as part of a larger order imposed by God: “I am your brother Joseph and the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you” (45:4-5). As Joseph comes to recognize the hand of God behind his sale into slavery, so too does he see God’s hand in all of the events that have brought him to this place: “So then it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler of all Egypt” (45:8). For Christians, God’s pattern of provision, though hidden from man in the short term, reveals itself in larger patterns. Perhaps the largest pattern, one unavailable even to Joseph, is God’s preservation not of Joseph, but of Judah, for it is through Judah’s line that Christ will come (Matthew 1:3); so God here is not merely preserving Joseph and his brothers, but exercising his plan of salvation for all humanity.

Dreams play a key role in revealing the orderliness of the world in the story of Joseph. Though they often seem random, the dreams ultimately come to pass. That God can impart dreams that give a clear vision of the future means God knows what is going to happen. At the very least, this means that the created world operates according to a pattern that is visible to God. But as the story of Joseph makes clear, the dreams of Joseph not only reveal a God who knows what will happen, but a God who wills those things to happen, a God who sees into a future in which His will for His people unfolds. The movement of this future from vision to reality, confirming the orderliness of creation and the sovereignty of God over that creation, is embodied in the story of Joseph.

Aesthetic/ Artistic This section of Genesis sets up a leitmotif, or a series of repeated

parallel scenes, that is based on Jacob’s earlier deceptions and trickery. Jacob deceived Isaac through the use of clothing, taking some sheep’s skin and laying it across his arms and breast to convince his dying father that he was Esau. In chapter 37, Genesis takes up the theme of poetic justice, “the kidder kidded,” and repeats it four times before the story of Joseph ends. In the first instance, Joseph’s brothers return from the fields with a torn piece of Joseph’s coat dipped in blood. They use this item of clothing to convince Jacob that Joseph has been killed by a wild animal. The parallels with Jacob’s deception of his own father should be obvious, particularly in the use of an item of clothing as the major prop for the deception. The theme appears a second time in the 38th chapter of Genesis (not included in our selection) in which Judah, a grown man

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now with children of his own, is in turn deceived by his daughter-in-law, Tamar, again through the use of clothing. Joseph himself falls victim to this form of deception at the hands of Potiphar’s wife, who uses a bit of Joseph’s clothing to convince her husband that Joseph has attempted to rape her. Finally, Joseph himself uses his robes and jewelry to deceive his brothers at the end of the story.

Biblical narrative makes significant demands on the reader. This pattern of deception is never explicitly mentioned by the narrator or by any of the characters, though it very easily could have been. For example, at the moment Jacob realizes that Joseph is not dead, he might cry out: “God has revenged himself on me for deceiving my own father!” or words to that effect. But neither he nor any of the other characters notice the justice of what has happened. Nor does the narrator go to any great length to point this out. The work of discovery is left to the reader. In like manner, God’s shaping hand in the events of Joseph’s life is never specifically mentioned until the very end. Biblical writers expect us to do the work. The Bible demands a far more active engagement on the part of the reader and may be far more subtle than classical literature.

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Homer’s Iliad Introduction General Notes

The Iliad begins in the middle of a complicated situation. We find ourselves with an army encamped on a beach before a city. The leaders of this army are bickering among themselves over women and other war- prizes. Beginning readers are often confused by the opening of the poem that assumes our familiarity with a wide array of strange characters and events—kings, heroes, gods, goddesses, wars and scandals long past. Who are these people? Why are they fighting the Trojans? Why are they fighting with each other? What are their relations with one another? How many “kings” are on this beach? Who’s the boss?

However, our confusion over these matters can actually be instructive, since it leads us to a critical conclusion about Homer’s audience: they were bound together by a common knowledge of a tremendous body of myths and legends that most contemporary readers have never learned. Homer’s readers did not need the author to fill in the background of the events he describes because Homer could assume his readers already knew why the Greeks were fighting the Trojans, why an argument over a woman was important enough to overturn the war aims of the entire Greek army, how the chain of command in the army was supposed to work, and so on.

In fact, not only did Homer’s readers know the background, they knew the story itself; it will remain true of classical literature before Virgil that audiences were already familiar with the plots of the stories they heard or watched. Greek audiences already knew the outcome of Agamemnon’s dispute with Achilles. They already knew that Achilles would kill Hector, and that Troy would fall. The pleasure that they received in hearing these stories had very little to do with the kind of tension regarding outcome that contemporary adult audiences value so highly. Instead, Greek audiences took pleasure in the tale itself—hearing Achilles or Agamemnon speak in their characteristic fashion, watching the wiliness of Odysseus, hearing the long-windedness of old men like Nestor and Phoinix, waiting to see how this storyteller would handle the battle between Achilles and Hector—since the outcome of the battle was never in doubt.

The lack of what we call “plot tension” will remain a constant in the classical literature that we will read. Even in the Athenian tragedies, writers are simply reworking mythological materials that are already familiar to their audiences. Everyone already knows that Clytemnestra will murder Agamemnon, that Jason will desert Medea, and that Oedipus is guilty of unwittingly killing his father.

The “deep background” for the war in Troy involves a wedding in heaven. All the gods and goddesses were invited to the wedding except, logically enough, the goddess Discord, whose name means “trouble.” Discord, angry at her exclusion from the festivities, disrupts them by

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rolling a golden apple into the wedding hall; on the apple are written the words “for the fairest.” Three of the goddesses, vain creatures that they are, step forward to claim the apple: Hera, wife of Zeus and goddess of political power; Athena, daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom and battle; and Aphrodite, goddess of passionate physical love between men and women.

None of the gods are stupid enough to involve themselves in this dispute, so the goddesses decide to find a human to judge between them. Their choice ultimately lights on Paris (also called Alexandros), one of many sons of Priam, King of Troy, and a man considered to be the most handsome among mortal men. Given a choice between political power, martial prowess, and sexual attraction, Paris not surprisingly chooses Aphrodite. It will be a fatal choice for him and for many others.

As his reward for choosing her, Aphrodite gives Paris his request: the love of the most beautiful woman in the world—Helen, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” Unfortunately, Helen is already married to Menelaos, a Greek king, son of Atreus and brother to Agamemnon. Paris, accepted as a guest into the home of Menelaos, “kidnaps” his willing wife (she’s been charmed by Aphrodite) and takes her back with him to Troy. Menelaos and his brother Agamemnon gather together the other kings of Greece to help them to avenge their insulted honor, and set off for Troy. (The poem takes its name from the Greek name for Troy: Ilium or Ilias.)

This tale, not included in the Iliad, gives us a great deal of critical information for understanding the behavior of the gods, especially the hatred of Hera and Athena for Troy and the love of Aphrodite for the city and its inhabitants. It will also explain why Aphrodite, in the Aeneid, will become the protector of Aeneas, a Trojan warrior who escapes the ruin of his city to found Rome.

View of Man

The Iliad is not “didactic.” That is, it does not explicitly set out to teach any particular lesson. Nevertheless, the story of Achilles and his withdrawal and its disastrous consequences embodies or incarnates a very specific lesson about the value of the human community and the dangers and consequences of leaving it. Achilles’ decision to withdraw from the Greek army not only affects him, but causes suffering to all of those around him. So does Agamemnon’s decision to ignore the plea of Chryses to return his daughter, which causes the terrible plague in Book One. Indeed, we are told that the entire community supports the return of Chryses’ daughter to him, and that only Agamemnon is not pleased with his offer. By pointing out this contrast, Homer clearly underlines here that Agamemnon is setting himself against the will of the entire community; Agamemnon ultimately learns his lesson and admits that this refusal was a mistake. By the opening of Book Nine, he is ready to admit his error

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(though he blames it on the gods). Achilles never admits that deserting the community was a dangerous and irresponsible thing to do, but the loss of Patroclus causes Achilles deep regret.

Hector and Achilles, the tragic heroes of the Iliad, are torn between their public responsibilities and their private desires. Generally speaking, responsibility and desire are in harmony for the Greek warrior. The warrior has the public responsibility to face danger and death in defense of his comrades, family, and city; he is prompted to do so not only by public duty, but by his private desire for personal “glory,” which consists in outward shows of his worth given to him by the community he protects. These “shows” can take the form of precedence in speaking in the assembly or the bestowal of gifts such as horses, women, gold bars, armor, or even whole cities. Generally, these public duties and private desires work in harmony.

When Agamemnon takes Briseus away from Achilles, he brings these goals into conflict. Achilles has been publicly insulted by Agamemnon and his honor has been lessened by having his “war prize” taken from him. As a result, Achilles loses his motivation to fight. When his three friends approach him in Book IX and urge him to return to the battle because his friends need protection, Achilles turns a deaf ear to their pleas. He is not moved by his responsibility to the community.

In Homer’s worldview, two factors limit human freedom. The first of these is the constant interference of the gods in human affairs. Gods instill desires in humans to do things they might not have done otherwise, although often the interference of the gods simply causes people to act in accordance with their own personalities. Aphrodite inflames Paris and Helen with uncontrollable desire for one another, so that they seem not to be in control of their own actions, but neither of them seems to possess much self-control at any point in the tale. Agamemnon blames the gods for his disastrous decision to take Briseus away from Achilles, but Agamemnon has never been a very good leader and is accused by Achilles of constantly taking the best prizes for himself even before Agamemnon takes Briseus.

The gods’ interference with human behavior does not mean that human life is completely under the control of the gods; only when the gods choose to interfere is human freedom limited. Otherwise, characters in Homer are “free” to behave in any way they choose, though almost all of them tend to behave in ways that are consistent with their predispositions: Nestor is long-winded, Agamemnon is selfish and self-aggrandizing, Ajax is laconic, Paris is shameless, and so on.

A more troubling limitation on human freedom in Homer is “fate” or “destiny.” Achilles knows more about his own destiny than any other

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human character. He knows that he will die in battle before Troy falls and that he will never see his home again. He knows that he is “fated” to die shortly after Hector. But even the fate that governs the lives of these heroes does not completely restrict human freedom. The Greeks understood “fate” as a destination or goal, a pre-determined endpoint. Thus, Hector may be fated to die at the hands of Achilles. But what happens before that time, and even the manner of that death, may not be determined at all. No human chooses his own fate, but he does have a choice about how he conducts himself on the way to that final destination. He may behave heroically and win glory, or he may behave shamefully.